In Snooker & Billiards Ireland we place a huge emphasis on junior game development of Irish snooker for 2024 and beyond. As part of our strategy for this we decided to tap into the huge level of knowledge and experience within our snooker community, and scale the best ideas that came forward.
Earlier this year we launched our Dragon’s Den initiative and called out for ideas from everyone and anyone in Ireland, and agreed to allocate significant funding of €5,000 to the top ideas.
This culminated last night with the final Dragon’s Den pitch event. It was held online and it allowed our five shortlisted candidates to directly pitch their ideas. The 5 were:
– Adam Rowan – St John’s, Limerick
– Anthony Horgan – Youghal CYMS
– Colvin O’Brien – Graigue, Co. Laois
– Con Walsh – Crucible, Cork
– Dean Washington – Potters, Drogheda.
This video shows the excellent pitches of the 5 and you can see how tough a job it was for our 3 judges:
– Fergal O’Brien – One of Ireland’s greatest professional snooker players
– Michael McMullan – Snooker journalist, broadcaster and podcast host
– Chris Lovell – Head of coaching at WPBSA
Click YouTube Video – Dragons Den 2024
The 3 judges had to make a decision though and eventually they agreed that Dean Washington should receive the €1,000 funding for his idea, and Adam Rowan should receive the top prize of €2,500 of funding to progress his idea. Well done to them both, but really well done to all 5 worthy participants!
This was a fantastic initiative and SBI are proud to have supported it. We look forward to seeing the progress of all 5 ideas and hopefully we can help scale the most successful ideas throughout Ireland in the coming years.
