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The interviews
Joe Greaney - Director of WESTBIC,
the long established EU Business Innovation Centre for Irelands BMW Region.
How do you support the incubatees at the
WHY stage of the process?
Joe: We have been incubating projects for 30
years, and use the tools and methods from that
experience. In recent times we are more
conscious of the social innovation context, the
need for the social impact to be clearly
defined, and the importance of being able to
make
the
connection
between
the
entrepreneur and the societal area. From an
early stage we tell our entrepreneurs to think
along these lines. The average entrepreneur is
focused on developing a product, and putting
it out at the market. As social innovation
incubators we give them the words and
thought processes needed to target the social
need issue as well.
Can you give a practical example of how you
have supported the incubate achieving social
impact?
Joe: We have one incubatee that has
developed food for bees, and is now exporting
to 25 countries. The reason behind this is a
terrible virus that has led to the destruction of
bee colonies, and with that the ecosystems
dependent on the bees, all over the world. The
virus attack comes through the food that the
bees are eating, so our incubatee developed
safe food for bees, and in that way are
preventing these attacks. The support we
provided was to develop the product
commercially, connect them internationally
and find private money to help them go the
distance.
What, in your experience, have been the
challenges around helping incubates working
on social impact? Could you share a practical
example of how you have been working with a