Eoin Costello, Project Director at DigitalHQ clg
Digital Growth for Small Businesses through Incubation, Networking & Training
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I've given a set of skills and abilities, and the obligation on me is to try and use those with the best of my ability. Always an eye on doing the best that I can with what I've got.”
Eoin Costello
Eoin Costello, LinkedIn
Can you share an overview for our audience in terms of who you are, and what you are involved with?
Yeah. So Eoin Costello is my name. I'm the Project Director of a not-for-profit co-working space in Dún Laoghaire called Digital HQ.
And what's different about our space is we call it as a digital growth hub because all our activities are focused outwards into a small business community of the town so any income we get from membership fees, the co-working space go back into digitally-enabling local small businesses and also the town's website.
Could you tell us a bit more about that role and what do you actually like about that sort of chosen career path?
Yeah. So I suppose, my family, were always sort of very active small business owners, so I kind of grew up working behind the counter in the shop or helping collect for my mother – one of my mother's businesses, one of my parents' many businesses.
So I've always been comfortable around small businesses, and it was kind of a natural progression for me once I sold my tech company and then kind of get involved first of all in startups as I did with Startup Ireland and running the incubation center for Dublin Technology University to then move on from that and get on the ground, helping small businesses. So that's what I do now. I find it fulfilling.
Yes, it's challenging. Some small businesses particularly, traditional small businesses, are a bit scared of digital or they don't see the immediate benefit of it. But I think what COVID has done has accelerated the clear understanding and need for small businesses, traditional small businesses to embrace digital.
What is that inspires or motivates you, or gets you out of bed to make each day count the moment?
Yeah. Well, look, my kids get me out of bed each day, and I'm trying to get them out back to school, which is great. But in terms of business, yeah, like I hope I'm making a difference each day no matter how small it is. I'm very lucky that I live very close to my hometown of Dún Laoghaire.
So once I've dropped the kids to school, I just literally cycle down to our co-working space. And I hope that each day between the work we are doing on the Dún Laoghaire town website, the work we are doing with the digital Dún Laoghaire Steering Group and helping digital-enabled small businesses. Every day, we help somebody in some way and move the whole digital agenda for our town forward.
Like Dún Laoghaire is a fantastic town, it has got a very interesting history. It's kind of a 2-tier town some people would say. It has got a very busy and lively seafront. It's most commonly known for having on the pier and having an ice cream afterwards. But if you come up to the main street for all sorts of reasons, it's quite a lot empty former shops. It's not as vibrant as the seafront.
And so what we are trying to do at Dún Laoghaire is to start to change first of all the narrative because if you look at the media, the general attitude is that towns are a broken concept that people are – don't see the value of towns anymore. They go out of town shopping centres.
And what's interesting about COVID is it actually in some ways brought towns back into a degree of vibrancy subject to the distancing requirements because people are avoiding the main city centres and they are actually coming to towns like Dún Laoghaire. So that then has an opportunity for local small businesses if they embrace it.
The goal of the Irish Support Campaign was honestly very big in its time and is it a resurgent of that with that shopping local, supporting your local community or is it purely just avoiding the big metropolitan city centre?
It's a good question. I think I mentioned the Guaranteed Irish and that whole buy local. What's starting to happen is part of the bigger trend, so there's a thought leader in the states called Bruce Katz, and he writes a lot about innovation districts.
What he has come up was this concept of new localism, and what new localism essentially is that do what you can with what you've got. You as a community at any level, be a town, village, or city, have resources available to you that you can put to its best possible purpose and you're responsible for that, the decision-making, waiting for grants, waiting for directions to filter down from on top on high.
New localism says that's not the wave into 21 st century between digital enablement, between the ability to remote work, and between the ability to set up digital businesses in a very, very short time and very cost-effectively. Towns and communities can now leverage the tools that are available to them to take control of their own destiny, and that's called new localism.
So what I'm sort of seeing happen is that towns like Dún Laoghaire are starting to wake up to that reality that looks, our future destiny is in our own hands. We can start to regenerate the town.
So for example, there's a good friend of mine who is our Chairman of Digital HQ, Chad Gilmer, he makes a very good person for an interview by the way, and he took a fairly large empty shop premise in Georgia Street in Dún Laoghaire, and he converted it into a top-quality co-working space with about a hundred desks in it.
So that's bringing hundreds of digital or tech-related people into the heart of the town, and the spending power from them is significant, and that's helping support traditional businesses.
So this whole concept of new localism, it's very empowering because it says, "Look, take the resources you have, if you have empty buildings, convert them into professional co-working spaces. If you have traditional businesses, enable them to digitally reach their customers within the locality."
And another thing that's happening within towns under this whole concept of new localism is this move toward cycling and the move towards uber local like rather than getting in the car and driving to a shopping centre out of town. People are now – the demand for bicycles has never been higher. People are now cycling down to their local town and doing their shopping.
I was reading an article recently on the 15-minute city concept where everything needs to be within a 15-minute reach so you can sort of living more sustainably I suppose?
That's what's happening. That's what I'm seeing. And that's this whole concept of new localism proposes at us as something that it means more so then that the community's destiny is within its own control.
So while big trends come and go or multinationals might move in and out of areas, communities can get hit by the restrictions of COVID-19. There are all sorts of things that can impact a locality. But if that locality is tightly-knit and versatile and focusing what it can do itself, then it's far more sustainable and robust in the long term.
What are your hobbies or interests apart from work?
Yeah, I'm interested in politics. I was a county councillor for five years here in Dún Laoghaire, and I have an ongoing interest in that because again, I suppose I'm always interested. Is what can be done to improve our circumstances in our locality and that kind of trickles down.
There are very positive things that can come from the central government. There are also things that we need to do locally. So I kind of take an active interest in politics. I'm not directly involved anymore, but as a former county councillor, I would still keep close contacts with a lot of people in the political arena.
I enjoy cycling. Any chance I get, I jump up on the bike and cycle. I'm not a great cyclist, but I enjoy cycling. And look, I just enjoy getting out for a walk. We are really very, very lucky where we live in Dún Laoghaire town here. There are superb walks, and just when you walk along the side of the sea, particularly on a nice Sunday evening, it just fills you with so much positivity.
So that would be one of my – I live with Shih Tzu dog called Elsa, and we would head out for a walk most evenings. Now, Elsa, she is quite a – I don't know if you're familiar with the breed of Shih Tzus, but they are very clear in their own mind of what they will do, and they would not do like if we are walking too far, she just flap on the ground and say that's it, and that's it. We have to head home then.
Put her on the basket on the bike, Eoin?
Yeah. Well, I have been doing that. Actually, interestingly enough, Dún Laoghaire now has really embraced these cycle paths. So in the last month, we've had more cycle paths put down in the last month than the previous three years. And I've been out testing those on the bicycle with Elsa in the basket at the front. And I put it up on Instagram and on Twitter and gets great engagement.
Yeah, I’ve seen them. It's a fantastic investment.
Yeah, they are. They are. They are. Well look, it's the future. It's the future, a much more sustainable way of getting around.
Do you have any phrase or quote that you sort of living your life by or anything that strikes a chord with you?
Yeah, like as a kid, I had learning difficulties. I couldn't read or write until I was around 9. And I remember my mother bringing me to a child psychologist at the time and he did a series of tests with me, and his kind of feedback to my mom was, "Look, if you can get this guy to read and write, he will do really, really well."
And my mom's mantra always was I'd be sitting there over my homework, and I'd really be struggling because words and letters, they just look like a jumble to me. And she just – her kind of phrase was always, "Keep going. Keep going. You'll get there."
And I did keep going, and I did get there. I ended up getting into university, and I actually did well in the end. And that kind of – that phrase, yeah, it has helped me through life because when I took on the role of CEO of Startup Ireland a couple of years ago.
We were working on a big national project with the government, a National Startup Week, and we kind of went from it just being a concept on a sheet of paper with no budgets, with no team to roll it out. And gradually as we got momentum, we got the support of the government, Bank of Ireland came on board as a key partner, we then came up with this proposal, the Startup Gathering, our own National Startup Week.
And there were lots of ups and downs but throughout it all, just that phrase, "Keep going, we'll get there." Actually, my team behind the Startup Gathering, it's in my office now, it says, "We got there – the Startup Gathering Team." So that kept me going. We ended up delivering 420 events in 22 counties to 19,000 people. It's a great success so that quote – that phrase kept me going.
That's incredible back from when you were a child and still relevant, as relevant today as ever.
Absolutely. Keep going. You'll get there.
I remember the activities that you were mentioned there, that was very successful. I'm sure behind the scenes, there was an awful lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it.
There was.
It was a huge natural success, and that had a huge program from an outside looking in. It was huge.
It was. We were trending for six days at Startup Gathering. And it actually gave – again, it was – an early version of this concept of new localism. So like the kind of – that's my bell of mindfulness so apologies if that comes across. I don't know if you can hear that.
I actually – but that was one of the things I used during the Startup Gathering because it was so hectic. I had that bell of mindfulness go off once an hour and kind of stopped everyone and said, "Right, deep breathe everyone," and then back we go again.
But the actual impact of Startup Gathering locally was in the various cities where we staged the key events. We had a study done of each of those, how to really ignite their startup ecosystem, so how to connect would-be entrepreneurs with the various resources available locally, how to depend on the availability of funding support, how to connect the institutes of technology with more entrepreneurs, et cetera.
So it was kind of a joined-up of the dots that now in Dún Laoghaire with the Digital Dún Laoghaire Steering Group, we are kind of doing under this new localism movement.
It's really great to hear and just hearing the mindfulness bell there, it reminds me of the amount of embracing that we are doing at the moment in terms of how important basic things like slowing down a little bit, taking the times thinking, pausing, breathing, meditating, yoga, living more locally, the importance of family, friends, mental wellness and health and well-being.
It's amazing how that out of the pandemic which is a terrible challenge for lots of people around the world that there are some positive that do come out of all challenges I suppose where people get a little chance to maybe reset or refocus.
No, I think you're absolutely right. The current pandemic has certainly paused and given people an opportunity to refresh and take another look at a lot of the ways that we do things, how the commute to work, what we actually do during work time, how do we balance our family life.
And while we are going through really tough times at the moment, if we look back in ten years' time, there will be significant changes for the better arising from that reassessment of how we've been – it's actually – it's essentially doing things that date back to the industrial revolution like all marching into one location for fixed hours being watched by managers or bosses and then all marching home again and trying to spend a little bit of time with our kids.
And like kids, we even have – we had a kind of Victorian attitude to kids in the workplace that in Victorian times, children were seen but not heard. And I think one of the really positive things that has come out of the COVID and people working from home is that now people, well, if they are on the Zoom call, they say, "Oh, that's my child on the background," or the child comes in and they say hello into the Zoom call meeting, and that's now perfectly normal, whereas in the past, people would talk about their kids, but they certainly wouldn't bring them into work. It was frowned upon. It wasn't the right thing. You're not serious about your job if your kid is sitting on your lap while working, et cetera. I think that's a positive change.
Ultimately, to deny our kids apart and all parts of our life doesn't make any sense. Bringing them in a little bit into our working life is positive, both as a parent, for myself, it has been positive but also for the kids. They get a tiny little insight into what their parent is so preoccupied with when they should be playing games with them from the child's point of view, you know?
What do you most proud of and what sort of sticks out for you?
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, look, clearly, I'm most proud of my children first and foremost, and they are the motivation behind everything to me. In a work capacity, what I'm most proud of, I think what I'm most proud of when I was running the Dublin Technology University Hothouse Incubation Centre.
For me the people who came on that program which was Ireland's largest startup program, who did best with those who are very flexible and very versatile. And the people who came on the program with a fixed mindset at the start and, "This is how it's going to be; this is the idea I'm pursuing, this is the business model, these are the kind of technology, et cetera."
And they stayed wired to that; they tend to struggle a bit not just on the program but also in terms of implementing their business. But the people who did really well with those who in the light of new information, in the light of the realities, in the light of knowledge depths that they might presently had, et cetera, were flexible and agile and constantly evolved.And I supposed that's a Darwinian feature; the species who flourish and thrive are those who are most adaptable.
So if I look at myself, what I'm proud of is the fact that I've had five changes of career directions. I started work after college on the London Stock Exchange, managing fund of about 130 million. I then came back here, got involved in the family business.
So I went from fund management to doing batteries and straps and family shop behind the counter. It was quite a change. And I worked at my dad to grow that business up to three shops, and I then parted company with my dad over digital. I wanted to grow the biz digitally. He was distrustful of technology and digital to some extent.
So I went on then to set up a tech company in the front bedroom of my house, which I grew. I started with just myself and one other person. And within six months, we had four staff. My partner said, "Look, either the business moves out," or she was going to move out because we were growing quite quick. So Novara moved – we moved into town. We grew up to 20 staff. Sold it to DG Web. And then I moved over to the not-for-profit side working with Dublin Technology University Incubation Centre of Startup Ireland.
And then up today still. Each time I kind of changed direction on my career, I've had to retrain, identify knowledge gaps, and try and bring out the best of myself each time. And today, I have – with varying degrees of success, navigated that. So I'm proud of that aspect of myself that I've managed to keep evolving, changing, being flexible.
Do you think that helps on because – I mean on one hand, you sort of – you're at Trinity College. Next minute, you're managing a multimillion fund quite successful. You're in sort of the top financial circles in terms of that community. Then you're back to retail, true retail behind the counter. Then you were a very successful entrepreneur, right? You set up – started – the typical story, started in the bedroom and then successful exiting or selling that organization.
That's right.
Doing some nonprofit work. Do you think all that has been beneficial? Because it's not – some people can't make that leap between very small company, big company, entrepreneur, teacher, mentor, whereas you seem to be able to adapt very well. Is it the agility and the adaption that you say the core strength is it something else?
It has sometimes been a struggle, Simon. So I wouldn't say that I've always easily transitioned from one career to another like I did struggle when I came back from the Stock Exchange where let's be honest, it was a very nice lifestyle and you travel first class on things, and they chauffeured your own car, was sent to collect you from the station when you're visiting companies you are invested in, et cetera. To then suddenly people coming in and saying, "Can you put a new battery on this watch," and you would pick the watch up and it's encrusted with all sort of stuff off the person's wrist. That was a culture change which was a big change. But I got along with them and got through it. It just had to be done.
And yeah, look, I think for me; personally, kind of my own personal philosophy was I've given a set of skills and abilities, and the obligation on me is to try and use those with the best of my ability. Like I remember my dad once said to me, again, when I had the learning difficulties growing up, and I found it really hard getting through exams and stuff and he said, "Look, in terms of choosing a career or whatever, do the best that you can with what you've got." And that was – that has kind of been the guiding philosophy of my life. Always an eye on doing the best that I can with what I've got.
So having sold the tech company to DG Web, I felt, "Well, look, I've made lots of mistakes doing that, but I also did well out of it in the end so can I share that with other people? Can I mentor other people?" And that was kind of an example of doing the best I could with what I've got. Then when I finished work with Startup Ireland and my local town of Dún Laoghaire, I felt like, "Here's an ideal location where we can start trying to develop this entrepreneurial community.
The ethos again, so can I bring – do what I can with what I've got, can I bring that to a town level and try and motivate other people around that? And that's starting to work really well. So I think, Simon, my guiding kind of belief in life was always just keep trying to do the best I can with what I've got, and that has kind of keep me going so far.
Very good. It is funny how a lot of that, doing the best you can with what you've got. It's almost full circle as it back down to localism and what you're doing now with the town scenario.
Exactly.
And a great example of people who may have learning difficulties early on in their life about how you can, as your mother quite rightly said, just keep going, you'll get there.
Well, the reality, is the moment a lot of people and a lot of businesses are having to look at because of COVID, new ways of doing things, new approaches, possibly new market sectors, new roots to those markets.
And it's a really challenging time so all I'd say to the people who are going through challenging times is to go back to the basics, see where your strengths are and then set about doing what you can with what you've got. That will see you through as much as possible.
Are there any brands, companies, or individuals that you think are getting it right at the moment?
I started thinking about the jobs of the future. In college, I did find your dissertation, and it was in an artificial intelligence system which I called the Open Prolog. And basically what it – I was struggling in my final year to be honest with you with the dissertation topic.
And I went into the faculty office one day, and I just organized some books or something and what I overheard one of the ladies said to other, "Oh listen, Professor Murphy has called in sick. Can we reschedule his classes?"
And one of the ladies went and got some very large bound ledgers. I think two or three books. One was the booking of the rooms in the arts block; the other was the student allocations and all their subjects. Who took that subject with other subjects they took and what clashes and the third book was something like their tutorials with their professors and their mentors, et cetera. So it probably took about half an hour to reschedule that professor's classes because he was sick.
So I thought, "Hang on a second, what if I used Prolog, this real-based codes to actually automate all of that. So I went, and I coded up all of these different ledgers and all the faculty choices and the subjects, et cetera. And after about I suppose six weeks of work, I got it working on the mainframe as it was in those days.
I went back into the faculty office, and I said to the lady, let's say her name is Mary, "Mary, do you remember that query when you had a professor ringing sick. Go and type in there now on the mainframe a query." She said, "Well, what kind of query?" And I said, "Well, look, you need to know real-based structured query language to be able to do it." So what I did was I just did a natural language compiler that sat between the person typing in, so I put in sample queries like 'reschedule' and then the query could be the topic, the date, the time, et cetera it would understand that.
So she typed in "reschedule Mathematics for statisticians" and the date and the time. And then 0.2 of a second, it came back with the optimal reschedule, taking into account all those students existing commitments, et cetera. And have a guess what the response was when she saw that.
She said, "Get that thing out of here! That's my job. Gone!" [Laughs] So I kind of had a little bit of insight early on what – how the productization like if any service that's provided can be productized and broken down into a series of steps and automate it, most anyway, like okay, it is clear you can't do it with dentistry or a back massage. But with many services, you can break them down into a series of steps and automate them using software.
And now, I suppose what I was missing always was a human element on that side that people are fearful about this. Their jobs may be affected. And that was back in the '80s, the late '80s when I did that artificial intelligence system. And it has really only been in the last two to three years that artificial intelligence has broken through into the media consciousness and people becoming focused on what does this mean for careers.
So I suppose that's a long way of saying with the companies or brands that are getting it right, like the jobs of the future will be very much in the social areas. So things we take for granted now or like people running volunteer organizations like Scout, et cetera, yes, there is always be a role for volunteers, but these will potentially become paid jobs like paid jobs for people visiting people in nursing homes because it's a value-add to society.
And so I think the kind of companies that inspire me for the last number of years have been those involved in social enterprises because ultimately, tech, digital, the goal is to minimize costs and lay – human input is the relatively high cost, so the mandate for most tech-orientated projects and that goes to all large companies is to cut costs as much as possible. So the jobs of the future are going to come from social enterprises.
So it's like FoodCloud I heard on the radio this morning, they are running a national food drive, very smart social enterprise, taking food from the big providers who – before it's going out, they are connecting with charities. These are the kind of businesses that they're not for profit, so they are not a drain; they are not making losses. They are there with a mission. They are there to break even. They are there with a goal of social good. But they are also there to create jobs. They are there to help regenerate communities and make things more sustainable.
So I think that's a really interesting change in our society because if you talked in the past about social enterprises, people wouldn't have a clue what you are talking about. So they think, "Oh, charity, so they are people who help people with cancer or whatever." So there's a new layer of businesses, this kind of mission-orientated, not-for-profit companies that I feel will have a significant role, an increasing role in our economy in the next ten years in terms of job creation. And they are the kind of – they are the businesses I think that are getting it right now, social enterprises like Men's Shed, FoodCloud, et cetera.
Are you a social media user? And what's your favourite social media platform? Where do you find you spend most of your time? And do you have any thought on the future of social media?
Yeah. So if you had asked me that ten years ago, I would have said, "No, I don't use any social media." And my wife said to me, "Look, that's fine. But is there a possibility that you're missing out on an opportunity? And that there may be some parts of this that will benefit your career and if you don't, kind of dip your toe in the water and keep a watching eye on these things. You might get side – you might miss out on something."
So I started using Twitter. I started using LinkedIn. And I've actually found it for my career very, very useful and certainly in terms of building a Startup Ireland and Startup Gathering, a lot of it was based on social media reach and the positive messages that we were able to communicate.
So I teach digital marketing and social media now at the local enterprise office, in Dún Laoghaire, at our own county. So I'm an advocate of the positive use of social media. Can it perform a function for people and small businesses? Most certainly can. It has a lot of positives, and it can reach where traditional physical networking and communications can't.
Does it have a negative side? I saw that in a documentary about content reviewers of Facebook and the kind of material that's on that platform, and clearly, that's not something anyone wants to see or hear. And yes, there's clearly a negative side, be it kind of hectoring, trolling that can happen on Twitter, be it some of the unethical content that seems to be left on Facebook.
But is overall social media a positive? I think overall taking in the hole. I see the positive. Let me put it this way. I'm a judicious user of social media. So I see its benefits, and I make sure those benefits aligned with my personal and business goals. Am I a slave to social media? No. Do I let it overwhelm me? Most certainly not.
And the future of social media, I suppose again, we are kind of in the gold rush days of all this where there's no – there's little or no regulation. There's very little understanding with some greater impacts of excessive use of social media. There are some people who have a sense that while alcoholism, drug addiction are areas that society has really struggled with, some people would feel that smartphone addiction and excessive social media usage is an area that there are going to be societal costs, certainly, with the younger generation and Millennials.
And both for businesses, for people who can use it effectively, I think we are kind of going into that period where people are actually focusing more on the value, what use is it. So rather than indiscriminately allowing these social media platforms to reach into every part of their lives, people are pulling back a bit and using it more judiciously. And I think overall, that's a good thing. And to be able to advance social good more effectively, I think.
What does success mean to you? And following on from that, it's really about any lessons that you could share with the audience.
What does success mean to me? That's a very – that's a difficult question, and it's very open-ended. Look, I can only go back to what my father always said to me, which is, "Do the best with what you've got." There's no point in looking at other people's lives.
I remember some entrepreneurs who set up their business at the same time as I set up Novara. And in the period it took me to grow Novara, they had quadrupled their business and sold for very, very big figures. And I used to feel jealous about that. I used to feel, "Why not me?"
But that could have equally applied on the other side. You could equally be somebody who is destitute and struggling. So focusing on your own life, doing the best you can with what you've got, that's success to me.
And there are so many factors outside your control. There are so many competing distractions on your attention. Look, ultimately, success is at the end of the day, it's really doing the best you can with what you've got. That's a success. What was the second part of your question?
Any lessons that you've learned that you could share or anything that you've learned along the way?
Yeah. I think what I would share with people is something that I wish I had known much earlier on was that try to start with the end in mind.
Try to – I know it's in that book, Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And if you're really clear understanding of where you want to be in five years' time with your personal life, with work-life, et cetera, it gives you a kind of a guiding star, kind of a guiding principle to work towards.
And then no matter what comes your way, you'll always know that "Look, I'm making progress towards where I want to be." So like starting with the end in mind, be it starting a new business and be it assessing where you're at with your business in this whole COVID situation. Having kind of a clear understanding of what is it doing for me, does it get me to where I want to be, that helps make a better decision.
If I had read Covey's book when I was a teenager and that whole start with the end in mind concept had landed with me, I would have made better decisions at certain key points with businesses and my personal life. So that would be one thing I would say to people. Try to start with the end in mind.
Reminds me that you want to sharpen the saw?
Yes. That was again another very good piece of advice. So it actually comes back to something you said earlier that this whole COVID pandemic has forced people to step back and reassess how they are doing things.
Things we are doing more effectively for their own personal life and for work, and that is very much that Covey – the old saying, the guy who starts sawing like crazy and the teeth of the saw are all worn off, three hours later he is still sawing away.
The other guy stood back and sharpened the saw, and he has done the job in half the time because he actually looked strategically out of it and reflected on the task before getting stuck in.
Is there anything new that you're working on or that you're currently involved in that you'd like to share?
Yeah. So it has been a pleasure talking with you, I must say, and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.
What I'm working on at the moment is a kind of a blueprint for this new localism, a kind of a roadmap which based on the work we've done here at Digital HQ, activating the business, small community or the town through Digital Dún Laoghaire, activating the town community through the town's website, converting empty space that the Bank of Ireland kindly donated to us into an active co-working space subject to COVID-19 restrictions is a formula which we'd love to share with other town and other communities and villages across the country because it has universal applicability.
Many towns or villages have a huge amount of goodwill, have a huge amount of positivity, and there is a framework, this new localism framework which can help them activate that. It gives a little bit of direction and a bit of clarity on what are the various elements you need to kind of create a vibrant. Digital-first I would have to say, the digital-led community that can help fill empty spaces, that can help encourage digital companies to locate in that area that can provide businesses going.
And it can also help balance this urban-rural divide more. With broadband, people can work from their locality rather than having a long commute.
So that's the exciting thing we're working on at the moment, this Digital HQ strategic plan which we are probably going to launch. Our honorary patron is Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, she is the TD for Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County, and she will be launching it later this year. So that's what I'm working on at the moment, and that's something that we are really excited about sharing with towns and communities across the country.
That sounds incredible, Eoin. Continued success with everything that you're doing. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and for going through that very exciting journey. And I get the feeling that the journey has only just begun and you can maybe do so much.
That's right. I'm excited.
Thank you so much, indeed. I really enjoyed that too, Eoin. It's lovely to catch up with you and to hear about all the fantastic things you're involved in.
Thank you very much.