Final call to enter first round of eircom Business Solutions Digital Boost €250K seed fund

Businesses have until Friday, 12th of December to enter the first round of the eircom Business Solutions Digital Boost, a €250,000 seed fund for Irish SMEs looking to innovate and grow their business through investment in digital solutions. The fund is designed to offer tangible assistance to the SME community in four key areas: business mobility; digital training; sales and marketing; and business productivity. eircom Business Solutions has partnered with Google, PayPal, Samsung, the Digital Marketing Institute and Salesforce to deliver a suite of digital funding to successful applicants.

Open to all SMEs and mid-market enterprises, businesses can apply by uploading a short video or a five slide presentation to theDigital Boost website, eircom.ie/digitalboost, outlining their funding proposal and the fund area they require.

David Walsh, Director of SME and Commercial, eircom Business Solutions said: “Our Digital Boost seed fund is a key pillar of our overall strategy to support the growth of SMEs. We are passionate about showing SMEs how to maximise the many opportunities that the right digital presence can make to their business. It's vital that Irish businesses are equipped to exploit online channels for sales and marketing. Digital Boost is one of a number of initiatives we have developed to provide support to Irish SMEs”.

Applications for the first round of funding will close on Friday, December 12th. An expert panel will award successful applicants with funds to spend with the partners on technology and digital related support. Tips on how to apply and details on the expert panel of judges are available online. The second round of funding will open for applications in early 2015.

For further information and to apply to the Digital Boost fund visit eircom.ie/digitalboost

For further information please contact

FleishmanHillard:

Maria Doyle, 01 6188431 or Maria.doyle@fleishmaneurope.com

eircom

Dearbhaill Rossiter, Head of Communications, 01 600 5284 or drossiter@eircom.ie

About the Digital Marketing Institute

The Digital Marketing Institute is the global certification standard in digital marketing education, producing more graduates trained to a single digital marketing standard than any other certification body.

The Digital Marketing Institute works with global digital experts and leaders to define the skills and qualifications required by today's digital marketing professionals, certifying candidates to Diploma, Postgraduate and Masters levels all over the globe.

The Digital Marketing Institute now certifies digital professionals through the following channels:

• Online: Where students can study for certification directly with the Digital Marketing Institute through online learning

• Licence: Where the Digital Marketing Institute licences its syllabus to an approved third party organisation to teach the content on its behalf

• Corporate: Where the Digital Marketing Institute offers access to its learning library to enterprise level corporates and delivers tailored certification programmes