Enterprise Ireland – Best Connected -

www.Loc8Code.com , the new all-Ireland digital address code, providing precise address information was  launched today at the The Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin. This new digital address code system will be of immense benefit to all businesses and individuals who need to receive and deliver products and services on the island of Ireland. There is research to show that the system can also deliver considerable savings in transport costs, for those using the system, because of the precision of the address when used in conjunction with a satellite navigation device.

TV personality, adventurer and worldwide traveler Charley Boorman spoke at the launch today.

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This is a guest post from Dave Feenan, Vice-Chair at EuroCloud Ireland and Business Development Director at ASPeon, an Enterprise Ireland Client.

I’m pleased to announce that EuroCloud Ireland and The Irish Computer Society are organising a seminar on “Cloud Computing – Climate Change for Legal Contracts?” in the Clarion IFSC on Thursday July 1st at 7.45am with a repeat seminar at 10.30am the same morning. This event is being run in association with  Microsoft Ireland and Irish Software Innovation Network.

Philip Nolan, a partner and head of Mason Hayes+Curran’s Commercial Department, as well as being a board member of EuroCloud Ireland examines the legal implications of Cloud Computing for your business. He looks at its likely impact on your existing legal responsibilities and relationships. Philip will focus on how to address contractual matters such as service provider liability, data protection and retention as well as capacity/availability issues and their impact. Hugh Jones, an ICS Data Protection tutor and Michael Martin of the Irish Software Innovation Network will be joining Philip on the panel to participate in the Q&A.

To register for this free to attend event please go to http://www.eurocloud.ie/ICSandEuroCloud-Ireland-Seminar.

Aspeon (who I work for) allows me to work on Eurocloud as part of an initiative that helps the broader community, while also spreading the word about Aspeon’s technology. As our CEO ( Luke Conroy ,formerly the CEO at both Sun Microsystems and Changing Worlds) puts it, our primary focus  is ;

To deliver best of breed software solutions to their clients over the Internet utilising the SaaS model. For further information on their dashboard, project accounting, time and attendance modules plus their other solutions see www.aspeon.com

This is a guest post from Liz Fleming, formerly of Enterprise Ireland Madrid and Dublin. Liz now works for HBAN, the  Umbrella organisation for Angel Investing in Ireland.

As part of Ireland’s First Business Angel Conference , we at HBAN are running a Business Angel of the Year competition.

Angel investors in Ireland are a vital source of financing for new business.  This competition is run to highlight the importance of the strategic value a business angel can add to an early stage business.  Often the expertise a business angel can offer is more valuable than the financial contribution made by a business angel.  HBAN wish to promote best practice in Angel Investing and seek to professionalise the Irish Angel Capital Industry.  With this aim HBAN would like to honour Ireland’s Angel Investor of the Year and need your help in identifying Ireland’s Best Angels.

To date Brian Caulfield (@BrianCVC) and Colm Lyon (@ColmLyon) are top of the polls!  Nominate your Angel of the year here.

The winner will be announced at the HBAN Business Angel Conference taking place on June 16th. The current lineup of speakers include Leslie Buckley (Digicel), Paddy Holahan (NewBay), Feargal Ó Móráin (Enterprise Ireland) with Mark Little as MC.

Just following up on my previous blogs from Bizcamp 2010 and the Panel Discussion . The event which was held last Saturday, 29th May was a huge success. Great venue – Guinness Storehouse with over 250 attendees. 40 presentations were given on the day which varied from an excellent presentation from Des Traynor of Contrast – ‘Product Strategy for the Business of Web Applications’ to Una Coleman of Event Elephant’s presentation on ‘International Marketing’. To see a full list of all the presentations given on the day just go to the Bizcamp website (pdf) -

You can find one of the presentations on Slideshare which was given by Ed Fidgeon-Kavanagh just to give you a flavour of the quality of presentations given on the day here.

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The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) run by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board is an absolutely vital and ground breaking mechanism by which businesses can bring their research and ideas to market through use of public procurement.

What it is & how it works
In a nutshell the SBRI is an initiative from the British government which identifies a specific opportunity or need within a government department.
(1) It then invites companies usually SME’s to enter an idea to fill that need. The ideas are then screened.
(2) The more successful ideas are then passed along to a feasibility stage which is fully funded to £100k for a period of 6 months.
(3) After this phase is complete then most promising ideas are selected and brought forward to a development and prototyping phase with limits of £1m and 2 years.
(4) This phase then leads to complete product which is ready for market and the competitive procurement process.

Benefits
The benefits are many. Companies who would normally not have a chance of winning contracts but who have ideas addressing specific needs are essentially given a completely funded mechanism to research and develop their ideas.

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To follow on from my post of 18th May, the Bizcamp Team is delighted to introduce the list of speakers for the panel discussion titled “You’re never too young to start a business” which will be discussed at Bizcamp The panel discussion will take place at 2pm on the 29th May (The Guinness Storehouse) and will prove to be an interesting session.

Details as follows:

Moderator: Gavin O’Flaherty – Mason, Hayes + Curran

Helen Treacy, P.G.Dip. B.D., CEO & Founder of Cognitive Science Partners.

Helen Treacy is the founder and CEO of Cognitive Science Partners. CSP was formed in November 2009 to bring science to life. CSP has engaged with a leading psychology researcher and president of the European ABA Association to develop an evidence based, online teaching application for children and adults with autism. Since incorporation, CSP have secured first round investment and are currently working with their DA in Enterprise Ireland HPSU to maximise funding opportunities.  C.S.P. currently employs 5 full-time and one part-time employee and are busy recruiting two more full-time developers to ensure our September 1st product launch. Cognitive Science Partners’ mission is to launch three evidence based products successfully in the market in five years with an estimated turnover of 10 million by 2015.

John Matthew Holt, (29) CEO Waratek Ltd.

John Matthew Holt is the Co-Founder and CEO of Waratek Ltd (www.waratek.com) and principal inventor of Waratek’s RAIS technology. He founded Waratek in Sydney, Australia in 2002 to research a radical new design for high-performance computing (HPC) systems, opening a Silicon Valley research and testing office in 2006. Through 2002 to 2007 the company invented and prototyped a radical high- performance computing architecture called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Servers (RAIS), which it tested around the world with leading IT vendors, analysts, and academics. In 2008 Waratek closed a Series A investment round with Mangrove Capital Partners of Luxembourg and in December 2008 re-incorporated Waratek from Australia to Ireland to drive the world-wide commercialization of Waratek’s RAIS technology. Today Waratek Ltd operates with staff and associates in Dublin, London and Sydney, and will be shipping its first RAIS computing systems to early-adopter customers in Q1 2011.

Rob Ryan (26), LadyUmbrella Ltd.

Rob is the co owner and director of LadyUmbrella ladies t-shirts (http://www.ladyumbrella.com) which launched in January 2010. He has been involved in every aspect of the business and is an advocate for social media as a marketing tool. Using social media Rob has been able to get the word out about LadyUmbrella and has resulted in LadyUmbrella being mentioned in national papers both here and abroad. Outside of his work with LadyUmbrella he blogs about social media and is also a member of an international podcasting group which discusses effective use of social media.

Stephen O’Leary (26), O’Leary Analytics

Stephen O’Leary is the 26 year old owner of O’Leary Analytics, an online media and social media monitoring and analysis company. Having gained a degree in Journalism and Media Communications from Griffith College Dublin, Stephen spent a year working with The Irish Examiner in Cork, before returning to Dublin to take up a role with Meltwater News, a Scandinavian Media company. He worked in London and Amsterdam, and returned to Dublin to join Green 17, as a sports agent. In November 2009 he set up O’Leary Analytics, an online media and social media monitoring and analysis company. Using a range of monitoring and analytical tools, they track and report on coverage from over 120,000 online news-producing sources, and over 220 million social media sources – including Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Message Forums.

John O’Dea, Manager of Enterprise Ireland’s Start-up Division

John O’Dea is manager in the Start-up Division of Enterprise Ireland, with responsibility for early stage projects in various industrial sectors. Enterprise Ireland promotes entrepreneurship and provides advisory and financial support to High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) businesses. EI has supported and invested in a wide range of new businesses and believe Ireland has huge further potential to generate significant numbers of new, world class, start-ups. As an engineer with an MBA, John has worked in a wide range of sectors, mainly in early stage companies.

If you’ve been following this blog a while, you’ll know that many EI Software clients use Microsoft technologies, and Microsoft is a key part of the route to market for those companies. You’ll also know that EI, EI Client Companies and Microsoft have been working together for some time to make this happen more effectively.

Following on from the Dublin BizSparkCamp in March, the Europe wide series of Microsoft events is reaching it’s finale in Paris tomorrow.  We’re waiting to find out which, if any, of the Irish companies that pitched at the Dublin event back in March have made it to the final shortlist.

Gearoid Mooney from Enterprise Ireland will be one of the speakers on the Panels during the day.

Update: This event is now sold out, but you can follow the announcements and the keynotes (including Kawasaki talking about Startup Trends, how to innovate, and the panel discussion on ‘Investing in the cloud’) here.

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Bizcamp is back! After 2 successful Bizcamps held in Dublin in 2009, the 3rd Dublin Bizcamp will take place on Saturday May 29th in the Guiness Storehouse Dublin.

The event is aimed at entrepreneurs and individuals aspiring to take that entrpreneurial step, but are not quite sure where to begin.

This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences and for others to hear their stories.

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Web 2.0 Ireland is currently carrying out  a survey linked to the Apps landscape in Ireland   – Take the Survey – Share your thoughts

http://www.web2ireland.org/2010/04/30/app-economy-in-ireland/

Enterprise Ireland hosted SaaS workshop on Friday, 26th March 2010 in Eastpoint Business Park, for 20 clients of the HPSU Financial & Enterprise Software department. Fergus Gloster, a founding Director of salesforce.com in Europe and a key executive in the creation of salesforce.com’s success in Europe, delivered the content and provided his insight into building a successful SaaS busines. The topics covered in the first half of the seminar included SaaS Business Principles & Challenges, Financial Planning for SaaS, Marketing and Sales, Alliances, Attrition & Renewals.

After lunch, three of the seminar participants presented case studies of their company’s approach to the SaaS model, including the challenges they are facing as small Irish start-ups in the SaaS world. Many thanks to the 3 willing participants – Paul Birkett, Billfaster.com; Edward Grant, MX Sweep; and Ger Hartnett, Goshido!

Overall there was some very positive feedback from the participants about the value of the event for their businesses. Given the seminar’s success, it may be held again should demand call for it.

Sean MacEntee has a problem. He runs the Regional Development Centre in Dundalk, and due to the success of some of the companies based there they have now ‘graduated’ from the incubator space in the centre. Sean is now looking for startups and established companies to fill the space. As Sean says;

2009 was a significant year for incubation both in the RDC and at  Millmount, Drogheda with a total of 7 companies ‘graduating’ from both Centres. We are currently actively recruiting suitable entrepreneurs/start-up companies for both the RDC and Millmount. In addition, we  are also interested in speaking to established companies who may wish to set up a separate R&D facility in one of our Centres.

Some of the Enterprise Ireland clients graduating or hosting their R&D facilities at the Regional Development Centre are;

• Armac Systems who specialise in optimisation  software for spare parts for the aircraft industry.
• Big Mountain  Productions – Film Production company.
• Ergo (Link to  Best Connected Client Profile) who host their R&D centre in Dundalk.
• Intact Software who also host their R&D at the centre.
• Redmere - Smart Cables for better connections (more info about Redmere from the RDC blog)

Sean is available at sean-dot-macentee-at-dkit-dot-ie. Of course, there are twelve other incubation centres around the country if you’re looking for a place closer to you. Details are below.

In February, Enterprise Ireland organised 2 workshops for clients planning to export into the North American market. These workshops were held for clients from all sectors from Life Sciences and Clean Tech to Software and Services companies.

On the day, clients heard real-life case studies of technology companies who are doing business in the North American markets and both the pitfalls and successes for companies were highlighted. The First Flight programme highlights to start-up companies how Enterprise Ireland can assist in their markets of interest through the following routes:

• Validation of Market opportunities through desk-based research and in-market itinerary development
• Assisting with market positioning in advance of market entry
• Conducting competitor analysis studies
• Proactively delivering market intelligence on key areas of opportunity
• Identifying and assessing distribution channels
• Providing customized in-market itineraries
• Providing access to external market expertise
• Undertaking post market visit assessment and follow up

Enterprise Ireland is subscribed to a large number of databases and research houses that provide key up-to-date information on the majority of market sectors. If the information is not available through these sources, Enterprise Ireland can prepare an individualized report on a particular market sector. Enterprise Ireland can work with companies to identify target customers and identify and assess distribution channels. This type of work is carried out on a one-to-one basis and is specific for each company.

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