Social entrepreneurs with transformative enterprises are being urged to enter a new funding competition which will culminate in a glamorous pitching event at The Shard.

Designed to drive positive social change, Ignite is being launched by the Ford Family Foundation and is supported by leading UK universities, including Durham. The overall winner will receive a £20,000 impact accelerator grant to scale up their social enterprise, with a further £30,000 being shared between the other four finalists.

Five of Northern Ireland’s most inspiring entrepreneurial teams have each been awarded £10,000 proof of concept (POC) grants from Techstart Ventures, through its Invest Northern Ireland fund, Techstart, following their successful involvement in Catalyst’s entrepreneurship programme, Co-Founders.

Digital Catapult, the UK authority on advanced digital technology, welcomes eight new companies onto the ImmexCity programme, to spearhead the adoption of immersive solutions across key sectors. The latest cohort will play a vital role in further cultivating immersive entrepreneurship in the North East, with solutions ranging from heritage conservation projects to initiatives geared towards empowering mental health.

Salar Pursuits, a Scotland-based company that has developed permeable lice and algae/jellyfish bloom shields that fit inside net pens, has been given a financial boost from a corporate angel investor.

Northern Ireland’s independent, non-profit science and technology hub, Catalyst has announced Bank of Ireland, EY and AVEVA as the three headline partners for its Generation Innovation Work Experience Programme 2024.

Focused on fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, Catalyst’s Generation Innovation is a free work experience programme for 17-18-year-olds who have an interest in becoming innovators. The programme is designed to empower, enable and upskill young people for the workplace of tomorrow by pairing them with household business names such as Bank of Ireland, EY and AVEVA.

The SETsquared Partnership has been ranked as the 3rd leading start-up hub in Europe and the top entry from the UK and Ireland by the Financial Times and Statista's Special Report on Europe's Leading Start-Up Hubs.

The report ranked 125 start-up hubs across 21 European countries using data and feedback from alumni and independent experts, including investors, and it also examined the success of emerging companies.

Oxford University Innovation proposes a new target to increase the proportion of women founders or co-founders from 15 per cent in 2015-16 to 50 per cent by 2030.

The University of Oxford’s Increasing Diversity in Enterprising Activities (IDEA) initiative aims to promote inclusivity in entrepreneurial activities, first tackling the under-representation of women in entrepreneurship. Over the past eight years, the proportion of women founders and co-founders of spinout companies at the University of Oxford has roughly doubled to over 28 per cent.

Catalyst, the independent, non-profit science and technology hub focused on creating opportunity for all through world leading innovation and entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland, has been recognised as one of the leading start-up hubs in Europe in a special report produced by the Financial Times, tech news platform Sifted and data provider Statista.