The DBS Business Society recently hosted DBS Business Innovation Summit 2018. The annual summit is a highlight in the student calendar, attracting speakers from top companies each year to share insights about their experiences of working in business. This year we welcomed speakers from Jobbio, TripAdvisor, Bank of Ireland, Microsoft, HubSpot and Leading Social.
The Business Society gave us a full run-down of the event and the speakers involved, read all about the hugely successful day below.
I think when we reflect in a few years’ time on the most memorable experiences that we’ve had throughout our college years, the Innovation Summit will definitely be part of our top five.
It has been an incredible experience getting to plan, meet, network, share experiences, create marketing content, send a billion emails, sell what DBS and the Business Society has to offer and also stay on top of our grades and get a wink of sleep in the middle of it all within the past few weeks.
Stefany & Irah and the board (Eva Betz, Shirin Ghotbi, Hampus Karlsson, Lena Preu, Darren Sheridan and Zoe Klinke) did an amazing job contacting speakers, ensuring that even the smallest detail was completed to the highest quality. From the posters, to the various marketing tools (booklets, powerpoints, company profiles) to sending emails to the lecturers to invite their classes to the summit.
The day of the Innovation Summit
The Executive Dean of Dublin Business School; Andrew Conlan-Trant opened the event. We had over 200 students, staff and Business Society members in attendance. The students were very engaged with the speakers and the speakers enjoyed their time visiting DBS and sharing their personal and professional experiences.
We had the following speakers present at our event:
1. Stephen Howell - Microsoft Ireland Academic Program Manager
Stephen Howell is the Academic Program Manager for Microsoft Ireland. In this role, he engages lecturers and students of all disciplines and levels with tech talks and curriculum advice. Stephen is a passionate advocate of CoderDojo and Computational Thinking both in and outside the classroom. He developed Kinect 2 Scratch and is a PhD candidate in SMARTLab, UCD on Computational Thinking education with kinaesthetic learning.
Stephen shared an inspiring and personal story about how software creation and engineering have made an impact in his life and how it is always important to share and tell stories about how helping others can also help you grow as an individual. (He also gave us insider tips as to how to stand out when applying to Microsoft!)
2. Stephen Quinn - CEO of Jobbio Ireland
Stephen Quinn is the CEO of recruitment platform Jobbio, which he co-founded with his brother John. Set up in 2014, the company lets businesses create profiles and showcase the perks of working for their company. Jobbio is used as a recruitment platform by more than 550 companies, including Unilever, Ryanair, Dropbox, Bank of Ireland, Mazars, and Survey Monkey, as well as innovative and rapidly expanding businesses such as AirBnB, Hailo and Brown Bag Films. Stephen was our first speaker and he shared the challenges of creating a new and innovative website that solves problems for both recruiters and job hunters.
3. Sam Thompson - EMEA Regional Director for Sales Operations of TripAdvisor
Sam Thompson is an International business leader with proven success in Sales, Marketing, and Business Management. Possessing a high level of strategic vision, quantitative aptitude, and a strong focus on relationship building, his experience spans B2B sales, product development, business development and market analysis. Sam lead a market-focused talk about the future of TripAdvisor and what we can expect from the market within the coming years.
4. Emma O’Sullivan – Financial Analyst at Bank of Ireland
Emma was a recent graduate from DBS who received Student of the Year on her conferring last November. Emma was the President of the Student's Union of 2016-17 and was actively involved in student life during her time in DBS, especially in the Business Society. Yesterday, Emma spoke about her role within Bank of Ireland as a Financial Analyst and how Bank of Ireland helps entrepreneurs reach their goals by providing them with physical space to expand on their ideas.
5. Sophie Legras – Software Engineer at Hubspot Dublin
Sophie Legras is a Software Engineer at HubSpot. She studied Computer Science in a French university, before coming to Dublin as an Erasmus student in TCD. Sophie shared her experience about what it is like to work for a fast-paced, global company such as Hubspot and why she enjoys working for the company.
6. Jamie White - Irish Entrepreneur from Leading Social
Jamie White is an award-winning entrepreneur, winning Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur in Dublin in both 2014 and 2015. At age 30, White is already a seasoned businessman, having built up and sold numerous businesses including CollegeTimes.com and TeenTimes.com, two fast growing youth websites that collectively reached over 100 million millennials weekly. He has built his companies from scratch, independent of financing, and speaks passionately on how to start businesses in a lean and scalable, results driven fashion. He has built a mass of life lessons and business experiences that he’s passionate to share through his speaking engagements and social media where he has over 30,000 followers. He now works with global brands on social media marketing through his business Leading Social. Jamie talked openly about the challenges and triumphs he has encountered in building his business, and kept the audience extremely engaged.
In short, the day was filled with great speakers, a great audience and an overall great ambiance at the summit this year. We hope that you enjoyed the day as much as we did and that you've learned something new from our inspiring speakers.
The event wouldn’t have been as successful without our official sponsors: Starbucks - Drury Street (thank you for the refreshments!) and iBusiness Card.
The Business Society created this event for you and we hope that you all had a memorable and inspiring afternoon with us yesterday.
Thank you for your unwavering support throughout the year!