Empower Tech Futures Fund 2025-2028
Supporting vulnerable young adults into employment, with a special focus on digital and technology skills and the Dublin and/or Cork regions.
Created by Rethink Ireland with the support of JPMorganChase, the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, and BNY, the Empower Tech Futures Fund is a three-year fund supporting vulnerable young adults aged 18-30 into employment, with a special focus on digital and technology skills and the Dublin and/or Cork regions.
The fund is supporting five organisations committed to breaking down the barriers that prevent vulnerable young adults from accessing employment. These challenges include a lack of awareness about career opportunities, gaps in essential technical and digital skills sought by employers, and insufficient support networks to secure and sustain meaningful employment.
By tackling these obstacles head-on via skills training and direct work placements, the fund – which has a special emphasis on digital and technology skills – will provide young adults with the confidence and connections to build lasting careers.
Awardees
Generation Ireland
Generation Ireland’s mission is to support people facing significant and multiple barriers to employment into life-changing careers they otherwise could not access. They deliver free, job-specific bootcamps with extensive mentorship and active job-matching to partner employers in high-demand professions in the tech and green sectors.
“Winning this fund award means that Generation Ireland can engage with even more people facing significant and multiple barriers to employment into life-changing careers they otherwise could not access. It is also enabling us to extend our geographic reach to enter more communities across Ireland.”
-Ronan Harbison, Executive Director
Jobcare
Jobcare believes that Working Matters. Established in 1994 in inner-city Dublin, their purpose is to help jobseekers from any background to overcome obstacles that prevent them from finding meaningful work. Jobcare provides innovative training, services and transitional work programmes to effectively equip jobseekers with the skills necessary to secure and sustain work.
“Receiving this funding enables us…..to focus on young jobseekers specific needs and invest in a programme geared towards enhancing their employment opportunities and improving their digital confidence. We are excited to partner with Rethink Ireland to invest in young people and give them the tools to build a career here in Ireland.”
-Paul Mooney, Co-Founder and CEO
Speedpak Group
Speedpak Group’s Enhanced Tech Skills Programme (ETSP) will empower young adults with barriers to employment, access meaningful, tech-focused career pathways. This programme will blend industry-aligned digital skills training, workplace experience, one-to-one coaching and tailored supports to equip trainees for in-demand entry level IT roles. With strong partnerships across community, state, industry and philanthropy, we create tangible employment opportunities while tackling long-term unemployment in communities experiencing greater social and economic challenges.
“Winning the Empower Tech Futures Fund is a powerful endorsement of Speedpak Group’s mission. It gives us the resources to deliver a high-quality, industry-led tech skills programme for young people facing additional barriers to employment. Working alongside our partners, this fund enables us to equip our trainees with the digital skills, confidence and opportunities they need to access employment and build sustainable careers”
-John Murphy, CEO
TU Dublin Foundation
The TU Dublin Access to Apprenticeship programme supports the transition of young men and women (16-24 years old) from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds into craft apprenticeships in the construction, engineering, electrical, and motor industries. Digital literacy is a key educational focus integrated into the programme’s coursework. The programme fosters collaboration among education/training providers and employers through its emphasis on employer engagement, industry-led workshops, and work placements.
“We are proud and grateful to receive the Rethink Ireland Empower Tech Futures Fund award. This funding will strengthen the capacity of our proven Access to Apprenticeship programme by integrating digital and technology into work-based learning. As a result, more young people will have opportunities to access apprenticeship careers and develop skills that are essential in key employment sectors”
-Dr Aidan Kenny, project lead
WALK
WALK was founded in 1967 by local parents and friends to support people with disabilities and has grown over the years into a Community & Voluntary Organisation which offers a range of high-quality services to more than 300 people to support them to live self-determined lives within their communities. WALK’s EmployAbility Through Technology project will support 120 young adults with Intellectual Disabilities and/or Autism over the next 3 years to develop their employability skills for life through a universally designed online employability skills programme.
“Winning the Rethink Ireland’s Empower Tech Futures Fund award means that the people that WALK supports, will have a much greater opportunity to gain and sustain paid employment in the open labour market, just like their peers. It also allows us to increase the capacity of our staff team to support more people on their journey to work”
-Elaine Nolan, Director of Day Supports (WALK)
