March 2011 Award Winning Entrepreneurship Educator and Practitioner to Speak at NUI Galway

The Centre for Innovation and Structural Change (CISC) at NUI Galway will host Professor Peter Kelly of Aalto University in Finland, who will be delivering this year's InterTradeIreland Innovation Lecture on the topic of 'Rethinking Business Models: Creativity Inspired Innovation'. The lecture will take place in Áras Moyola, NUI Galway on Thursday, 24 March at 6.30pm. Professor Kelly's innovation lecture will challenge conventional wisdom about developing a business, and also provide practical guidance on how to succeed in the current economic climate. He will also offer some concrete suggestions of how we can instil more creativity into our innovation system. Professor Kelly argues that Europe and Ireland have all the ingredients to be in a better innovative space and states that we just need the creative courage to explore it. Aidan Gough, Director of Strategy and Policy at InterTradeIreland says, "Innovation is not the preserve of high tech or R&D intensive businesses. Identifying and harnessing creative ideas is a learned process that all aspiring companies must embrace. All businesses need to continually innovate to remain competitive." Over the past 15 years, Professor Kelly has worked with entrepreneurs in Finland, Sweden, UK, Portugal, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Switzerland, and Canada. Since arriving in Finland in 1998, he has been the driving force behind entrepreneurship education at Aalto University, heading up the Helsinki School of Creative Entrepreneurship (HSCE). Professor Kelly is a leading international authority on business angels and was directly involved in the creation of Europe's first University pre-seed fund and an associated angel network. This event is part of The InterTradeIreland All-Island Innovation Programme, which aims to promote and encourage innovation across the island of Ireland. This lecture will appeal to the entrepreneurial academic community, entrepreneurs, companies and catalysts. All are welcome to attend. Pre-registration is required, visit www.conference.ie for full details. For more information, please contact Valerie Parker at CISC, valerie.parker@nuigalway.ie, 091 495971. -Ends-