20 September 2016
Connect announces Innovation Founder of the Year
As Connect looks forward to the culmination of the INVENT Awards 2016, it announces that Mr Martin Naughton KBE has been named the Innovation Founder of the Year.
In 1973, Martin Naughton opened a small electrical manufacturing operation with just seven employees, making oil-filled radiators in Newry. Naughton’s company acquired partners and rivals including Dimplex, Morphy Richards and Bianella to become the world’s largest manufacturer of domestic heating appliances. Glen Dimplex Group now employs more than 10,000 staff across 22 manufacturing facilities spread all over the world. The business has annual sales of around €1.5 billion.
Each year, the Innovation Founder award goes to a person who has achieved distinction in founding, leading or building a celebrated local science- or technology-based business. Martin Naughton will receive his honour at the INVENT Award finals on the night of Thursday 29th September at the Belfast Waterfront. He joins an esteemed list of previous recipients including Brian Conlon (2015), Dr William Wright CBE (2014), Dr Peter FitzGerald CBE (2013), Tom Eakin (2012), Dr Hugh Cormican (2011) and Prof John Anderson (2010).
“I’m humbled and honoured to join this list of founders, who have in their own ways changed the landscape of Northern Irish business,” said Martin Naughton.
The Innovation Founder Award is sponsored by Bank of Ireland UK, Julie Ann O’Hare, Head of Strategy & Sectors, said, “Mr Martin Naughton joins an inspirational group of world renowned business leaders. We congratulate him and thank him for accepting this award. The Glen Dimplex story, driven by “the desire to make the impossible possible” is rich in learnings for the entrepreneurs of tomorrow from start up through to global excellence.”
Steve Orr, Director at Connect said, “Given the massive impact that our Innovation Founders have had on the local and international economies over the past several decades, this is our most important award each year. I’m delighted Martin Naughton is being given a much-deserved accolade for his contribution to NI’s innovation economy. He’s an inspiration to us all.”
Notes to editors:
For tickets and information about the INVENT Award Finals, please visit www.invent2016.co or get in touch with Peter Edgar at peter.edgar@catalyst-inc.org.
About Catalyst Inc Connect
We in Catalyst Inc believe that in Northern Ireland (NI), we have a community of innovators so powerful that its people can change the world. Our role is to provide the home, the networks and the empathy to nurture this ambition and to support this talent; so that they will develop world leading products and services that will transform NI into one of the most entrepreneurial knowledge economies in Europe for the benefit of all.
Key to the success of our model is diversity and inclusion. Organisations based at, and/or engaging with, Catalyst Inc, span the sectors and include major technology corporations, indigenous scaling companies and start-ups, co-located with world-class research, all interlinked with our society at large; thus we are creating a deeply fertile ground for economic growth. People in our network share a key common factor, an ambition to succeed for themselves and for our region.
160 companies employing over 3,000 people work from our campuses in Belfast, Derry/ Londonderry and soon, Ballymena.
The Catalyst Inc unique business model is to provide state-of-the-art facilities, exclusively for Knowledge-based businesses, on commercial terms. The surplus so generated is used to provide the underwriting necessary for an independent, community-led suite of programmes under Connect and the Halo Angel PLUS Network brands. These provide, pro bono, the encouragement, advice and network access to ensure success.
Through Connect we provide the way for our most experienced people to volunteer, effectively and efficiently, their time, to share their experiences, contacts and collective intelligence to give our entrepreneurs an advantage. The result is a powerful network; a community of researchers, experienced entrepreneurs, executives, investors, legal and financial experts, and our diaspora united together to help make our most promising entrepreneurs more successful. Our membership model enables Northern Ireland’s main knowledge economy stakeholders to set the direction and create the conditions for the grassroots volunteer effort to flourish.
We also have a focus on young people with Generation Innovation – a powerful, peer- driven movement of innovative, creative and entrepreneurial young people. Its mission is to inspire them, to connect them to the networks of opportunities, to help them choose their path and to give them the confidence to succeed.
Since 2002, Catalyst Inc has demonstrated a successful sustainable model of passionate, effective support to cultural and economic change.
Annually, we publish the independently produced Knowledge Economy Index (KEI). The only one of its kind in the UK, the 2015 KEI showed that the knowledge economy in NI is almost one half larger than in 2009 and for the last two years has been the second fastest growing region in the UK.
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