Americas

The Weekly Digest

Nine Irish companies have been nominated for the inaugural Techcrunch Europe Awards.  Please get out and vote! Visit Conor O’Neill’s post at www.web2ireland.org with direct links for voting.

Back here in the US, there is an interesting report out from the Kauffman Foundation that finds that the average age of U.S.-born technology founders is 39.The study follows research from Duke University’s Vivek Wadhwa and also concludes that , “the United States might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom”.

The June 2009 Economic Outlook put out by the UCLA Anderson Forecast says the U.S. economy is “Healing But Not Out of Hospital Yet”. The Forecast sees the gross domestic product improving from negative growth in the second quarter of this year to nearly perceptible growth in the final quarter. 

Finally, this July marks the 40^th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first men to walk on the moon.  If you are a space nut like me you can have direct input into the direction of NASA’s manned space program at the Human Space Flight Committee site. You can get connected to them via twitter and other interactive features on their site. 

Don’t forget to get connected with us on our LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter group sites.

Hot Events

Enterprise Ireland Networking mixer in Bellevue, Washington July 1^st. 

RSVP to silicon.valley@enterprise-ireland.com

The second Facebook Garage is scheduled for Thursday 2nd July from 4pm-6pm.  The event is on in The Digital Exchange, Crane Street, Dublin (other side of High Street from Hub) The theme this time is “Hands on with Apps, Connect and Pages”. Whilst it is a free event, you must register over on Eventbrite.

Sector Focus

Irish Learning Alliance:

Jonny Parkes interview focused on the innovative research being carried out within the ELITE project that is looking at Informal Learning and utilizing Web 2.0 tools in the workplace. Click here to download the interview.

Hot News from and about Irish Companies

Irish food giant Kerry open a new facility in Wisconsin.

Irish firm Mainstream Renewable Power purchased three wind farms outside of Chicago Illinois.  The company plans to invest $1.69Billion to have the farms on line by 2010, generating energy for as many as 30,000 homes.

Busy week for Taoglas, first they become Wexford’s small business of 2009 and then they launch the first smart meter embedded antennas with over 60% efficiency designed specifically for the utility market.

coClarity pitched and demoed to an investor panel as part of the end-of-year LEAP programme showcase and won the “Innovation and Market Entry” award.

Socowave has made a wireless technical breakthrough which is attracting the attention of global wireless infrastructure vendors. This breakthrough has the potential to transform how cellular network operators deliver video-rich services to mobile customers, in the future.

Venture & Funding

Six months after joining LinkedIn Jeff Weiner has become their new CEO.  Does this mean LinkedIn, long considered a leading candidate among countless Web start-ups is to go public sooner than later, and has it the management team in place to do so?

Bill Gurley discusses Amazon’s Cloud Strategy and notes that no cloud platform vendor is more communicative and more of a “listener” than Amazon.  

AlwaysOn has officially kicked off its annual GoingGreen West Top 100 Private Companies Competition. To assist us in this competition by nominating a company, please click here. If you’d like to join them in San Francisco click here.