Trinity Today spinning a web summit
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Photograph: Sean and Yvette Photography
When I realised how hard it was to even pass my exams, I settled on something a little easier – becoming an entrepreneur
Web
Spinning a
Summit
Even as a student Paddy Cosgrave did things his own way. Now the world is starting to take notice, writes Aoife Crowley B.A. (2012).
W
hen he came to Trinity, Paddy Cosgrave B.A., M.A. (2006) didn’t have any idea what he might end up doing afterwards. He certainly wouldn’t have predicted that within a few short years he would be the driving force behind the Web Summit, an event that brings together the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in technology.
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“I arrived in Trinity and thought, wow, how much fun would it be to become an academic, perhaps even an economist. But when I realised how hard it was to even pass my exams, I settled on something a little easier – becoming an entrepreneur.” Paddy put this entrepreneurial spirit to good use at Trinity where he got heavily involved in extracurricular activities such
as becoming President of the Phil and running the satirical magazine Piranha, which was controversially banned during his tenure. Paddy also set up Phil Speaks, a free secondary schools public speaking and debating programme that dramatically extended participation in secondlevel debating. As his time in Trinity was ending, he was keen to apply some of the entrepreneurial lessons he had learned. “Just as I left Trinity I met an incredibly colourful and wonderful entrepreneur called Hugh O’Regan. I was half-heartedly working on an idea for an ad-tech start-up with a friend, Paul Campbell. Hugh persuaded me to think about doing something different that had nothing to do with business. He gave me some office space on Stephen’s Green, and from there I
10/10/2013 11:12:07