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RCR Wireless Unplugged is looking to feature interesting technological advances from Irish mobile and telecoms companies.

Send me an email (david.smith@enterprise-ireland.com) outlining why your company is unique and revolutionary in the telecom space and I’ll pass it along.

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• http://www.rcrwireless.com/section/Unplugged
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Published April 30th, 2010 by davidsmith in Archive, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

By Niamh Hennessy – IrishExaminer.com – Thursday, April 29, 2010

STATE bodies, private investors and a Cork-based venture capital firm are in line for a share of a €33 million windfall following the sale of a Limerick firm to a US multinational.

The University of Limerick will receive €2m from the sale of Stokes Bio to California-based biotechnology firm Life Technologies. Enterprise Ireland will receive more than €3m.

The big winner in the deal is Cork-based venture capital firm, Kernel Capital which is set to receive just over €12m from the sale of its 37% share holding in the Limerick company.

The deal is understood to have been completed over the last few weeks. Founding president of UL, Ed Walsh, is non-executive chairman of Stokes Bio, which is an Enterprise Ireland-supported spinout of UL.

The company was established in 2005 by Prof Mark Davies and Dr Tara Dalton with an investment from the Enterprise Ireland supported Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Equity Fund of €300,000.

A further seven separate investments by Kernel followed, totalling €2m.

Kernel Capital is one of Ireland’s largest and most active venture capital funds. It is focused on technology, life science and general industry investments and led a total of €12m in investments in Irish early stage companies in the first quarter of this year.

Life Technologies employs 9,000 people in 160 countries. Earlier this year Stokes Bio announced a major deal with Monsanto Corporation that saw the US firm licence Stokes Bio’s technology.

Under the agreement, Monsanto acquired the exclusive rights to Stokes Bio’s technology for use in agriculture.

As well as Enterprise Ireland and UL, other shareholders in Stokes Bio include ETV Capital and a number of private shareholders. The company employs 25 staff, all of whom will continue to work for the company which will now move to larger premises in Limerick city.

Stokes Bio is dedicated to the development and application of microfluidic technology, which helps to radically improve and enhance life sciences research and molecular diagnostics.

Published April 29th, 2010 by admin in Archive, BioPharma, EI Client News, Economic, Education, News Press | Comments Off

Ireland-based Internet Company Unveils Significant Upgrade to Its Social Utility That Connects People With Skills to Those That Need Them

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and DUBLIN, Ireland, April 29, 2010—Next week, at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Weedle will stage the US market debut of its unique social utility that enables a fundamentally better way for people with skills to connect with people who need the skills.

In March, the company released an early BETA platform. Already thousands of users from more than 52 countries are embracing Weedle, with a substantial number coming from the US. Individuals offering a diverse range of professional, trade, craft, artistic and other skills have created unique and free Weedle pages where they describe and demonstrate their skills through a rich assortment of media, including video, mp3 and jpeg, etc.

Through the platform, users have also incorporated their social network. This enables their contacts to “vouch” for them, providing a trusted measure of credibility to each user’s Weedle page—a feature that is unique to Weedle. Read the rest of this entry »

Published April 29th, 2010 by admin in Archive, EI Client News, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

Guest Posted by: Jennifer L. Schenker on April 26, 2010
This blog post was adapted from www.informilo.com. Click here to read the original posting, provided courtesy of Informilo.

Venture capitalists are descending on the U.K. and Ireland this week to meet the cream of technology upstarts. They’ll be introduced to companies such as Belfast’s Lagan Technologies, a supplier of software for improving delivery of public services that has become a world leader in its market niche, beating rivals like Oracle for contracts with American cities from San Francisco to Boston.

Lagan is one of 30 companies pitching themselves to a group of more than 60 venture capitalists during the U.K. & Ireland Tech Tour on April 27-28. Many of the presenters are, like Lagan, later-stage companies that have already carved out successful global businesses. A surprising one-third of them are located on the Emerald Isle. Read the rest of this entry »

Published April 28th, 2010 by admin in Archive, EI Client News, Economic, News Press, VC | Post a Comment »

Join Enterprise Ireland and exciting Irish technology companies for a TweetUp! Attending companies will be in San Francisco for W2E .

When: 6:30 pm, Wednesday May 5.

Venue: Marriott Marquis View Lounge (55 4th St)| 39th Floor

To view details of visiting Irish companies please visit http://americas.enterprise-ireland.com/w2e.

! Only badged attendees can gain access to the 39th floor so it is imperative that you RSVP to silicon.valley@enterprise-ireland.com !

We hope to see you there!

Follow Enterprise Ireland Americas on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Published April 27th, 2010 by Jack Kissane in Archive, Digital Media & Entertainment, Economic, Events, News Press, Software/Services, Trade Mission | Post a Comment »

Enterprise Ireland’s Boston office has incubation space available to lease. The offices are ideally located on Milk St, in the heart of the Financial District.

Find details of the offer here: Boston Incubation Office.

Contact Eddie Goodwin at eddie.goodwin@enterprise-ireland.com / +1 6172351606 for more information.

Published April 26th, 2010 by Jack Kissane in Archive, Digital Media & Entertainment, EI Client News, Economic, Events, News Press, Programs/Events, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil, Trade Mission | Post a Comment »

These are my (David Smith’s) notes for the event – http://www.yankeegroup.com/misc/californiaSeminarRSVP.html

Yankee Group President and CEO Emily Nagle Green and Research Director Joshua Holbrook will present their strategies for success in powering the ubiquitous global network. You’ll receive a complimentary signed copy of Yankee Group’s new book ANYWHERE as well as the opportunity to share your own business insights, discuss industry challenges with the experts and network with other executives from leading organizations.

Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010

Location: Doubletree Hotel San Jose, located just off the Airport Parkway

9:00-9:45 a.m. “Satisfying Anywhere Appetites” with Emily Nagle Green

9:45-10:30 a.m. “Profiting from the Mobile Work Force of Tomorrow” with Joshua Holbrook

Satisfying Anywhere Appetites

Emily Nagle Green, President and CEO, Yankee Group

Great speaker, really engaging

What’s anywhere?

Ubiquitous connectivity for people and things we care about– not here yet

“Anywhere Network” = Seamless, intelligent, Ubiquitous and abundant

Rich connectivity – far from a dumb pipe

Will be the largest technology revolution of our lifetimes – see $ 1 trillion in equipment and services and $ trillions of this in added value

How will Anywhere unfold?

Availability of broadband is the key determinate of Anywhere transformation

Yankee defines broadband as a min of 2.5G (very low for developed nations, very high for emerging markets)

The Anywhere Tipping Point occurs when a region reaches one broadband line per person = Sweden, Japan, South Korea and Australia are here now and USA and most of the EU will be there soon

-         Developed economies – unchained workers (unchain them for locations)

-         Developing economies – access to health care and banking, drive economic growth, drive literacy

Rise of anywhere consumer

New breed of consumer – will expect this connectivity and experiences everywhere

Even with the recession, connectivity expenses have risen slightly in the USA since 2008

Many USA consumers do not know what devices they own are connected or connectible but most consumers want connected devices

Cell phones – the most plentiful electronics device ever, 3 billion now

Will be 50 billion connected devices and their pathways by 2014

Explosion in exponential = more people X more things X more activities

This connectivity will expose latent demand from user

What does it mean for networks

Network reach

–        spectrum is key

–        as is pricing – In India as prices fell below 1 Rupee, the subscriber base grew exponentially

Network capacity

-         based on the investment in the infrastructure

Affordability and intelligence

Carriers’ Global capex – big growth in EU this year, reasonable growth in USA

Profiting from the Mobile Work Force of Tomorrow
Joshua Holbrook

The world is changing

-         China is the No 1 English speaking country in the world

-         India has more honor students than the USA has students

-         Today’s USA students will have a 10-14 jobs by the time they are 38

-         1 in 4 employees prefer to communicate by email, by 2020 it will be 3 in 4

Offering telecommunicating is increasing used as tool to:

-         retain employees

-         cuts costs (especially office costs)

-         green issues (commuting, etc)

Mobile enterprise issues

-         security breaches – loss of data or IP, spread malware

-         managing IT costs – secure access to internal networks

-         Managing heterogeneous equipment

-         Employees may start using own equipment or consumer technology (increased security risk) for work = very common

-         Segments of workers need different solutions (intra-office, field workers, telecommuters, long-distance travelers) – can you define these well?

-         Remote workers feel more isolated from coworkers and managers = increase churn and are 20% less productive than engaged employees

-         In Asia – houses/apartments are small and don’t have a separate “office” room, unreliable power and telecoms infrastructure

How to keep distributed workers productive

-         technical connectivity

o        UC, wiki, blog, social networking, IM

-         social connectivity

o        technology – using IM is key to keep people engaged

o        feel engaged, not isolated

o        Offer remote working centres or use co-working centres, employee cohorts/clubs

-         professional connectivity

o        promotion opportunities

o        recognition

o        enterprise social networks

Distributed working is a corporate and a social movement

Published April 25th, 2010 by eric in Archive, Events, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

The Irish Examiner USA recently launched its new Enterprise and Entrepreneurship supplement the purpose of which is to help support the marketing efforts of Irish companies doing business in the USA.  

 You can read the first issue online here. (Pages 19-22)

It plans to feature pertinent news articles on these companies in its monthly enterprise section www.irishexaminerusa.com , including profiling key personnel at these companies, and offering other value added services based upon its strong recognition and connections within the Irish American market.

Building upon its existing circulation in the US, the Irish Examiner will expand its distribution to include universities, libraries, and other markets relating to business and entrepreneurship, in order to provide useful content to VC’s, financial services firms, investors etc. on the great potential Irish companies have to offer.

Published April 21st, 2010 by Jack Kissane in Archive, Digital Media & Entertainment, EI Client News, Economic, News Press, Programs/Events | Post a Comment »

A FACEBOOK application which enables the booking of hotels and planning of trips with friends has been launched by Irish firm Ticket Truck which hopes to become the engine of commerce on the social network.

The application allows Facebook users to plan trips with their friends, share those plans and then book the hotel without leaving the site. Users are encouraged to recommend the service to their friends by a guaranteed rebate of at least 3.5 per cent on each booking which is currently provided in the form of Amazon.com Gift Cards.

Read the full article in the Irish Times.

Published April 16th, 2010 by Jack Kissane in Archive, Digital Media & Entertainment, EI Client News, In The Spotlight, News Press, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

Senior vice president of Enterprise Ireland’s telecom’s segment, David Smith, speaks with Bnet TV and TMCnet TV about Enterprise Ireland and various Irish startups in the mobile and wireless space at the 2010 CTIA conference.

Recent Videos from EI-Americas Showcase companies from CTIA 2010

• FeedHenry: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2150&title=Interview+with+FeedHenry
• Yougetitback: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2154&title=Interview+with+Yougetitback.com
• Fifth Province: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2153&title=Interview+with+Fifth+Province
• Fifth Province: http://www.bnettv.com/player.php?id=3419&title=5th%20Province%20Ventures
• NewBay: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2152&title=Interview+with+Newbay+Software
• Benetel: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2151&title=Interview+with+Benetel
• Altobridge: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2148&title=Interview+with+AltoBridge
• Taoglas: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2142&title=Interview+with+Taoglas
• Dial2Do: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2119&title=Interview+with+Dial2DO
• Accuris Networks: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2149&title=Interview+with+Accuris+Networks

Video with Senior vice president of Enterprise Ireland’s telecom’s segment David Smith

• RCR Wireless: http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20100407/UNPLUGGED/100409954/1121/enterprise-ireland-talks-mobile-startups
• BnetTV: http://www.bnettv.com/player.php?id=3420&title=Enterprise%20Ireland&actionLogin=fail&id=3420&title=Enterprise%20Ireland
• TNCnetTV: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2156&title=Interview+with+Enterprise+Ireland

Published April 15th, 2010 by admin in Archive, CTIA 2010, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »