Published on: Tuesday, 10 January 2012

PINC is an intensive programme for female entrepreneurs, who have a business idea and want to bring it to the next level.   Based in CIT’s Rubicon Centre, already home to several entrepreneurs, the unique environment allow participants the opportunity to focus on their business venture in a structured group environment, gaining invaluable knowledge on all aspects of business.

This FREE programme runs two days a week, for 10 weeks, under the guidance of an experienced Programme Manager.  Over the 10 week period, participants are provided with the tools they need to grow and develop their business including; idea evaluation, business planning, market research, business funding, financial planning and business development.  On a practical level, established female entrepreneurs and other people from the business community are invited to present their own stories to the group and in addition, each participant will be assigned their own mentor.

There are also networking opportunities both within the Rubicon Centre and externally and participants have full access to the Centres office facilities for the duration of the programme.

The idea behind PINC came from Carole O’Leary, who works in the Industry Liaison Office in CIT. While researching new programmes she discovered that there was funding available to run a specific programme for female entrepreneurs and following discussions with Paul Healy, Rubicon Centre Manager,  the PINC progamme was born.

To date, three groups have participated in the PINC programme and the feedback from all participants has been very positive. A testament to the success of the PINC programme is that the entrepreneurs from the previous programmes have made a commitment to maintain the group’s dynamism by agreeing to meet up once a month and continue to offer support to each other.  Such open sharing of ideas and providing that all important second opinion will ensure that the lessons learnt whilst on PINC will continue to be put into practical use and will further help to keep the ladies focused firmly on their business with a view to long term success.

The PINC programme is currently recruiting and the next 10 week programme commences on Tuesday 24th January 2012. 

Applications must be made online, by visiting the Rubicon Centre website www.rubiconcentre.ie. Potential applications, can if they wish, have an initial chat with the Programme Manager who can be contacted by T: 021 4928900.