The “data cloud” spells enormous opportunity for Ireland. “Innovation Ireland” (the three Irish agencies responsible for developing Ireland’s capability in this area – Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Science Foundation Ireland) have teamed together with the Dublin Web Summit to host a major international event in Dublin entitled “Beyond The Cloud” taking place in the RDS on 27th October.
The cloud computing market is projected to grow to $150bn by 2013 (Gartner). It is estimated that over €7bn is spent on designing and building datacentres across Europe per annum (DCD). Demand for data storage is growing at over 40% per annum. A recent report from Goodbody Economic consultants notes that cloud computing sales by Irish based companies could reach €9.5bn per annum by 2014 and provide up to 8,600 jobs.
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Cloud computing is a key strategic focus for the Irish Government, and is a priority area for development and support. The IDA has ensured that Ireland is leading the way in global cloud computing investment as evident by recent investments by global leaders, who are making Ireland the centre for their cloud computing strategies (Amazon, IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Google, HP).
Irish companies have been behind the design, build and fit-out of these centres and other major international datacentres. 34 of these and other Enterprise Ireland client companies providing innovative solutions to help in the efficient and secure operation of these centres will meet over 100 international buyers invited by Enterprise Ireland to attend the event. These include global heads of Innovation and Technology at both Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Bank, and senior decision makers from Telefonica, BT France, IBM, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, H&M and Mail.RU (Russia’s largest Internet Provider).
Key to the development of new cloud computing technologies is the presence of a supportive R&D collaborative environment and the development of innovative technologies underpinning the sector driven by Science Foundation Ireland researchers.
This unique ecosystem of multinational and indigenous expertise combined with significant research spend is helping to position Ireland as a leader in cloud and datacentre capability. “Beyond The Cloud” enables Ireland to further extend international recognition and position Ireland as a centre of excellence in this area: details of topics and speakers are available at http://www.dublinwebsummit.com/schedule#5. For more updates, keep an eye on #beyondthecloud on Twitter.
Amazon, Cloud, Google, Microsoft, Potential Exporters
After the huge success of Founders last year we were left wondering what was next from the Dublin Web Summit guys. This guest post from Daire Hickey, answers that question. While you’re at it, you may want to signup for the next Dublin Web Summit , which we in EI are sponsoring.
Cash strapped startups take note. Together with ESB Electric Ireland the Dublin Web Summit have put together a €40k prize funds for Ireland’s top startup. This is the second year of the Summit’s Spark of Genius competition. Former winners of the competition have gone on to great success. Datahug came to international attention after judges described the company as “LinkedIn on steroids”. Data Hug co-founder, Connor Murphy said,
“Winning the Spark of Genius Award changed everything for DataHug.
The award gave us a dream platform to introduce Datahug to a global audience of potential customers, media and technology investors. Within a few weeks we had hundreds of registered companies, coverage on TechCruch, and several meetings with leading international venture capital firms’
We cannot thank the organisers, judges and sponsors enough”
The existence of this enterprising competition indicates there is endless talent and innovation growing within the industry and we hope to highlight this further and encourage start ups to come forward and be part of something very special.
The purpose of this competition as part of the Dublin Web Summit is to highlight Ireland’s up and coming tech start-ups as well as offering our winner a support package of over 40K in cash and services. This is a fantastic opportunity to promote your start up and be seen by many of those in the tech industry. Whether your start up is in its infancy or you have developed a strong following within a short space of time, by entering ESB Electric Ireland Spark of Genius competition you will have an experience with your peers of great innovation and creation that will be immensely rewarding.
During this process, entrants will pitch their business to a number of tech leaders in a Dragon’s Den like scenario in advance of the October summit. Five finalists will then present in front of 1,000 people at the summit itself. The judges include Brian Caulfield of internationally renowned venture capital firm DFJ Espirit, Shay Garvey of Delta Partners, Mark Roden of Ezetop and TechCrunch Europe Editor Mike Butcher.
This is ESB Electric Ireland’s first year with the competition. Ken McKervey from ESB Electric Ireland says
“At ESB Electric Ireland we are committed to embracing innovation and new technology to offer value and choice to our customers. We are delighted to be able to sponsor this inspiring initiative at a time when the technology sector can play a leading role in our economic recovery”.
To enter your start up should be less than 2 years old and have less than 2 million invested in the business. You will have a purchased ticket for the October Web Summit and should you be chosen to be in our final 25 start ups you will get a second complimentary ticket from the Dublin Web Summit. Interested? Signup over on DublinWebSummit.com.
Delta, DWS, Electric Ireland, ESB, Ezetop, Potential Exporters, Techcrunch
Lorcan O’Sullivan is working to attact more entreprenuers to Ireland, one of the best environments in the world to do business (youtube). Interested? Get in touch with him at Lorcan[dot]OSullivan@enterprise-ireland[dot]com
Update: Techcrunch has more on this announcement Startup Bootcamp adding Dublin to the list.
At the Dublin Web Summit (DWS) today, Startupbootcamp announced Dublin as the latest addition to it’s European network providing seed funding and mentorship to technology startups. Applications to the first Dublin accelerator program open in Summer 2011, online at startupbootcamp.org. The Dublin program will be run by Eoghan Jennings, formerly CFO of XING, one of Europe’s most successful recent Internet startups.
Frank Ryan, CEO of Enterprise Ireland.
This exciting new accelerator firmly positions Ireland as a place where entrepreneurship thrives, and where entrepreneurs of any nationality can come to grow their businesses. The things that make Ireland great still exist – our people, our innovation capability, our global reach. And now, we are more experienced, more capable and more competitive than ever – with a highly skilled workforce and a modern dynamic economy
Eoghan explains:
“we are convinced that now is a fantastic time to be starting a technology startup and Dublin is a great place from which to grow a company”. While Luis Rivera, Manager of Startupbootcamp in Madrid said: “We are thrilled to to be joingin forces with Eoghan, and to leverage his experience to help us achieve our ambitious plans”
The Dublin program will offer also feature (more…)
We’ve already featured lot of the highlights of the Founders event at the recent Dublin Web Summit on BestConnected. But now that Tourism Ireland have made available the video interviews they did backstage at the event, we’d like to share them with you.
In this video, Jack Dorsey talks about his inspiration with real-time data, but founded Twitter when he realised that what he was missing was people. Jack also covers how to deal with the problems of scale and the importance of analytics to understand what people using the system are doing.
All 26 of the founders videos are available here on the MeetInIreland website.
We’ve already featured lot of the highlights of the Founders event at the recent Dublin Web Summit on BestConnected. But now that Tourism Ireland have made available the video interviews they did backstage at the event, we’d like to share them with you.
In this video, Michael Birch, talks about the journey that he has taken before, during and after founding Bebo. In his view on current opportunities “It’s never all been done… there is still a volume of things to do”.
We’ve already featured lot of the highlights of the Founders event at the recent Dublin Web Summit on BestConnected. But now that Tourism Ireland have made available the video interviews they did backstage at the event, we’d like to share them with you.
In this video, Divyank Turakhia, who co-founded the Directi Group and became a millionaire at age 18, talks about how he grew the business from web services to online media and advertising. In his view, the “best of the ideas are with the people that are just starting out … people that are successful are busy executing”. It’s never about the idea itself, it’s all about the execution.
We all love winning, but when you come out top in front of almost 600 event attendees, you just might feel like breaking open a case of beer. That was surely what Irish technology mapping firm, DataHug, must have felt like when, at the recently held Dublin Web Summit, they won the Spark of Genius 2010 competition, not only earning kudos and respect from its peers and iGapers but also walking away with a cool €30,000 worth of selected prizes.
Supported by Enterprise Ireland, DataHug was co-founded in 2009 by Connor Murphy and Ray Smith, and has developed technology which indexes corporate email systems and generates actionable insight about the everyday connections between people. Commented one member of the judging panel
Like LinkedIn/xobni on steroids,as it not only answers who knows who, but how well they know them.
As well as the €30,000 worth of prizes (which includes costs towards legal, hosting and translation services), DataHug also won a partner package and speaking opportunity at next year’s Dublin Web Summit. Colm Rafferty, partner at Dublin’s Maples & Calder (which provided €10,000 worth of legal services), said that DataHug was chosen out of the five finalists because it was the one that best answered the judges’ question: ‘which company would you invest in?’
On his company’s win, DataHug’s Connor Murphy noted that the prize offers
“a fantastic opportunity for DataHug to accelerate its growth and market profile. We are already live with several clients in the US, UK and Ireland, and we are looking forward to launching our public beta towards the end of this year.”
I was lucky enough to be at the F.ounders Event at the Dublin Web Summit on Friday and Saturday (including Enterprise Ireland’s CEO welcome to the Founders). Aside from thinking “What I am doing with my life?” ( as most of the other attendees were multi-millionaires in their late-twenties , or at a push , early thirties), the buzz and ideas from the event were incredible. This is reflected in the media coverage of the event, which shows Ireland in a very good light and highlights what is positive about the Internet in Ireland today.
Click on the image for the full Bloomberg report.
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The content of this blogpost was originally delivered as a welcome to the Founders at the recent Dublin Web Summit. Frank Ryan is CEO of Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Government Agency responsible for the development of Irish Industry.
On Friday, I was humbled by the presence in Dublin of many of the people that have re shaped the way people all over the globe work and interact socially. I hope and believe that in the three days of the Dublin Web Summit ideas were developed and discussed which will form the next wave of disruptive market led innovation in the internet. The range of topics covered is vast and crucial to the well being of mankind – from changing the world through technology, social entrepreneurship and philanthropy to the future of Mobile, Payments and hopefully the “next big thing”.
One area of particular interest to the Government of Ireland is seeding innovation. In Enterprise Ireland, we have worked in this ever evolving space for 15 years now and today we are the largest seed capital provider in Ireland. We are unique as a Government Agency insofar that we invest in companies (in addition to providing grants for research, innovation and market development). Last year alone we took equity positions in over 70 companies and supported more that 200 start ups. We are dispensing tax payer’s funds so it is only right that we look to try and get some return for the people of Ireland.
As part of our evolution (more…)
Mark Roden, ezetop
Errol Damelin, Wonga
Xavier Thiran, Ogone Payment Services
- Most people assume you need banks. But do you? Can you get by with Mobile payment systems (e.g. ezetop using mobile phone airtime as a currency)
- Regulation often a barrier to innovation; Incumbents and Banks often co-opt regulation and use as a barrier. However, there must be standards to create the market in the first place.
- Response by regulators to financial crisis has been to encourage consolidation, rather than promote (sustainable) innovation. In decades long cycle of financial institutions rebuilding themselves.
- Is the credit card dead? No, there will be multiple financial instruments, each addressing certain needs. Problem is more do they meet the needs of certain groups of customers? Mozt payments initiatives fail because they take more time and are not as easy to use.
- Incredible possibilities e.g. the growth of Facebook in the last 2 years. Facebook now creating it’s own money.
- Fascinated by rate of adoption of airtime (and other convertible virtual currencies) as a form of money.
More posts from the Dublin Web Summit here.
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