We catch up with the founder of Life Scientific, Nicola Mitchell, the newly-crowned EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2020!

She talks about the strong women and scientific background that has underpinned her success and led to her becoming the 2nd only female Irish entrepreneur of the year.

Brody Sweeney is the founder of the Camile Thai restaurant chain and is making big plans for his company's thriving home deliveries.

He told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, that trials to deliver Camile Thai food via drone in Oranmore, Co. Galway were going well and he expected to roll out nationwide usage "fairly soon".

He's working with another Irish entrepreneur, Bobby Healy, and his Manna Aero drone-delivery business, in the west to refine the delivery process for his food.

"We load the food into the drone, it takes off to 400 feet, flies directly to your house.

"When it gets to your house, it hovers over the square, sends you a text message, asking you are are you ready to receive it.

"You say, 'yes', the drone comes down to 40 feet and a little door opens underneath it and the food comes down on a string, which is biodegradable.

"The string then unravels from the drone and just falls down on top of the food, and the drone goes back up to 400 feet and it flies back to base.

"So it's extraordinary, it's working."

Listen to Brody (a 2001 finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ programme) explain how the thinks drones will become part and parcel of home delivery for all sorts of goods once the regulatory details have been sorted out.

Pat Rigney is the founder of The Shed Distillery, the creators of Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin.

The drinks industry, like most other sectors, has been undergoing huge change since COVID changed our lives in March, with supermarkets focussing on what he describes as a smaller selection of 'winning brands' to stock their shelves.

Despite the challenges presented by the virus, Rigney has recently opened The Shed Distillery Visitor Experience in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim, the home of the gin.

He also recently released the first batch of Drumshanbo Single Pot Still Irish whiskey, the first whiskey distilled in Connacht for 101 years.

Rigney told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, that whilst gin has become more popular than ever with Irish consumers, the huge selection of gins available makes the business very competitive.

Sonya Lennon: What happened with gin in the public psyche? How come, one minute none of us were talking about gin, and the next minute, everybody was talking about it, and all of a sudden every bar had 15 gins on offer. How did that happen?

Pat Rigney: Gin is a very interesting way of having a really interesting experience and maybe trying a number of different brands.

What we're seeing now is that consumers are beginning to settle into a smaller selection of brands and staying with them...

I was in one retailer in Italy recently. Now, it was a speciality store and you had 620 gins. So how do you survive on that? So, we have massive competition. So there's local gins, regional gins, international gins, and everywhere you go there's intense competition.

Mary McKenna is the Founder and CEO of Irish travel company, Tour America.

She has witnessed her industry undergo seismic change since she closed the doors on her physical office on 18 March and moved all their business online.

She told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, about how she wrote off 2020 very early on but is now focussed on breaking even in 2021, before seeing a travel boom in 2022.

But one of her biggest fears for her business is who will be sitting in the White House next year.

"Sonya Lennon: I suppose we cannot not address the fact that the name of the company is Tour America. And America is in a very fragile state at the moment. Are you concerned about the political state and social state of the States at the moment?"

Mary McKenna: I am, I'm very concerned...

I think a lot of people think about him [Trump] as the leader and it makes them think about going to that country. I hate saying it because this is my business but that's a fact of the matter."

Keywords Studios employs over 8,500 people in 61 studios across the world.

The Dublin-based gaming company creates, adapts, and supports some of the biggest video games in the world like Halo, Assassin’s Creed, and Fortnite.

CEO Andrew Day, who bought Keywords Studios with 50 staff in 2009, says that his company is heading into a period of exponential growth at a time when the industry, in general, is growing as more people are at home.

Day told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, about their projected figures;

"From where I sit today I don't think there's anything going to hold us back, other than ourselves, in getting to be about a $1billion in revenue in about five years' time.

I think we're quite close on a run-rate basis, or we will be exiting this year at around $500million, I hope."

He goes onto talk about the company's meteoric stock market valuation which recently passed a gigantic milestone having floated at $75million in 2013.

Listen to the full interview with the 2019 finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ programme below.

Aalto Bio is amongst a number of companies working on a vaccine for COVID-19.

The Dublin-based biotech company researches and develops proteins and reagents that are provided to pharmaceutical companies that in turn develop diagnostic tests for viruses.

CEO of Aalto Bio, Philip Noone who has been working in the virus diagnostics space for twenty-five years, says his company has been working on the clinical trials with a couple of companies who are developing vaccines. They include the American pharma giant, Moderna.

Noone told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, about the pace at which the vaccine development is happening:

"Moderna have done their phase two clinical trials. You do three phases of clinical trials before you bring the product to market.

"They're in their third phase and they're probably moving at a speed faster than anybody else.

"So, we've been working hand in hand with them, helping them with their clinical trials in order to get a vaccine on the market faster. "

He goes onto explain on the podcast why he thinks a vaccine will be available before the end of the year.

John Mullins has made a successful habit of being able to spot emerging trends in energy production in Ireland, and across the world. Having worked with ESB and Bord Gais, the Cork native set up Amarenco Solar, with his business partners, and is at the forefront of a dramatic shift to renewable energy, here and abroad.

Mullins told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, about a solar power project that is set to proceed in Cobh, Co. Cork, from 2021.

"Cobh is now qualified. We won 40 megawatts through eight projects this week. We'll be building, next year, in Ireland for the first time, which we're delighted to say is a big plus for us. I was one of the first to go out and meet the farmers, five years ago, and they've stayed with me, and I'm thankful for that. But we have a number of other projects on the way."

Mullins notes that solar power and energy sourced and produced through on- and off-shore wind will transform the way Ireland gets its energy in the coming decades.

Sonia Deasy founded her skincare company Pestle and Mortar in 2014, selling just one product.

The bold move turned heads and caught the attention of several parties including QVC USA, the biggest home shopping network in the world.

Deasy told Sonya Lennon, host of The Architects of Business, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, that her product was the first Irish brand to appear on the main QVC USA channel and it was a smash hit for her Pure Hyaluronic Serum.

"I went on for seven minutes and we sold out. They're all screaming, like Americans, they were high fiving, screaming, going, 'Oh my God, this girl is a superstar.' And we were like... we couldn't believe it."

pestle and mortar hyaluronic acid serum

"Back the industry" - Monart Spa owner on why a dedicated Minister for Tourism is required by JOE

Diona is a tech solutions company for Health and Human Services agencies around the world which was co-founded by Dubliner, Graham Stubbs in 2012.

He told The Architects of Business show, made in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™, details of the second US city now using their solutions for social services engagements.

The company has been working with New York City since 2016.

Stubbs told host Sonya Lennon about how the relationship came about in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and had to be turned around in a very short period of time.

"It was a five-week project to get them up and running, literally every single resident of Washington DC now can apply for benefits through our mobile solution that's on their phone."

Subscribe to listen here.

It’s an inspirational story, told by the 2015 finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ programme, and you can watch it in full by clicking on the video below.