This is a guest post from Conor Cahill who uses Drupal to make people friendly and search engine friendly websites.

What do the White House, Oxfam International and Bob Dylan have in common?

All have noteworthy websites built with Drupal – an open source content management platform which powers millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.

DrupalCamp Derry is geared to both beginners and those experienced in using and developing Drupal – with a view to learning about and sharing knowledge of Drupal.

Experienced developers will enjoy lightning talks on topics including responsive design and development best practice, as well as practical problem solving discussions. Beginners will enjoy a 3 hour training session in getting started with Drupal.

The conference is free.

Register your place at DrupalCamp Derry at www.drupalcampireland.org.

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More details of Vodafone’s initiative to get people developing more iPhone /Android apps will be available at this workshop (info and registration on EventBrite). And did I mention that this feeds into and App Developer competition with a prize fund of €200,000?

These workshops are part of an initiative by the Vodafone Foundation called the Smart Accessibility Awards. This  is trying to encourage development of apps to help people in four key areas: Social participation, independent living, mobility and well-being.

The 1/2 day workshop starts at 3pm. Tickets are free, but limited;you must register beforehand.

• The goal of the workshop (more…)

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The largest trade fair in the world for mobile technology takes place next week in Barcelona. There are up to 70 Enterprise Ireland client companies involved, around 25 exhibiting and 45 visiting the Congress. This reflects the strong Irish mobile technology industry, which is young, innovative and punches well above its weight compared to the size of the country.

This year’s GSMA Mobile World Congress takes place as the mobile ecosystem enters the midst of an unprecedented wave of transformation, as business models adapt, new verticals and players emerge. The GSMA Mobile World Congress which will host 50,000 senior mobile leaders from 200 countries. With technology evolving and perceptions shifting, the mobile Internet is as influential as the fixed Internet one decade ago.

Companies on the Enterprise Ireland stand are showcasing a wide range of new mobile technologies. GOS Networks is helping operators to deliver and charge for video and other data intensive content to smartphones. Network congestion is a big problem as smartphones become more popular.

Zapa Technologies, an NFC (Near Field Communications) company, is closing the gap in the very new and hot area of social commerce with their mobile couponing technology enabling retailers to redeem virtual coupons as a physical transaction. The Tralee company Altobridge, is short listed for a Global Mobile Award in the category “Best Mobile Technology for Emerging Markets”. Altobridge brings connectivity to rural areas and has had particular success in the booming African market.

Solaris Mobile Ltd, the Dublin based operator of hybrid satellite and terrestrial wireless networks will be showing how their service enables the provision of mobile broadband and broadcast services allowing access to rich media content. This allows media hungry consumers to access interactive services such as video on demand and audio content, when and where they want, directly to their smart phone and other mobile devices.

Among the Enterprise clients exhibiting on their own stands are Ezetop, Feedhenry, Newbay and Openet. The visiting Irish companies are all positioning themselves to launch innovative products and services in this exciting new mobile ecosystem which brings global opportunities to even small Irish companies.

Full details on the Enterprise Ireland stand are available on our website. The EI team at the event will also be tweeting at @ei_madrid, check them out for updates and introductions.

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Musings of VC in NYC is a very good source of information and tips for entrepreneurs, investors, developers etc. in the software industry especially web services especially social, gaming and mobile. It can cover stuff from “What does a CEO do anyway” to “Retooling Stale Businesses” using web services technology to the ideal First term sheet and liquidation preferences. Themes or companies that pop up cover open source, cloud based platforms, mobile gaming etc. The VC has an interesting portfolio of companies too.

In terms of the Irish software industry what strikes me is the incredible power that a dedicated and skilled developer team has to create a compelling web service and this a compelling business with international scope. This is due to the power, accessibility and low costof open source, Internet and languages like Ruby on Rails etc. etc. This is the modern software industry and it is open to people with thise skills who can marry it to a business vision – i.e. do something that people are actually willing to pay for or solves a real problem.  We defintely need more programmers with the right skills in PHP or Ruby on Rails etc. It is simply much cheaper to create a software business than it was before, if you do it right of course

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Some crucial points that emerged from this workshop were

• Work out the TCO and/or ROI and have that information ready
• Align the unique value of your solution to internal organisation as many departments in the large telco’s don’t talk to each other or can have different priorities and even conflicting goals
• There are many Tier 2 and 3 and rural telco’s – - like mini Eircoms -that can be targeted – rather than the AT&T’s or Verizons
• Your solution has to have strong business value and by business value we mean value not directly associated with the product

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Are you targeting the US Telco market? Could you do with step-by-step advice and pointers to the  next steps you should be taking? We’re running a workshop here at Enterprise Ireland workshop next week “Targeting Telco’s in the US – some practical advice”. This event is free but with limited places, so if you’re interested in coming along, please see the details of how to register below.

When: Monday May 10^th 2010

Location: Enterprise Ireland Offices, East Point, Dublin

Time: Registration @ 9.45am, workshop ends at 1pm (See full agenda after the jump )

Focus: 45 minute one-to-one sessions from 2-5pm

Who: Workshop will be delivered by David Dunne and his two US colleagues from the Client Success Group www.clientsuccessgroup.com (Full Bio’s below)

(more…)

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