IDA Innovation Review Spring 2020

SPRING 2020

IRELAND REVIEW

FE ATURING

Top Stryker

On Guard

League leader in medtech devices

PLUS

South East

Tenable Ireland is securing the cybersphere

2.0

IRELAND’S THRIVING TECH CLUSTER

PLUS

#STEMsquad

IRISH WRITING A NEW CHAPTER

Opportunities abound for Ireland’s WOMEN IN SCIENCE

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Hours in Waterford

W H AT T O DO, W H E R E T O E A T, P L A CE S T O S TAY

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IN A S S OCI AT ION W I T H

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CONTENTS Spring 2020

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Meet the team IDA Ireland Head of Marketing Communications Caitriona O’Kennedy

Ashville Media Group Editor Tara Corristine Art Director Áine Duffy Creative Director Jane Matthews Published by Ashville Media, Unit 55 Park West Road, Park West Industrial Estate, Dublin 12, D12 X9F9.

Tel: (01) 432 2200 ISSN: 0332-4400 All rights reserved. Every care has been taken to ensure that the information contained in this magazine is accurate. The publishers cannot, however, accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Reproduction by any means in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. © Ashville Media Group 2018.

Spring 2020

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All-inclusive

M E E T T H E W O M E N AT T H E T O P O F THE IRISH BIOPHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

Home advantage Medtech giant Stryker is firmly committed to Ireland

15 Just rewards Apple’s 40-year relationship with Cork is bearing fruit

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Cyber force Tenable’s EMEA HQ in Dublin is helping to protect our online economy

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Gaining ground Meet the Irish disability activists working with international brands

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To p s i n t e c h The South East region is attracting the leading names in technology

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Tu r n i n g t h e p a g e Behind the curtain

Inside IDA Ireland’s new building, Three Park Place

Irish writing is finding new audiences

Up the Déise The team at Sun Life Financial in Waterford share their favourite places

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NEWS Spring 2020

NEWS VIEWS and

A first look at new job announcements, research projects, global rankings and ongoing innovation in Ireland.

Want to know more?

EDUCATED WORKFORCE

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

Jo McAleer Senior Business Solutions & Process Specialist Otter Products, Barrie Collins Managing Director Otter Products, Leo Clancy IDA Ireland, Cllr Fergal Dennehy Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork

Winning Ways IDA Ireland’s Winning – Foreign Direct Investment 20152019 Strategy finished on a high note with employment levels in client companies reaching 245,096: the highest ever number employed in the multinational sector. In 2019, 21,844 new jobs were created in 250 projects in FDI companies, half of these investments were from firsttime investors. Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland said: “Foreign Direct Investment continues to be a substantive driver of the economy and IDA Ireland clients now account directly for 10.5% of national employment.” Employment grew across all sectors, with 110 investments regionally, creating 5,368 net jobs.

56%

Ireland’s workforce is one of the world’s most educated with over half of those aged 30-34 holding a third-level degree.

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SMA RT MOV E

@JanssenIE “Today is a very exciting day for all of us here in @JanssenIE as we unveil a significant expansion at our #Cork facility. This new manufacturing building will see us welcome an additional 200 full-time employees to our Janssen Ireland family.”

A well-known name in the smartphone and tablet case sector, Otter Products EMEA was first established in Cork in 2010 and has since achieved accelerated growth across the EMEA market year-onyear. The company is moving on to the next phase in their development, locating to their new purpose-designed premises on South Mall, Cork City. Otter Products EMEA currently has 73 employees across the region and the new site has capacity for up to 100 employees, a sure indicator of the business’s growth ambitions. Opening the company’s new premises, Barrie Collins, Managing Director said, “We have built a business that is connected globally but works locally. Our people are central to our success and I see this office as a sign of where we are and setting us up for further expansion, as we near our tenth anniversary in Europe.”

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NEWS Spring 2020

New facility

Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

$240m

WuXi Vaccines is planning to build a $240 million vaccine production facility on the newly established WuXi Biologics Campus in Dundalk, bringing 200 additional new jobs to the town over five years.

Illustration of the proposed new WuXi Vaccines facility on the WuXi Campus in Dundalk, county Louth

Limerick bound FundRock, a leading independent UCITS Management Company and Alternative Investment Fund Manager, celebrated the official opening of its Limerick office in November of this year. Serving as an operational centre of excellence, it has already exceeded growth expectations with further growth expected in a variety of functions including Investment Risk and Compliance, Fund Accounting and Depositary Oversight, and Regulatory Reporting. Commenting at the opening, Conor O’ Brien, Managing Director for the Irish branch of FundRock said, “Today is another step in demonstrating FundRock’s full commitment to Limerick, the mid-west region and the funds ecosystem in Ireland.”

Xavier Parain Group CEO at FundRock, Patrick O’Donovan Minister of State, Anne-Marie Tierney-Le Roux Head of Regions IDA Ireland, Conor O’Brien Managing Director Ireland at FundRock, Cllr Adam Teskey Deputy Mayor City and County of Limerick, William Corcoran Regional Manager Mid-West Region IDA Ireland

@Patreon “We’re excited to grow the team at our new office in Dublin. We can’t wait to welcome the new teammates and continue our work supporting European creators together.”

L I KE M I N D S Jijay Shen CEO Huawei Ireland

Recruitment is underway at Huawei Ireland with the opening of its new state-of-the-art office, and operations at the Dublin HQ will include communications, administration, marketing, its Irish consumer business and related sales functions. At the launch, Jijay Shen, CEO of Huawei Ireland, said, “We are proud of our history in Ireland and Huawei will continue to support Ireland’s digital transformation through fixed broadband solutions, wireless solutions, and 5G.” Visiting Dublin to support the announcements, Huawei Rotating Chairman, Mr. Guo Ping said, “Huawei admires the resiliency and determination of the Irish people because these values are at the core of our business, too. Ireland has an open economy and a highly-skilled talent pool and today’s announcement of 100 jobs and the opening of a new Dublin office will drive our longterm investment and cooperation focus here.”

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NEWS Spring 2020

Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

TOPS IN TECH High-tech jobs are on offer with the opening of Eurofins’ Global Software Engineering Centre in south county Dublin.

Claudius Masuch, Director of the Eurofins IT Solutions Engineering Office at the life sciences company, is impressed with the standard of applicants. “In our search for talent in the Digital and DevOps space, I am pleased to see that the quality of applicants, both from Ireland and abroad, is outstanding.” Eurofins was established in Ireland in 2003 and currently employs approximately 800 people across laboratories in Dublin, Waterford and Cork in the areas of clinical diagnostics, biopharma product testing, food and beverage testing as well as environmental testing, and has corporate functions based in Dublin.

Pictured above are Daniela Karthaus Eurofins, Tommy Fanning IDA Ireland, Director of the Eurofins IT Solutions Engineering Office Claudius Masuch, Sarah Tynan IDA Ireland

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All of the world’s top ten Bio Pharma companies have operations in Ireland.

@BarryOSullivan “Good news for #AI in Ireland: we have the highest ratio of “AI talent” to the active population in the EU. Half of Europe’s AI talent is in the UK (24%), Germany (14%) & France (12%).”

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A i m i ng high Dr. Norah Patten, a leading Irish engineer who is bidding to become Ireland’s first-ever astronaut was on hand to open EJ’s new production facility in Birr, county Offaly. EJ, a fifth-generation family-owned company headquartered in Michigan, USA, provides a full line of access solutions for the infrastructure systems of municipalities, utility companies, airport and port authorities, and private industries.

Speaking at the event, Padraig Freeman, Vice President of EJ said, “Investing in our Irish facility allows us to serve local and European market needs from Birr. We are now exporting high-performance composite access solutions to several European markets.”

The Malpass family; Tracy, Lindsey and Matthew present Norah Patten with a space-themed composite cover

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NEWS Spring 2020

Research project

$21mil ion Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

Maynooth University is set to lead a €21m European research project consisting of 36 partners across 14 countries. Smart and Healthy Ageing through People Engaging in Supportive Systems (SHAPES) aims to help older people live actively and independently with the support of assisted living technology.

@Paschald “Congrats to all at @Intel_IRL on 30 years in Ireland. The company employs nearly 5K people as well as another 6.5K jobs supported. Investment of €15bn since 1989 and annual contribution of €1bn to the economy; their commitment to, and impact on, Ireland is in no doubt”

Overstock’s office in Sligo

Dr Michael Cooke Asst Prof. in Applied Psychology, Dr Deirdre Desmond, Assoc. Prof.

Department of Psychology and Co-Director of ALL Institute, Dr Rudi Villing Asst Prof. in the Department of Electronic Engineering, and Prof. Mac MacLachlan Co-Director of the ALL Institute, with PAL TIAGo robot, funded with the support of Science Foundation Ireland

PublicRelay’s second Irish office will be in the new Cavan Digital Hub

Work-life balance Online retail and technology leader Overstock.com has opened its new European base in the IDA Ireland’s flagship North West business park in Sligo. Last year, the company announced the creation of new roles across software development, machine learning, and data analytics and the company has been successful in highlighting the affordable cost of living and lifestyle options in the North West, along with attractive career progression opportunities.

Relay race Leading US media monitoring and analytics firm, PublicRelay has announced plans to establish a new office in Cavan, creating 20 new jobs over the next two years. The company has an office in Dublin, and Cavan was chosen for its second site thanks to the strong pool of educated talent available in the region and the newly opened Digital Hub where the company initially will be based. “The educated, friendly workforce and proximity to our Dublin office make Cavan an ideal location to expand our presence in Ireland,” according to Eric Koefoot, CEO of PublicRelay.

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LEADING Women in Science

Science and Progress WORDS BY Tara Corristine

The biopharmaceutical sector in Ireland is making great strides to increase female participation in STEM, and retain that talent once it’s in the pipeline.

We speak to three women who share the importance of schools programmes, role models and mentoring.

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Joyce Fitzharris A career in science offers the opportunity to pivot across different functions such as operations, strategy and leadership, as evidenced by the roles undertaken by Joyce Fitzharris, General Manager at SK biotek.

Having studied Analytical Science in Dublin City University (DCU) and with two Masters Degrees under her belt – one in Environmental Protection from Sligo IT and the second in Emergency Management from DCU – Joyce Fitzharris’s first role was as an environmental chemist. “I started my career with Bristol-Myers Squibb, they were one of the first pharmaceutical multinationals to come to Ireland in 1964. I moved into Operational Excellence, an area that focuses on the techniques, tools and culture around continuous change and improvements.

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LEADING Women in Science

I had no background in that but I was facilitated to learn.

It’s been a theme throughout my career that whatever area you move into you will be supported, either in advance of that or as you move into it, not just the technical areas but the people skills and broader skills needed to lead in an area like that.”

Fitzharris was then tasked with setting up a Programme Management Office to execute the strategic projects needed to grow the business. “It’s a forward-looking approach that gets the leadership team thinking beyond their own function: where does the company need to be in five years, ten years? It became apparent that the site in Swords would be divested from the BMS network but rather than it being seen as a negative, we saw it as a chance to reinvent ourselves.”

SK biotek, a contract development manufacturing organisation (CDMO), acquired the company in January 2018 and for Fitzharris, it’s an invigorating phase in an ever-evolving career. “New colleagues that have come into the organisation have shared their knowledge, it’s been very educational and exciting. We are now working with multiple customers, and these new relationships are akin to a partnership.”

The changes continued apace and in December 2018, Joyce was appointed to lead the Staff function which encompasses the business support departments of HR, IT, Legal, Operational Excellence and Strategy.

“We have two leads on the “I had seen site, the head of the how career operational side of the progression in business, and my side of the Bristol-Myers business. I also have a Squibb was reporting role, sharing how possible, they the business is doing with our were very owners, a division called SK encouraging holdings, and it’s another very through role interesting side to my job.” modelling, Understanding legal, HR senior female and IT functions may not have executives and been the original remit of an vice presidents.” environmental chemist but Fitzharris points out that at director level, the fundamental skill is leadership. “You have the experts in the team, you don’t need to have all of the knowledge yourself, it’s about getting the best out of them, seeing where the gaps are and developing their progression.

Once you’ve honed those skills you can transfer into leading any function.”

Seeing other women in senior roles, and being mentored by them affirmed the leadership possibilities for Fitzharris.

“I had seen how career progression in Bristol-Myers Squibb was possible, they were very encouraging through role modelling, senior female executives and vice presidents.

A previous GM, Susan Hynes, came up through the quality

ABOVE: Bring Your Children To Work Day

route. Mentoring was formal and informal, I had everything from an official mentor to those people I had coffee with who encouraged me.

In Ireland, we are ahead of the curve. We have seen women in science at the top of the ladder here, it would be nice to see them expanding out into the CEOs of global companies.”

As Ireland’s CDMO cluster expands, organisations that offer support mechanisms such as flexible working arrangements will benefit by attracting and retaining key talent, she says. “CDMOs could build or buy anywhere in the world but they are coming here precisely because of the talent and the knowledge of the world-class people that we have, and what we offer. We have a huge amount of women working here but how do we sustain that and continue to attract that?” Career breaks are just some of the agile working options available to SK biotek employees along with flexible hours and remote working. “It’s okay to tell colleagues that they can take time out: two years over a 25-year career, that’s no time. It’s down to organisations to help everyone to upskill as quickly as possible when they’re coming back.

It’s fantastic when you see women progressing through the organisation, it’s a very rewarding part of my job.”

Karine Egan Karine Egan, Medical Director Ireland at AbbVie, believes that schools initiatives and leadership programmes are the way to encourage women into STEM, and keep them there.

STEM Paths, a recent initiative undertaken by AbbVie, looked at how Irish industry, educators and professional bodies can work together to foster greater engagement in STEM disciplines by

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LEADING Women in Science

highlighting female role models. The organisation developed the Back to School for STEM initiative which sees employees from AbbVie’s five Irish offices and manufacturing plants visiting schools to talk about their career experience.

“It’s hugely rewarding,” Karine Egan tells us. “You see the interest and curiosity being ignited, then and there. A lot of female students probably don’t feel confident going into the STEM subjects and I think so much work has to be done at that level.” Another recommendation of the report was to share the diversity of roles available across the sector. “We have a great university system that produces high-quality science graduates. It’s getting young women to want to go into those careers in the first place that is the problem. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it and that’s the truth of it. I’m a medical director in a pharmaceutical company and when I was at Leaving Certificate stage, I didn’t know that that kind of job existed, but I knew that I loved science.”

It’s so important, she says, to impart that the scale of multinationals now based in Ireland means that a science qualification is a foundation for a variety of roles.

“I remember one of my lecturers saying that science teaches you to question and think critically, and ultimately “One of the it’s a platform to go from there functions into any career. These I oversee is multinationals are so huge, clinical trials you may go in under one in Ireland, and function but as you develop that’s amazing skills and realise what part of for me because your job you are passionate if I sit down to about, that is where you will read a research really excel. That’s what we protocol, that need to impress on people pulls me out of more, you may go into science the business and realise that you are really strategy world good at business and that and suddenly pharma is a career that I’m immersed combines the two.” in what sparked “One of the functions I my interest in oversee is clinical trials in science in the Ireland, and that’s amazing for first place. me because if I sit down to read a research protocol, that pulls me out of the business strategy world and suddenly I’m immersed in what sparked my interest in science in the first place. It’s nice to have a career where you continue to develop strategic and management parts, but still stay close to the science.”

Creating a supportive work environment can help to

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ABOVE LEFT: Employees from AbbVie celebrate at the Great Place to Work Awards 2019 ceremony.

ABOVE RIGHT: AbbVie employees with Volunteers Ireland, students, parent representatives and staff from New Cross College Finglas at the completion of an extensive refurbishment of the school’s science lab. More than 60 employees from AbbVie’s offices in Citywest and Santry participated in the company’s global volunteering initiative, Week of Possibilities.

retain that female talent once it is in the pipeline, and earlier this year AbbVie was listed as the second Best Large Workplace in Ireland, and was recognised as one of the 13 Best Workplaces for Women, by the Great Place to Work Institute. This recognition is no doubt due to programmes such as AbbVie’s Women Leaders in Action (WLA) that was set up to support the development of female employees and there are currently over 200 members in Ireland across five sites. “We have a huge focus on WLA to encourage women to go for those promotions and develop those skills. We have a formal mentoring programme, someone who is a layer or two above you who can navigate for you and show you what is possible. If you don’t have that, you could get stuck in the day-to-day and not think of your five-year plan. It feels informal because it’s coffees and chats.”

WLA is not just for women and is open to all employees. “In a company like AbbVie, women are very supported, and it’s very much a meritocracy at the same time. It’s meritocracy based because it’s about the work that you produce. I find it to be fair and balanced.”

One of the WLA activities is career returners events. “It needs to be recognised that women will have families, and they should feel supported to do that. We should be encouraging people to have their children during their careers and not see it as a break. It should be accepted. We had a career returners event in Sligo recently for exactly that purpose because it gets to a point, especially if you have a couple of children, where you begin to wonder is it worth going back to work, and it’s very hard for those women when they are returning to the workforce and there should be more companies focusing on attracting those women as employees. There is demand for it judging by the huge number of people who turned up at our event. It’s an unmet need that needs to be addressed.”

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LEADING Women in Science

Orla Cunningham Orla Cunningham, Senior Director, BioMedicine Design at Pfizer, credits self-belief combined with strong organisational supports for her success in the sciences.

“I was always encouraged to do what interested and excited me. I have three brothers and my parents never treated me any differently, I never felt like there was anything I couldn’t do. My older brother is a neuroscientist in academia and I followed in his footsteps, starting with a general natural sciences degree in Trinity and specialising in Biochemistry.”

In 2006, she joined Wyeth, helping to establish a new early-stage preclinical drug discovery research group, and in 2009, Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer. “We set up the lab from scratch with three people and now our group has grown to 24. We have people from a variety of educational backgrounds, disciplines and countries. It’s a very young group because preclinical drug discovery is a relatively new field in Ireland, and they are full of energy and ideas and enthusiasm.”

Cunningham heads up the BioMedicine Design group in Dublin and sits on the global leadership team, a path she believed was always available to her. “In Ireland, I think women are very well represented in the life sciences, across both academia and industry. I’ve always been very lucky in the mentors that I’ve had, from my PhD supervisor in Trinity to my first boss here in Pfizer who taught me a lot about the principles of antibody engineering.”

She took advantage of the company’s internal supports, including its European leadership development programme, Female Aspiring Talent in Europe (FATE).

“Women across the European organisation, and across operational functions, are brought together for a series of workshops on personal development, from working on visibility and impact to support on how to achieve work-life harmony. The programme provides one-to-one coaching on leadership and helps to establish mentoring relationships with experienced leaders across the organisation. Participation in FATE was a fantastic opportunity for me to grow and build a really supportive network across the business.” A similar

achievement programme for high-potential females in Pfizer Ireland was recently launched.

These internal structures and supports have seen the organisation evolve and grow to reflect modern society. “I definitely see the difference from when we started in Grange Castle Business Park.

We celebrated ten years on site in September and I can see the change happening. We have a new site lead and a really engaged, diverse leadership team which includes a number of great female role models. “I think in the past people tended not to talk so openly about family in the work environment, but these days it is a part of everyday conversation. I can see this change across the broader scientific community.”

Attracting and nurturing the next “My experience generation of scientists is a role Pfizer takes in the workplace very seriously with engagement in has been a very educational outreach through the Junior inclusive and Achievement programme, a Kids 2 Work suportive one. initiative, Science Week events and I definitely undergraduate workshops across Irish feel there is universities including Trinity College Dublin, much better University College Dublin and Technological representation University Dublin. and that’s bound Cunningham has come to appreciate the to have really importance of representation with young positive knockstudents and enjoys the opportunities she’s on effects.” had to act as a STEM ambassador. “My experience in my career to date has been a very inclusive and supportive one. I definitely feel that there is much better representation and that’s bound to have really positive knock-on effects.”

ABOVE LEFT: Twenty women from across Pfizer’s Irish operations took part in the Female Aspiring Talent Ireland (FATI) programme that provides mentoring, leadership training and individual coaching.

ABOVE RIGHT: Students from Plunkett College, Swords at the Pfizer and Science Gallery’s We Are All Scientists pop-up during Science Week.

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LEADING Medtech Innovation

Stryke force WORDS BY Ta ra C o rri st i n e

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T’S SOMEWHAT OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT IT’S BEEN A BUSY COUPLE OF DECADES FOR STRYKER

Medtech giant Stryker is firmly embedded in Ireland, with its European Regional Headquarters and seven cutting-edge operations located here. David Tallon, Vice President of Research and Development, Stryker Neurosurgical, speaks to us about the dynamic educational partnerships they have launched, and how Ireland’s industry spectrum offers huge potential for growth.

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IN IRELAND. THE WORLD-LEADING MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY BEGAN ITS IRISH JOURNEY IN 1998 WITH TWO GREENFIELD SITES AND A HANDFUL OF EMPLOYEES IN CARRIGTWOHILL, COUNTY CORK. IT HAS NOW GROWN TO SEVEN MANUFACTURING FACILITIES , INCLUDING A STATE- OF-THE-ART ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING FACILITY AND A GLOBAL INNOVATION CENTRE, AND ITS EUROPEAN REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS WITH AROUND 3,800 STAFF ON THE ROSTER.

Stryker was founded in Michigan in 1941 by Dr Homer Stryker after he had invented the turning frame and walking heel while studying orthopaedic surgery at the University of Michigan. Today, the company offers products and services across orthopaedics, medical and surgical, and neurotechnology and spine, with 7,784 patents owned globally in 2018.

David Tallon is Vice President of Research and Development for Stryker’s Neurosurgical

business units with responsibility for R&D sites in the US, Germany, Ireland and Japan.

He joined the organisation when it established in Ireland.

“It was a different climate when Stryker came to Ireland in 1998. There were a lot of medtech companies starting here at the time and a cluster was beginning to establish. We had studied several different locations, and two divisions within Stryker decided to locate in

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LEADING Medtech Innovation

LEFT AND BELOW Stryker Instruments Innovation Centre in Carrigtwohill, county Cork

Ireland and our CEO had us both locate together in Cork. The cluster has only grown significantly since. A lot of our suppliers are in Ireland, and there is a strong startup community within medtech that has grown here.”

The growing medtech cluster facilitated Stryker’s growth both organically and through business development and acquisition. “Stryker acquired orthopaedics company Howmedica in 1998, and with it a facility in Limerick, and it acquired Boston Scientific’s neurovascular facility in Cork. That was all due to the cluster. It’s a perfect success story: the company chose two small facilities here early on but because of the cluster, the environment and the success of the original facilities, the company has grown over the years.”

The turn of the century saw the organisation invest heavily in research and development to continue its journey of innovation. “Manufacturing competency was part of the reason why companies came here, but that’s changed significantly over the years. We started our R&D journey in about 2000 and a large part of that was access to the European market and customers. There has been a lot of investment in research and development in the universities, a lot of incentives around establishing R&D and most companies, not just those in the medtech sector, have significantly invested in R&D over the years.”

Last year, Stryker poured over six per cent of its global sales into research and development, and in June of this year announced that it is to invest over €200m in Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) projects at three of its five Cork facilities: the AMagine Institute in Anngrove, which develops additive manufacturing products

Kevin Manley, Senior Director, Global Research and Engineering Services, and Leader of the Innovation Centre, on the opportunities afforded to Stryker in Ireland.

How is the Instruments Innovation Centre changing the face of medical technology?

Opened in December 2015, the Instruments Innovation Centre is a global research and development hub focused on the development of products and technologies in Neuro, Spine, ENT, Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine and Robotic applications. We develop intelligent devices including power tools, ultrasonic aspirators, directed energy devices and mechanical devices for the removal and profiling of hard and soft tissue. Our innovative and collaborative work environment is second to none, housing a fully-equipped operating room used for product development, surgical simulation and customer interactions. We also have 15,000 sq. ft. of in-house prototyping and test lab facilities.

At Stryker we believe in collaboration to achieve advances in medical device technology. As part of our R&D activities we engage and work with leading academics and research institutions on strategic projects in our mission to make healthcare better.

How have the Irish locations supported and advanced Stryker’s world-leading position in the industry?

The biggest reason to build and grow the Innovation Centre in Ireland is the access to talent and access to the EU and US markets. Ireland has the youngest population in Europe and it has the highest number of college graduates.

It is also the second largest exporter of software in the world. The software ecosystem as well as the access to mechanical and electrical engineers and scientists in Cork and Ireland is incredibly healthy.

It’s also a place for us to interact with our customers – over the past few years, more than 500 healthcare professionals have visited the Innovation Centre. This is priceless for hearing about our customer challenges and creating possibilities that help save and improve lives. Many of our marketing and sales employees also visit the centre, which further gives us insights into market needs.

Are external supports offering what Stryker needs to continue to grow and innovate?

Support from IDA Ireland through RD&I programmes has been essential to our ability to take on very high-end research activity in Ireland. Their continued support in the past 21 years has been a key factor in our continued growth and investments in Ireland.

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RIGHT Stryker Anngrove, Cork FAR RIGHT Stryker Model Farm Road, Cork

for three divisions, Spine, Craniomaxillofacial and Joint Replacement; the Neurovascular business in Model Farm Road, which develops stroke treatment products; and its Instruments Innovation Centre in Carrigtwohill, which designs, develops and commercialises surgical devices.

Announcing the news, Stryker’s Group President, Orthopaedics and Spine Spencer Stiles said, “The continued growth and investment in Ireland is the result of many factors, inclusive of the Research, Development and Innovation support from IDA Ireland and the partnerships built with leading Irish universities and research centres. The support from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has allowed access to incredibly talented engineers and scientists based in Ireland.”

One of those partnerships is the Digital Platform Services Centre of Excellence, a strategic collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) to develop digitally-enabled care products and performance metrics to deliver better patient outcomes. Announced in July of this year, it will be located in RCSI’s Smurfit Educational and Research Centre on the Beaumont Hospital campus.

According to Shaun Braun, Vice President of Digital Platform Services at Stryker, the partnership will ensure that the firm’s digital offering is grounded in clinical reality and, says Tallon, expectations are high. “The concept of having an R&D team embedded in a research hospital and focused on digital products is something we haven’t done anywhere else and we have big ambitions for what is going to come out of that.”

This collaborative environment supported by the calibre and number of organisations offers a company such as Stryker significant growth opportunities in Ireland. “The potential is there, particularly in the ICT industry and the pharma industry. From a combination device perspective, Ireland is very strong in data and the regulatory policies we have around data. We’ve got a very strong software industry so if companies start collaborating across industries, there is huge potential for growth.

“In the medtech business, digital healthcare is becoming really important and it’s not just about the device that’s used in surgery, it’s about preparing the patient for surgery, preoperative planning, surgery itself and monitoring the patient afterwards, and that heavily relies on connected devices, digital health products and data, and software is the glue that ties all of that together. All of those competencies exist in multinationals and indigenious companies in Ireland so there is certainly potential to leverage that.”

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AT A GLANCE

GLOBAL SALES 2018

$13.6 billion $862 million 36,000 39 SPENT ON R&D 2018

EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE

STRAIGHT YEARS OF SALES GROWTH

“From a policy point of view, the Irish Medtech Association is very focused on driving initiatives around industry collaboration, and the talent pool is there. The universities are investing in software centres and AI. That’s going to be ripe for harvesting in the future.”

One relationship that is already yielding rewards is the Manufacturing Apprenticeship Programmes run in association with Institutes of Technology nationwide. “It’s about 10 years since we started our first-time graduate development programme and it is in high demand, we have way more people applying externally than we are taking on. It’s extremely competitive and is now one of the most attractive development programmes in the country and in our industry, attracting engineering talent north and south. It’s been extremely successful.”

Developing and maintaining relationships between education in industry will ensure Ireland continues to deliver the talent pool that industry needs. “If we look at where the market is going in digital health and artificial intelligence, design thinking, user experience and UX design are really important in the future, and making sure that universities are adapting their curricula, not to the needs of industry today but keeping up with what industry is going to need five and ten years from now, that they are relevant and ahead of the pack in terms of the graduates they are producing.

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12/02/2020 10:35

LEADING Medtech Innovation

I r e l a n d ’s c o l l a b o r a t i v e educational environment is helping to shape and deliver talent, says Stryker Senior Director of HR for Ireland, Mairead Hogan.

TOP David Tallon, Vice President of Research and Development, Stryker Neurosurgical ABOVE Stryker Tullagreen, Cork RIGHT Stryker Instruments Innovation Centre

“The R&D leads here in Ireland all have networks in the universities, they are on advisory boards for curriculum because relationships with academics is key to influencing those curricula, and Stryker does a good job across all the different sectors that we are in within Ireland.”

When considering the current talent availability, Ireland offers more than just its own pool, he points out. “We are tapping into, not just the market in Ireland, but the markets within Ireland. Stryker sites are spread around the country and there are very strong universities in Cork, Belfast, Dublin and Limerick. One of the benefits of being a member of the EU is the free movement of people, giving us access to talent in Europe. Our hiring is very multicultural and diverse and we have all nationalities in the Innovation Centre. We also have a really strong organic programme for developing our own lead talent internally. We’re in a good place.”

Are Ireland’s educational bodies offering the candidates, courses and collaboration that Stryker needs?

Digitisation is advancing our industry in new and unanticipated ways. New technologies are transforming the way we view manufacturing and development of products. They are also paving the way for a new set of skills and challenging they way we view reality. These changes result in the move from traditional skills to the increased need for skills in STEM background subjects and ICT technology. Preparing now for tomorrow’s economy is never easy. We partner very closely with the educational bodies to discuss needs and develop courses which will help develop our existing and future employees. We collaborate with organisations to encourage young students to enter into STEM subjects and help identify career paths which they may not have thought of or chosen.

Is Ireland offering, attracting and retaining the broad range of roles required for a world-leading company?

Ireland is experiencing a shortage of tech talent, and part of this can be attributed to students not taking up STEM-related subjects. Government focus and increase in capital spending over the next decade is welcome news, especially for companies in Ireland who require a healthy pipeline of talent. Ireland’s low unemployment rate has not hampered our efforts in developing and attracting talent. Ireland has fast become one of the hot spots for Europe and our ability to attract talent from around the globe has continued to enhance our market. The proximity to Europe and having international airports allows for good commuter options and ability to easily travel.

How does Ireland align with Strykers values?

Stryker has four key values; Integrity, Accountability, People and Performance. These are the cornerstones of our culture and a key ingredient in Stryker’s success.

Ireland as a country displays these values in the way its people embrace innovation and technological change.

Performance and accountability is very evident in the pace and adaptation of technological change.

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12/02/2020 10:36

PROFILE The Leader

The Leader Paul Madden MANAGING DIRECTOR AT H L O N E S I T E , N E U E D A

Neu ed a delivers lar g e-scale tr an sfor matio n a l s oftware proj ects a c r o ss en te r p r ise integration, legacy system mo d e r n isatio n an d data s ervices .

“Ensuring that we are always ahead of the latest technologies is embedded in the culture of the company.”

Is the world-leading talent you are looking for in Ireland?

We have an operation in Athlone where we perform R&D for the likes of Ericsson, Neo4j and Citibank and we have been able to recruit locally the high-calibre software engineers that we need. Athlone Institute of Technology has been ranked the number one IT in the country twice in the last three years

by The Sunday Times. We also have engineers who lived in the midlands region and were commuting to Galway or Dublin city, and we have been able to offer them high value work in Athlone. It’s important to the industry that the work they do is cutting edge. Athlone has a lot of selling points that make it easier to attract talent from overseas too; there’s a great education system, the cost of living is quite reasonable and it’s relatively easy to secure good quality accommodation that is close to your place of work.

How has the Irish workforce helped to drive growth?

Culturally, as a country we are very flexible. In larger software services companies elsewhere, the work relationship can be very contractual.

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We are much more focused on what the customer wants and the best way to help them. That willingness to bend over backwards to meet customer demand, rather than worrying about having the terms and conditions in place has reflected very well on us and worked very well with our clients.

Our starting position is that there is a level of trust in place.

What are the disrupters – both positive and negative – facing your industry?

Our fear isn’t that the software services industry becomes disrupted, so much as our clients becoming disrupted. It’s creating awareness among our client base about new technologies. If you go back ten years ago, Ericsson’s major competitors were Nortel, Alcatel, Lucent, Siemens, Nokia – they were all huge companies with tens of thousands of employees, and now a number of them don’t exist.

Companies don’t survive as long as they used to.

How has Ireland changed as a place to work and grow a business?

Athlone has undergone a hugely positive transformation. As a model, it is a great example of a town that has grown enormously. There is a lot of industry and plenty of jobs and a great community spirit in the town.

When we were looking for office space, as soon as I mentioned it, there were business people from

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the town calling to ask if they could help. When you are creating enterprise here, everyone will get behind you.

How is your Athlone workforce helping to shape that culture?

Continuous learning is something we emphasise, encourage and support within the company, that people don’t rest on their laurels, that they would continue to learn and develop. We are in an industry that is constantly changing, and to survive a 40-year career in this type of industry means you have to completely re-educate yourself every decade at least. We try to feature that as normal and it is something that our employees here respond really well to. They organise internal workshops themselves on new technologies: a couple of them will take the time to learn about it and then run a workshop for everyone else.

Ensuring that we are always ahead of the latest technologies is embedded in the culture of the company.

What is next for Neueda in Ireland?

We are always hiring and we are halfway through a four-year plan for the Athlone site to get to the full 200 people. We believe that if you make a development site too big it becomes impersonal so if we want to continue to expand beyond that we are more likely to open another office, maybe on the west coast of Ireland. neueda.com

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12/02/2020 10:38

HONOURING Celebrating relationships

IDA Ireland celebrated Apple’s 40-year contribution to Ireland at an inaugural award event, Looking to the Future.

Bearing fruit WORDS BY

Ta ra C o rri st i n e

PHOTOS BY

Iain White Fennell Photography

Apple CEO Tim Cook IDAIRELAND.COM

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I

Pictured (L-R) Martin Shanahan CEO IDA Ireland, Tim Cook CEO Apple, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD, Frank Ryan Chairman IDA Ireland

DA IRELAND’S INAUGURAL SPECIAL R EC O G N I T I O N AWA R D R EC O G N I S I N G THE CONTRIBUTION OF ITS CLIENTS TO I R E L A N D WA S P R ES E N T E D BY A N TA O I S E A C H L E O V A R A D K A R A N D I D A I R E L A N D TO A P P L E , A N D A C C E P T E D B Y I T S C E O T I M C O O K , AT A S P E C I A L LO O K I N G TO T H E F U T U R E E V E N T I N T H E N AT I O N A L C O N C E R T H A L L I N J A N U A R Y, 2 0 2 0 .

“We are introducing this annual Special Recognition Award as we believe it is important that we celebrate the huge contribution our 1,500-plus FDI companies have made to Ireland,” explained CEO of IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan. “Foreign Direct Investment continues to be a substantive driver of the economy. Our client companies in Ireland have demonstrated longevity, resilience and continued commitment, creating jobs – the numbers directly employed in the multinational sector in Ireland is at an alltime high of 245,096 (10% of the Irish labour force) – and delivering enormous benefits to the national and regional economies. In introducing this award, we are also recognising the achievement that is Ireland’s proven ability to be an enduring partner for businesses with international ambitions. It is also an opportunity to showcase internationally the level and sophistication of FDI in Ireland.

“Apple has invested and reinvested in Cork for over 40 years now – Apple’s Cork site is an example of what is possible when a great company finds an exceptional pool of talent. Apple and its CEO have demonstrated continued commitment to Ireland over that 40 years – making Apple a very deserving recipient of this inaugural award. Having established in Cork in 1980 as its first operation in Europe, with 60 employees, the company has grown to become the

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valued employer of some 6,000 people.

The impact of Apple’s investment and innovation extends far beyond its own campus to the hundreds of companies and merchants across the country who benefit from Apple’s presence in Ireland.”

An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar spoke of Apple’s role in Ireland’s success as a centre of excellence for technology, saying, “Only four years after it was founded, Apple opened a factory in Hollyhill in Cork, employing 60 people. Today Apple is Cork’s largest employer with 6,000 people of over 100 different nationalities and is a global operation. During this period, Ireland has become the tech capital of Europe. We succeeded by looking to the future, opening our country to trade and competition.

“As a country we continue to look to the future. With Global Ireland 2025, we are doubling our footprint across the globe, opening new embassies and consulates, expanding some of the ones we currently have, and investing in agencies like IDA Ireland, so we can attract investment from outside our traditional target markets. We are particularly focused on attracting investment to locations outside of Dublin.

“This inaugural award recognises the contribution Apple has made to Ireland over the past 40 years, and it reminds us of all that can be achieved.”

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO praised the Irish team for their commitment to the company and its customers. “Ireland has been a

second home for Apple for 40 years and this honour is even more special for us because it recognises the contributions of our incredible team here who work tirelessly to serve our customers around the country, and around the world. I believe deeply that our most important work together is still ahead of us, and I’m grateful to the people of Ireland for their commitment to openness, to innovation and to the cooperation that will make possible the next generation of world-changing ideas.”

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Martin Shanahan CEO IDA Ireland

Tim Cook’s address to the audience I accept this award on Apple’s behalf... as a symbol of our unshakeable commitment to, and investment in, this place we have called home for 40 years, almost as long as Apple itself has existed. We chose Cork to be our first operation outside of Cupertino and our gateway to our European customers for good reason.

It sits at a geopolitical, economic and cultural crossroads, where the winds of innovation and opportunity blow freely.

While getting ready for this trip, I went back and watched a 1980 RTÉ interview between Apple’s founder Steve Jobs and Pat Kenny.

Steve was 25 then, Pat not much older. And Pat asked him, with no small hint of scepticism, ‘Do you actually believe that every home is going to have its own personal computer within the next few years?’ You know, we can laugh now. But it was a fair question then. We have always had our doubters. But nobody ever went far wrong by betting on the people of Cork to achieve the impossible. As the saying goes, Tús maith, leath na hoibre. A good start is half, the work.

It is no exaggeration to say that Cork gave Apple the sure foundation that made us the company we are today. Those first 60 employees took a chance on an idea that seemed a little crazy in 1980. Today we have nearly 6,000 employees across Ireland. In Cork, our employees are made up of 104 nationalities.

And they tell the story of Ireland’s welcoming and inclusive culture, it’s commitment to attracting and developing the top talent, and its resolute belief that we can do great things when we do them together.

And as we look forward to our next decades together, Apple could not be more grateful for your partnership and your leadership.

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Martin Shanahan spoke with Tim Cook about Ireland’s role in Apple’s success.

Why does a small country like Ireland matter to Apple?

The history of Apple in Ireland shows that Ireland is not internally fixated but focused on its place in the world and connecting, and for a company like Apple that is run functionally, our organisation itself doesn’t produce the products that make the heart sing. It’s the connections that do. It’s the fact that we can work with 105 or 104 nationalities of people because great diversity produces the best results. And there’s not a place in the world that’s better at that than Ireland. That is the truth. The team here is just awesome.

No doubt people might expect me to ask you about the European Commission decision in relation to tax, have you any comments to make in relation to this?

First of all, we think taxes are critical and, in fact, we’re the largest tax payer in the world and we do so willingly. The situation with the Commission is that they have a different perspective on who we should pay them to, and the way that we look at it, and I believe this is the way Ireland looks at it as well, and it’s certainly the way the US Government looks at it, is that we have paid them per the law. We followed the law and paid them accordingly. It’s very complex to know how to tax a

multinational, is the reality of it, because where a small business does all of their stuff generally in one country, a multinational might manufacture in one country, service in another, sell in another, do R&D in another.

Somebody has to decide, how do you apportion the profits and therefore, the tax payments? I think this is a really reasonable subject for people to debate on a forward basis and I think reasonable people can have different points of view and I think the place for that to happen is at a worldwide level, because you can bet that each country is going to have a different point of view, and each company, and companies shouldn’t have anything to do with this. It should just be, follow the law. And so, the OECD, I think, is the place for this. We supported OECD process of deciding in the future how the profits are split up, and so forth, and we desperately want it to be fair. In terms of going backwards, this is where the issue comes in with the Commission. We believe that law should not be retrofitted. That the law is the law, and the law can change going forward, but it shouldn’t change going backward, and so that is at the heart of the case, if you just make it very simple. It is before the court now, and we have great faith in the justice system so, we’ll see how that all comes out.

You have 6,000 people employed in Ireland, what’s your impression of the talent here?

A+. I am thrilled, we’re thrilled to be here, and I think the reason is, the educational system has been good.

You have spoken about diversity and inclusion. Is that something which just makes good business sense or is that more personal for you?

It’s both, it is personal, and it does make good business. The good business sense is that we found, and I think other companies are finding the same thing, is that your results are better, the more diverse you are. You create better products if you have people that have a different lens and a different life experience. I’m so thrilled Cork is one of our most diverse sites, with 104 nationalities represented. But it is also personal because I’ve always believed since I was a kid that the world would be so much better if everyone just treated each other with dignity and respect.

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Extract taken from Q&A session.

What about your first visit to Ireland made an impression upon you and what has changed in the intervening period?

My very first trip to Ireland was in early 1998 and Apple was not doing well. It was a very difficult time. I had just joined the company, Steve had recently come back to the company, had named a new executive team and we were in a mode of survival. So that’s the setting for my first trip to Ireland. I came knowing that we needed to dramatically reduce the cost of operations. I remember thinking going into the meeting, ‘I’m not sure we can stay.’ It was that dire. I then remember exiting the meeting thinking, ‘we must stay,’ because I saw in the people there a work ethic, an openness, a deep knowledge and expertise that was unparalleled. I had one thing in my mind coming and left with something else. It hasn’t changed from that first trip, at the end of that meeting. The thing that has made Apple in Ireland are the people, it’s people and relationships.

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PROFILE The Disruptor

The Disruptor Raja Puthenchira Raman EU DIRECTOR OF SALES & SERVICE, W AY F A I R

AT A GLANCE

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SALES & SERVICE E M P L O Y E E S G L O B A L LY

3,200+ 19.1 million 14 million $8.6 bil ion CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE

“The team in Galway has been a huge driver of Wayfair’s growth across the region.”

How is Wayfair disrupting the traditional approach to selling homewares?

Wayfair is one of the world’s largest online destinations for the home, with more than 14 million items across home furnishings and decor.

Wayfair has a 100 per cent in-house customer service team – including a growing hub in Galway and virtual teams across each province in Ireland – that helps reinvent the way people shop for their homes.

Wayfair has completely changed the game in shopping for the home with advances in technology and innovation, making it easier than ever for shoppers to find exactly what they want across a worldclass selection of furniture and decor. From product discovery and selection, to purchase and delivery, all of Wayfair’s success is driven by its people: it’s a dynamic environment where our best-inclass talent moves fast, solves hard problems and consistently innovates to deliver for our customers. One example of this is our in-house developed technology platforms that ensure both a seamless customer experience and empowers employees in handling customer queries.

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How is the Irish operation helping you to stay ahead of your competitors?

Galway has been a hub for our exceptional sales and service team in Europe for more than eleven years, and the team here has been a huge driver of Wayfair’s growth across the region. We’ve had tremendous support from the Irish government through IDA Ireland to help expand this Best-In-Class team over the years, and demonstrate that Wayfair is a compelling environment to attract top talent. We foster a collaborative, entrepreneurial approach where we encourage employees to be problem-solvers and handle issues independently.

This combined with a wide range of competitive benefits and roles across several functions, from customer service, finance, supplier operations, recruitment, as well as our remote virtual roles, has positioned Wayfair Galway as a strong employer of choice in the region.

What is next for Wayfair in Ireland?

We’re demonstrating our commitment to the region by continuing to expand our team in Ireland as our business grows. We’re looking to hire an additional 225 roles to our virtual team globally before the end of the year. The virtual team has allowed us to tap into all of Ireland and provide new employment opportunities to a wider range of highly qualified candidates. These virtual employees share the same benefits as all Wayfair employees but with additional flexibility to work from home.

PRODUCT OFFERING

REVENUE

(SEPT 18-19)

What is success to you?

Success means a strong team that feels empowered by the work they do each day. We’re focused on growing and developing our exceptional talent in Europe to deliver consistent, excellent customer service to our growing customer base here. We’re dedicated to giving our employees a strong path for growth, mobility within the company across various teams and levels, and the freedom to offer ideas for improvement to perfect the customer experience. wayfair.co.uk 5 GOLDEN RULES FOR BUSINESS • •

• • •

Keep the customer experience top of mind every step of the way.

Differentiate from competitors by cultivating and developing a strong, talented team.

Use data as the core foundation for efficient problem solving.

Encourage entrepreneurship and innovation at all levels.

Ensure scalability across every initiative.

IDAIRELAND.COM

12/02/2020 10:54

DISRUPTING

Researchers at Tenable Ireland are leading the charge against cyber threats in the everchanging landscape of our online economy. Thomas Parsons, Head of Tenable in Ireland, explains.

Thomas Parsons

WORDS BY

Front line defense

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R G A N I S AT I O N S O F A L L S I Z ES H AV E E M B R A C E D D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N TO C R E AT E N E W B U S I N ES S M O D E L S A N D EC O SYS T E M S , D E L I V E R N E W P R O D U CTS AND SERVICES , AND OPERATE MORE EFFICIENTLY IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY.

New digital compute platforms and development shifts such as cloud, mobile, SaaS and DevOps have made it possible to move from concept to capability on a daily basis. Physical devices and systems of all types – from corporate conference systems to power grids – are now network-connected and programmable, creating even more opportunities for digital transformation.

However, as with life, this connectivity and functionality isn’t without risks.

INCREASED THREAT LANDSCAPE While technology has revolutionised the workplace, in tandem, cyber threats have also materialised. We’ve seen corporate defences

fall with malware that encrypts data or causes systems to fail. Vast databases have been discovered with personal information exposed.

Websites are knocked offline or payment systems compromised to steal card details.

Today’s reality is that cyber risk is business risk, which means cybersecurity is a critical business function and needs to be treated as such. It’s part and parcel of doing business today and getting it wrong can be extremely costly and damaging. It’s not just about protecting customer data, although that’s obviously a key element, but also the systems that organisations rely upon for critical business functions.

Traditional ways of tracking systems and vulnerabilities with spreadsheets are IDAIRELAND.COM

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insufficient when it comes to addressing today’s dynamic threat landscape. In addition, security professionals are not the only ones who must be aware of the risks facing their environments. Given the potential impact of any damage, executive leaders and company boards also need to understand where their organisation is exposed and to what extent.

DATA-DRIVEN INTELLIGENCE When it comes to security, business leaders want clear, concise answers that explain how much risk the company is exposed to; if there are critical assets within the company that need immediate attention, and how the business compares with others in the industry as well as the general corporate population.

Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) need to demonstrate a holistic cybersecurity approach and help the board understand how to view and quantify cyber risk, right alongside every other business risk.

To produce these concise answers, a datadriven analytical approach is required. After all, there are many different sources of cybersecurity information and threat data that are needed to properly explain the current threat landscape. Cyber exposure is an emerging discipline for managing and measuring cyber risk in the digital era. It translates raw vulnerability data into business insights to help security teams prioritise and focus remediation based on business risk.

Tenable has built one of the industry’s largest dedicated research teams to do just that – bringing together deep vulnerability expertise with human intelligence, much of which is based out of our EMEA HQ in Ireland. The Irish site opened in 2017 and houses Development, Tenable Research, Support and Renewals teams and other related functions.

As defenders, we need to have a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw upon in order to outpace the attackers. The Tenable Research team bridges experiences as varied as cybersecurity, insurance, academia, and even professional poker playing, bringing unique perspectives to assessing risk using data while under pressure and in dynamic environments. We rely on this expertise to share with the community and help our customers to find and fix vulnerabilities faster and more accurately.

Our data scientists collect over 150 different aspects of data on each of the 130,000+ 22

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“The Tenable Research team bridges experiences as varied as cybersecurity, insurance, academia, and even professional poker playing, bringing unique perspectives to assessing risk using data while under pressure and in dynamic environments.”

vulnerabilities Tenable tracks, which can range from threat intelligence, to vulnerability data, to information from exploit kits and frameworks, to data gleaned from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database (NIST NVD). Other information can come from tracking discussions on vulnerabilities in social media and blog posts, security DID YOU KNOW? vendor advisories, technical reports and malware scans.

Earlier this year, Tenable’s research team The work these teams do builds discovered a vulnerability in the Slack on the Common Vulnerability Scoring Desktop Application for Windows that could System (CVSS) rating by not only have allowed an attacker to send a crafted determining how severe a hyperlink via a Slack message that, once vulnerability is, but predicting the clicked, changes the document download likelihood bad actors are to leverage it in the wild. location path to an attacker-owned file share. By exploiting the flaw, an attacker can not only steal future documents downloaded RATING RISK within Slack, but they can also manipulate Using new, cutting-edge technology, them, such as injecting malicious code that they’ve developed a proprietary would compromise the victim’s machine machine-learning algorithm that once opened. analyses the collected data to identify “The digital economy and global which vulnerabilities have the highest distributed workforce have brought new likelihood of exploitation. These are technologies to market with the ultimate given a Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR), which automatically indicates goal of seamless connectivity,” said the remediation priority for each. For Renaud Deraison, Co-founder and Chief example, a vulnerability currently Technology Officer, Tenable. “But it’s being exploited on a widely deployed critical that organisations realise this service would have a significantly emerging technology is potentially higher rating than a vulnerability for vulnerable and part of their expanding which no working exploit has been attack surface. Tenable Research observed. The VPR is a dynamic value continues to work with vendors such as and changes with the threat Slack to disclose our discoveries to ensure landscape. VPR dramatically reduces consumers and organisations are secure.” the number of critical and high vulnerabilities – allowing organisations to focus first on the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest business risk.

The team has also developed another unique, machine learning algorithm that helps enterprises and CISOs prioritise their assets based on indicators of business value and impact to the firm. Unlike VPR, which is an absolute value, the Asset Criticality Ranking (ACR) is a subjective measurement, modifiable by the user. ACR automates asset-criticality assessment by using metadata collected from the environment and applying a rules-based approach that relies on three

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“The team has also developed another unique, machinelearning algorithm that helps enterprises and CISOs prioritise their assets based on indicators of business value and impact to the firm.”

key pillars: internet exposure, device type, and device functionality. With ACR, the research team has built in a feature that allows for customer feedback when it comes to ranking an asset. The reason is simple: users know their applications and assets best, and can determine if a particular component needs more or less attention. A lower-criticality asset usually has less impact under threat. For example, IT management, proxy servers and mail servers tend to have high criticality.

Meanwhile, IP telephones and printers typically have medium or low criticality.

PLUGIN POWER Tenable also has a team of reverse engineers and vulnerability researchers that leverage their deep vulnerability expertise to ensure organisations and consumers are secure. As information about new vulnerabilities is discovered and released into the public domain, Tenable Research designs ABOVE: Thomas programmes to detect them. These Parsons, Head of programmes are named plugins and are Tenable in Ireland written in the Nessus Attack Scripting RIGHT: Tenable Language (NASL). The plugins contain Dublin vulnerability information, a simplified set of remediation actions and the algorithm to test for the presence of the security issue. Over the years, the team has published 136,761 plugins, covering 53,445 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures IDs and 30,317 Bugtraq IDs. Members of Tenable Research are focused on transforming vulnerability data into strategic insights. They have published a number of papers, including The Attacker’s Advantage, which explores who has the first-mover advantage – cybercriminals or security teams. The paper examined the difference in time between when an exploit is publicly available for a given vulnerability and the first time that security teams actually assess their systems. Having analysed the 50 most prevalent critical and high-severity vulnerabilities from just under 200,000 vulnerability assessment scans over a three-month period, the team found that all too often the attackers have the advantage.

On average, they have a seven-day head start on defenders.

AT A L G ANCE

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2002 1,000+ EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE

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ZERO-DAY DISCOVERIES We are also the first and only vulnerability management vendor to surpass 100 zero-day discoveries in a single year. Some of the team’s most notable discoveries this year include a vulnerability in Slack that could be used for corporate espionage or file manipulation, and flaws in Verizon routers that left millions of consumers exposed. We firmly believe that the more zero-days we find and disclose, the fewer there are for bad actors to covertly leverage.

We’re committed to working alongside both vendors and the entire security community to identify, disclose and patch vulnerable technology to help keep everyone more secure.

Taking a data-driven, risk-based approach that is underpinned by human intelligence is a game changer when it comes to managing and measuring cyber risk. The work we’re doing in Ireland is empowering organisations to translate their technical data into business insights, by leveraging the power of machine learning and data science, to provide the most holistic view of their cyber exposure. Using this intelligence, both CISOs and business leaders understand one another and more importantly understand what is needed to drive improvements and optimise security investments that ultimately reduces the risk to the business.

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REWARDING Excellent investment

Award-winning investment The 2019 Invest In Ireland Awards recognised the contribution and leadership of the foreign direct investment sector in Ireland.

H E I N V ES T I N I R E L A N D AWA R D S R E WA R D E XC E L L E N C E I N T H E I N WA R D F O R E I G N D I R ECT I N V ES T M E N T S ECTO R I N T H E R E P U B L I C O F I R E L A N D , A N D T H I S Y E A R ’ S C E R E M O N Y R EC O G N I S E D D ES E R V I N G W I N N E R S A C R O S S E I G H T C AT EG O R I ES , I N C LU D I N G R & D , R EG I O N A L I N V ES T M E N T, S TA F F U P S K I L L I N G , C S R , D I V E R S I T Y, E M E R G I N G I N V ES T M E N T A N D S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y. B EC K M A N C O U LT E R I R E L A N D P I C K E D U P T H E G R A N D P R I X AWA R D A N D WA S A L S O N A M E D W I N N E R I N T H E R EG I O N A L I N V ES T M E N T C AT EG O RY A N D C O M M I T M E N T TO S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y C AT EG O R I ES .

Speaking at the gala awards event, which took place at The Intercontinental Hotel Dublin in November, Martin Shanahan, CEO IDA Ireland said, “The Invest In Ireland Awards are a celebration of FDI companies in Ireland and acknowledgment of leadership in those companies. The contribution of FDI to the economy is fundamental to supporting the health, education and welfare of our citizens. I would like to congratulate all recipients of the awards.”

The awards are partnered by IDA Ireland, CPL Resources PLC, Independent News and Media, Vistra Ireland and William Fry Solicitors. investinirelandawards.ie

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REWARDING Excellent investment

T H E I N V ES T I N I R E L A N D AWA R D W I N N E R S 2 0 1 9 FDI HERO 2019

Catherine Duffy, Northern Trust

The FDI Hero Award recognises an individual who has, across the course of their career, made an outstanding contribution to the Inward Investment Sector in Ireland.

C O M M I T M E N T TO S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Beckman Coulter Ireland

This award recognises the contribution of foreign-owned organisations towards sustainability and sustainable development in the Republic of Ireland.

E XC E L L E N C E I N R EG I O N A L I N V ES T M E N T & GRAND PRIX 2019

Beckman Coulter Ireland

A key platform for a successful FDI strategy is balanced investment across the country. This category rewards excellence in FDI projects that take place outside of the two major FDI hubs in the Republic of Ireland (Dublin City and Cork City).

Winner of Lifetime Achievement – FDI Hero Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards is Catherine Duffy Senior Vice President Northern Trust (L-R) Mary Buckley Executive Director IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan CEO IDA Ireland, Catherine Duffy Senior Vice President Northern Trust, Dr Orlaigh Quinn Secretary General Dept Business Enterprise & Innovation

Winners of Grand Prix, Commitment to Sustainability and Excellence in Regional Investment Awards are Beckman Coulter Ireland. (L-R) Karen Kelly Senior HR Manager Beckman Coulter, Orlaith Lawler Senior Director / Site Lead Beckman Coulter, Martin Shanahan CEO IDA Ireland, Bryan Tobin EH&S Manager Beckman Coulter

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REWARDING Excellent investment

C S R I N I T I AT I V E

West Pharma

Organisations do not exist in a vacuum and integration with the community in which they operate is crucial. This category recognises CSR projects undertaken by inward investment companies in the Republic of Ireland.

Winners of CSR Initiative Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards are West Pharma (L-R) Sinéad Donnelly Executive Assistant West, Donal O’Donovan Business Editor @Independent_ie and Emma Kilgallon Human Resource Manager West

U S E O F R & D AWA R D

Fidelity Investments

This award recognises the contribution of foreign-owned organisations involved in research and development in the Republic of Ireland.

Winners of Use of R&D Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards are Fidelity Investments. (L-R) Conor McDonnell Chief Administrative Officer Fidelity Investments Ireland, Neil Squires Partner Vistra Group Ireland and Fintan O’Malley Senior Project Manager Fidelity Investments Ireland

O R G A N I S AT I O N A L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

Sanofi

Many inward-investing organisations pivot from their original strategy to adapt to changing business conditions and to take advantage of new and emerging opportunities.

This category honours the best of these.

Winners of Organisational Transformation Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards are Sanofi (L-R) Aaron Morris Analytical Sciences Manager Sanofi Waterford, Andrew McIntyre Inward Investment Partner William Fry Law and James O’Meara Analytical Sciences Team Lead Sanofi Waterford

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REWARDING Excellent investment

E M E R G I N G B U S I N ES S I N V ES T M E N T

ConsenSys

This award honours the outstanding inward investment made by a dynamic, high growth, early stage company with the potential to grow exponentially and create a large number of jobs.

Below: Winners of Emerging Business Investment of the Year Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards are ConsenSys (L-R) Aislinn Kelly Senior Product Designer ConsenSys, Claire Fitzpatrick Strategic Director ConsenSys, Sean McGrath Programme Manager ConsenSys, Lory Kehoe Managing Director ConsenSys, John Callahan Senior Consultant ConsenSys, Peter Squires Partner VistraGroup Ireland, Eoin Connolly Technology Director ConsenSys, Kean Gilbert Solutions Consultant ConsenSys, Oisin Kyne Product Manager ConsenSys and Shane McGovern DevOps C ­ onsenSys

C O M M I T M E N T TO D I V E R S I T Y AWA R D

VMware International Ltd

Diversity is a key component of any successful organisation and this category highlights the best examples of diversity programmes in FDI companies in the Republic of Ireland.

Winners of Commitment to Diversity Award in the 2019 Invest in Ireland Awards are VMware International (L-R) Sarah O’Donnell Senior Manager DMT Strategy & Operations VMware and Caitriona Erdpohl HR Management Partner VMware

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EVOLVING New IDA Ireland HQ

Gráinne Rothery talks to Martin Shanahan as IDA Ireland looks to the future from a different perspective: its new global headquarters in Dublin city centre, Three Park Place.

WORDS BY Gráinne Rothery

T

he panoramic view from IDA Ireland’s brand new offices at Three Park Place is of a modern Dublin skyline punctuated by cranes – 50 to be exact, half of the total number in the capital at the moment. It is a fitting reflection of the extent of construction activity around the country and the inextricable link between IDA Ireland and the contracting industry.

Walking into the reception area of the agency’s new global headquarters on the eighth floor, you would be forgiven for thinking you were in one of its hightech multinational client’s offices. There is an immediate sense of style,

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New Moves sophistication and quality.

“Everything we have done with the building was with the aim of giving our clients an experience and to allow us to do business as efficiently and effectively as we can,” says IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan when we meet in the ‘Binchy Room’, named after writer Maeve Binchy.

Indeed all of the rooms are named after Irish writers, artists and musicians, a nice touch which clients are taken with so far.

Having been based at Wilton Park House for 35 years, IDA Ireland relocated to Three Park Place in mid-September on time and on budget having pursued a strong focus on value for money for the Exchequer during the process. The 35-

year lease on Wilton Park House expired on 31 October 2019.

“This move was one of necessity, not choice, as it wasn’t possible to renew our existing lease. Following a thorough and competitive tendering process, Three Park Place was selected with a lease of 25 years,” Shanahan explains.

Striving to ensure economies of scale for the Exchequer at every opportunity with this move, IDA Ireland is also facilitating and accommodating the relocation of three other State agencies to Three Park Place – Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and the Marine Institute.

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EVOLVING New IDA Ireland HQ

“The new location at Three Park Place will provide IDA Ireland with an excellent location from which to market to global investors and will enable us to bring the organisation through the next phase of growth.”

IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan

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EVOLVING New IDA Ireland HQ

About The New Space:

The building stretches over 170,000 sq. ft with the state agency occupying six floors, and the remaining three floors occupied by three other state agencies (see page 28). In keeping with modern work practises, the headquarters favours an open-plan design where agile and remote working is encouraged. The agency enjoyed 35 years at its previous address, Wilton Place, and IDA Ireland Executive Director Mary Buckley believes the new building provides the agency with an excellent location from which to market to global investors.

Three Park Place Green Credentials:

Sustainable building innovations include: Highest quality building envelope insulation values; Proprietary phase change material to Thermal Storage units to maximize efficiencies; LED lighting throughout with ‘Dali’ lighting control systems; Rain water harvesting; 65º Celsius / High Efficiency Gas Fired Water Heaters; CHP plant to generate renewable energy; Photovoltaic panels on roof linked to landlord board.

Article courtesy Irish Building Magazine (Issue 4 2019) Irishbuildingmagazine.ie

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PROFILE The Transformer

The Transformer Martin Gurren CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR AND DUBLIN SITE LEADER, AUTODESK

Au tod esk cr eate s softwa r e fo r the manufa c tu r in g , ar ch ite c tu r e, building, co n str u c tion , med ia a n d entertainmen t in d u str ies.

AT A L G ANCE

E S TA B L I S H E D I N

1982 100+ 10,000+ + 4 million 100 million+ $2.57 bil ion OFFICES WORLDWIDE

EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE

ACTIVE SUBSCRIPTIONS

“Dublin is a multi-cultural, creative and open-minded city, which fits really well with our culture.”

What are the disrupters facing your industry?

Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper or used a smartphone, chances are you’ve experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software.

Today we have a global population of 7.7 billion with 3.5 billion living in cities.

Over the next 30 years, it’s expected to grow to nearly 10 billion people – two-thirds of which will live in cities.

We will need to build new housing and supporting infrastructure to meet this growing population, as well as maintain, improve and protect our current built environment.

We recently partnered with a firm called Statista to calculate what was needed to meet this demand. As an industry, we’re going to have to build 13,000 buildings every day, and enough roads and rail to wrap around the earth 30 times every year.

As we plan for the inevitability of designing and building more, we need to balance this with the reality of using less. The workforce is changing, with new skills needed in the digital world and many existing workers retiring during this time. Our natural resources are diminishing, and industry must

lower its impact on the environment, creating less waste and using less energy.

To solve this fundamental capacity issue, we must rethink the way we design, make and build. This is the biggest design opportunity we have ever had.

How are you approaching these opportunities?

We cannot meet these future demands without technology. Automation provides the opportunity to do this better. We automate how things are designed in the digital world and made in the physical world. We help architects simulate how the buildings they design will perform before they’re built, and site workers construct them so they continue to perform after they’re built.

For example, prefabrication and Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) are proven methods of speeding up design and construction processes. Innovations in generative design, machine learning and robots will have a broader, more significant role in helping design and construction teams solve the skills labour gap, and deliver safer, more resilient and sustainable buildings and infrastructure.

How is the Irish talent pool helping to transform Autodesk’s global ambitions?

The Dublin office is the hub for Autodesk EMEA and home to functions ranging from engineering and software localisation, to technical support, client services and inbound sales. Collaborating with our colleagues worldwide are finance and operations, facilities, HR, and recruitment teams.

CUSTOMERS

REVENUE

In addition, we are growing a new team of marketing and business development representatives for construction solutions, supporting the EMEA business. We selected Dublin to host Autodesk’s EMEA headquarters because of its global business environment, access to multilingual talent and quality of life for employees. The success of our team in Ireland is reaffirmed by our recent expansion announcement. We have opened another floor in our offices in 1 Windmill Lane, with the potential to double our capacity to up to 400 staff over the coming years.

How has Ireland changed as a place to work and grow a business?

Ireland has become a much more international place to work. There’s been growth in service-focused industries due to the educated and digitally-focused workforce. There’s also a real strength in talent and diversity. Dublin is a multi-cultural, creative and open-minded city, which fits really well with our culture. autodesk.eu IDAIRELAND.COM

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

The Art of Attraction On display in Three Park Place, IDA Ireland’s new home, are five exceptional artworks that give a flavour of the exciting creativity to be found on these shores.

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

“In this work, Vanessa depicts how powerful attraction can be.”

VA N E S S A D O N O S O L Ó P E Z In her practice, Vanessa Donoso López explores concepts of transitional phenomena relevant to contemporary migrant life. Her work negotiates the tension between crosscultural identities and narratives, reflecting on its instability and complexity.

In this work, Vanessa depicts how powerful attraction can be. 70 stones symbolise both the anniversary and the multiplicity of companies with whom the IDA has been involved. She describes each stone as a “manuport”, a natural object so attractive to a human that they carry it with them to somewhere new – an experience that reflects the journey of those who, with the support of IDA Ireland, have found their home here.

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

“His interests are varied but commonly look at how humans interact with nature, both individually and as a society.”

PA U L H A L L A H A N Paul Hallahan’s practice takes formalistic ideas from the past and re-imagines them in today’s world. His interests are varied but commonly look at how humans interact with nature, both individually and as a society. These paintings are inspired by the mythical island of Hy-Brasil, thought to have lain off the west coast of Ireland, and only visible once every seven years. They create the idea of a place that comes in and out of focus, existing mostly in the imagination. While history has shown how Irish people have always travelled abroad to find work, IDA Ireland brought them back and, crucially, welcomed new people to Ireland. The works look out to Hy-Brasil, through the fog and to the hope and attraction that an unknown island can offer.

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

LUCY MCKENNA The work of NCAD graduate Lucy McKenna is concerned with the observation and restructuring of information systems which attempt to explain the universe and our place in it.

In her Plexiglass installation, Lucy uses actual information about IDA Ireland, its community and network. This data, in numerical form, represents all the ways that IDA Ireland has attracted business into Ireland, translated into shapes, patterns, colours and opacity, so that it becomes visual. It is a representation of the complex layering and connections within IDA Ireland’s network, emphasising the vibrancy and energy of their achievements.

“In her Plexiglass installation, Lucy uses actual information about IDA Ireland, its community and network.”

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

“Built out of found stones, stainless steel, beeswax and cast sugar, the work plays with notions of endurance within an idea of a sustainable landscape.”

R U T H E LY O N S Primarily working in large-scale sculpture, Ruth E Lyons is fascinated by the spectrum of human engagement with landscape throughout history.

Ruth’s work is a totemic sculpture in honour of bees. Built out of found stones, stainless steel, beeswax and cast sugar, the work plays with notions of endurance within an idea of a sustainable landscape. While the stones speak of legacy, sugar has more bodily and sensual connotations, bringing desire and attraction into the equation.

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CELEBRATING Artistic excellence

HELEN Mac MAHON Helen Mac Mahon’s interests lie in the phenomena of light, movement, perception and space and the artworks she creates observe and reveal the ecosystem that exists between the viewer and these intangible elements.

Her installation “Mealladh” (the Irish for attraction) is inspired by an element of IDA Ireland’s logo, specifically the three hexagon shapes. The hexagon shares symbolic associations with bees and their hives. Helen sees the bees’ industrious work towards a collective good as a powerful reflection of the current and historical endeavours of IDA Ireland on behalf of the nation.

“Her installation “Mealladh” (the Irish for attraction) is inspired by an element of IDA Ireland’s logo, specifically the three hexagon shapes. ”

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TRANSFORMING Diversity and Inclusion

WORDS BY Ta ra C o rri st i n e

PHOTOS BY Sarah Doyle

I

t was a college project that set Ailbhe Keane and her sister on a path to entrepreneurship. “My little sister, Izzy, was born with spina bifida and is paralysed from her waist down. Growing up she found it very frustrating and upsetting that her wheelchair was the first thing that people would notice about her but it wasn’t a reflection of her bright and bubbly personality. I studied art in the National College of Art and Design and in my final year, in 2016, I created a range of wheel covers for my sister’s chair that matched her outfits.”

Keane toyed with various prototypes before settling on a lightweight, waterproof and scratchproof plastic disc with three velcro straps.

“I created an Instagram account, @izzywheels, and began uploading photos of Izzy modeling the designs, and overnight the images went completely viral. One of our videos was viewed three million times in one day and suddenly we were getting messages from wheelchair users and artists from all over the world. We decided to launch an online store selling our designs and have never looked back.”

As creative director, Ailbhe is at the helm of the business while Izzy takes an ambassador role while she studies Sociology, Politics and French in NUI Galway. “I’ve been full time with Izzy Wheels since I left college. Ireland has been a really wonderful place for us to start. It’s a small country so people look out for each other.

Enterprise Ireland supported us from the outset, taking us onto the New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development programme in 2016. They gave us funding, business training and office space.

We then moved to the National Digital Research Centre in 2017, a lovely coworking startup space in Dublin 8 where we are still based and we’re really happy there.”

The company sells directly to customers in 35 countries. “We do all of our tradings online through our website and social media channels.

Having an online store has meant we can be a global business but can still operate from Dublin.

All of our wheel covers are manufactured and packaged here in Ireland, too.”

Keane looked to the Irish design community when creating the initial collection, working with

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Wheelsof

Change Izzy Wheels is an awardwinning range of decorated wheel covers featuring illustrations by international artists and designers. We speak to co-founder Ailbhe Keane about inclusivity, authenticity and working with a cultural icon.

Ailbhe (left) and Izzy Keane

artists such as Fuchsia MacAree and Maser, a move that launched the brand into the media spotlight. “Collaborating with brands has been key to our success. Having gone to NCAD I had some really good contacts so I reached out to friends or illustrators whose work I really admired and our first collaboration collection was with ten amazing Irish designers. It exploded in the press and we were contacted by artists from all over the world asking how they could get involved. We’ve had over a thousand applications from all sorts of artists, brands and studios. The quality of design is really important so I’m very selective about who we work with.”

The collection now counts over 70 colourful

and contemporary designs from the likes of Helen Steele and Malika Favre and international fashion designer Orla Kiely. “I was delighted to be approached to design wheel covers for Izzy Wheels,” Kiely says. “Colour and pattern can bring so much joy and to apply both to something so vital in people’s lives to me was an absolute honour. I love the result.”

Other people obviously did too, and earlier this year, one of the world’s most recogniseable brands got in touch. “Mattel reached out to us and told us that they loved our brand and were really keen to work with us on a collection to celebrate Barbie’s 60th birthday. It was important to us that kids have dolls that represent them

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Barbie x

Izzy

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TRANSFORMING at

Diversity and Inclusion

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and, as a child, if you see a doll that uses a wheelchair it just normalises it from a really young age.”

“It was really special to be part of that and be able to make Barbie’s chair something that wasn’t just medical it was also cool. Barbie’s wheel covers go with her outfits, reinforcing that wheelchair users can be stylish and fashionable.”

The sisters worked with Mattel to create four Barbie-inspired designs for the new wheelchair Barbie doll and a limited edition collection for full-sized wheelchairs, and it was important that the partnership be authentic, rather than a nod to inclusivity.

elie

“It’s part of the Fashionistas range of Barbies – there’s a Barbie with braids, with curves, with prosthetic limbs. We wanted to ensure it wasn’t just for PR, there is a huge amount of that in the fashion industry at the moment.” She points out that large brands may feature a wheelchair user in a fashion show or advertising campaign but fail to consider their needs around cuffs or pockets when designing their clothing. “It’s a huge problem in the fashion industry, and people need to be more aware of that.”

The partnership had other benefits for the company too. “We learned so much from working with a company that size, around issues like brand licensing and maintaining creative control, and it’s opened a lot of other doors for us since. We have been contacted by loads of other brands and we have two huge collaborations coming next year and that’s off our learnings from Barbie and the reach it offered us.”

Collaborations with well-known brands further the effort to ‘normalise’ differentlyabled people and Keane feels that Ireland is slowly but surely becoming more inclusive.

“Employment for people with disabilities is very important for society. Companies need to make more of an effort to secure jobs for people with disabilities and make their workspaces accessible. They need to be made aware of their needs from the top and we need more people of diversity in boardrooms giving their inputs. Sinead Burke is doing phenomenal work speaking to people in power about the needs of her community.”

She believes that a lack of communication could be hindering this effort. “I think a lot of employers are nervous about talking about disability, even the terminology, as they are afraid of offending people. There are companies that would love to have people with disabilities in their workforce and in their boardrooms, so it’s about letting people know that those jobs are out there.”

The pair’s achievements have led to numerous awards and accolades including Accenture Leaders of Tomorrow Award, Cosmopolitan Influencer of the Year Award and Forbes 30 Under 30. “It’s really nice to be recognised with awards but overall the people we meet throughout the process are the most valuable. We are really passionate about what we do: we are a company that creates a product but it’s a lot more than that, it’s the message, the ethos of disability positivity.”

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THRIVING Region in focus

DIGITAL DISTRICT

THIRD LEVEL LINKS

Excellent third-level colleges in the region offer a steady stream of high quality graduates: The Institute of Technology Carlow and Waterford Institute of Technology, as well as LIT Clonmel Campus and LIT Thurles Campus, two schools of Limerick Institute of Technology. These educational bodies are highly engaged with industry, offering focused course content. “IT Carlow and Waterford IT have played a significant role in showcasing the capabilities of the region to international talent when they come here. For example, Unum’s engagement with IT Carlow has been a pivotal force in the growth of the Unum Carlow site.”

Supporting this educational platform are the research centres, three of which are based in WIT’s campus. The Telecommunications IDA Ireland Regional Business Development Software and Systems Group (TSSG) areas include mobile platforms Manager for the South East, Brendan McDonald and services, data analytics and social computing, adaptive networks and services and reveals how a strong talent pipeline combined with augmented and virtual reality. “TSSG is a huge government, industry and educational supports has influencer in the mobile app world and in telecommunications software, so that’s driving led to a thriving technology cluster. a lot of innovation in the region as well.” The South Eastern Applied Materials Research Centre (SEAM) provides innovative materials engineering solutions for sectors such as biomedical devices, pharmaceuticals, Brendan McDonald microelectronics and precision engineering. The Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) supports research and development activities within the H E S O U T H E A S T R EG I O N O F pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. “When IRELAND HAS EMERGED AS A companies are looking to grow, not only their graduate DY N A M I C T EC H N O LO GY C LU S T E R , pool, but also the learning piece, the interaction with the Institutes of Technology is very important.”

AT T R A CT I N G I N N O VAT I V E

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LONG-TERM RETENTION

VA R I E T Y O F S ECTO R S I N C LU D I N G

The South East region offers a greater work-life balance which not only attracts high calibre talent, but retains L I F E S C I E N C ES A N D M E D I C A L them, according to McDonald. “If you want to give people T EC H N O LO G I ES , F I N T EC H A N D the gift of time, we would very much encourage them to come to the South East region. You’ve got much CY B E R S EC U R I T Y, T E L EC O M S shorter commute times and lower costs of living, as E N G I N E E R I N G A N D R ES E A R C H , well as ease of access to mountains, the sea, greenways A N D C U S TO M E R S E R V I C E . and blueways. You’ll have employees who are going to be more engaged and happier from the point of view of retention. In urban locations of scale, the quality of life may be more challenging.”

According to IDA Ireland Regional Business Development Manager for the South East, Brendan McDonald, this regional cluster covers PROPERTY POSSIBILITIES all aspects of software development as well as technical support The region offers the ability to grow and scale with a range of for the various different industries as companies look to solve the property solutions, from IDA Ireland-owned sites to modern office problems of other sectors. “There are a lot of tech companies doing campuses and co-working spaces. Construction was completed globally significant functions here.” on IDA’s second Advanced Building Solution (ABS) in Waterford The South East region has much to offer both investors and in July 2019, the only location in the country to have a second employees: it consists of five counties, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, ABS. Co-working spaces offer a convenient starting point and Kilkenny and South Tipperary, has a population of over 510,000 have proved popular with international organisations in the growth and a workforce of 220,000. The area produces over 5,000 phase. When establishing their software development and CAD graduates a year and is home to over 70 multinationals, and is support centre in Ireland, Allstate Sales Group (ASG) looked to within a two-hour drive of three international airports.

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THRIVING Region in focus

WorkLAB, a co-working space in Waterford. “These ready-made landing spaces are a very attractive value proposition for companies because they don’t have to sign up to long-term leases,” says McDonald. “It’s all about ease of doing business in regional locations. The business community and stakeholders have come together to make starting an operation in the South East as seamless as possible.”

the services side – they are the gold dust behind the hardware and software. I would not have been able to recruit those people if it meant travelling for an hour to an office. We also have a very highlyskilled technical person who lives in Wexford. He had many job opportunities in Dublin but didn’t want to spend his life travelling, so this worked out well for us.

ONGOING SUPPORT Government and industry-led supports are also helping to draw new entrants to the area, with the aim of creating enduring relationships. “In the IDA Ireland regional offices, we can take a deeper dive into everything from helping a company find that initial property offering, to assisting recruitment, to interacting with the various stakeholders such as the county council, to connecting with the third level institute. We have an effective ‘full service’ local offering where we can not only help companies at the outset of their investment journey but become their partner as they build, grow and scale their operation – it’s trying to problem-solve any question or query that they may have as they build out their teams, becoming a key strategic partner agency for the long term.”

Crystal Valley Tech is an industry-led group that was launched in February 2018 with the assistance of the IDA Ireland South East Regional Team. The aim of this industry tech group is to showcase the growing technology cluster in the region, its capabilities and activities. “The aim is to build a tech community that everyone can benefit from. Its three pillars are the promotion of the tech scene; recruitment and fostering a sense of collaboration around recruitment; education and collaboration with the third level institutions, and regional skills forum where all stakeholders in the education arena come together to discuss issues that are relevant to overall skills in the various different sectors. It’s growing and will become even more influential in the years to come.”

GRANDPAD WEXFORD

Dr Edwina Dunne, Business Director, GrandPad Europe

Dr Edwina Dunne, Business Director, GrandPad Europe IDA Ireland was instrumental in showing GrandPad a number of locations. We picked Gorey because it’s just an hour from Dublin Airport, it has access to very skilled people who would work from home, and The Hatch Lab. We loved the shared office space at The Hatch Lab: it’s an impressive new building that offers excellent accommodation possibilities for a new emerging company. It also offers the opportunity to network with others. I’ve sourced promotional materials and storage space through connections I’ve made here.

Remote working is the method for the GrandPad Service people and Gorey offers the mix of technical and soft skills we need. We’ve been able to access five highly-skilled, knowledgeable people on

RED HAT WAT E R F O R D

James Mernin, Director, Cloud Services, Red Hat Red Hat set up an R&D base in Waterford in 2014 when it acquired FeedHenry, a start-up company founded in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) that specialised in mobile and cloud technologies.

Since then, the number of Red Hat departments with a footprint in Waterford has grown significantly, largely due to the strong regional talent pool which is supported by a strong graduate pipeline from WIT. People see Red Hat as quite the tech beacon, locally and regionally, and we enjoy a healthy number of quality applications for our open roles. We’ve had a number of people relocate to Waterford also, because they want to work for Red Hat, it being the world’s leader in open source, who are surprised and delighted to find Red Hat has a base here.

They are also pleasantly surprised Red Hat’s office in Waterford to see the growing number of other tech companies in the region, and the other developments happening, such as the North Quays development and the airport expansion. The cost of living is less here than other parts of the country, commute times are excellent and you can be on a beach within ten minutes. That all adds up. Making decisions based on that, it’s a good time to move to the sunny South East.

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UNUM

Colette Lane, Chief Administration Officer, Unum

C A R LO W

Colette Lane, Chief Administration Officer, Unum Unum’s Carlow operation is the IT Centre of Excellence for the Unum Group and we chose to locate here to draw on the wide pool of talent across the South East that wanted to avoid a lengthy commute to Dublin, and the advantage of having the Institute of Technology, Carlow on our doorstep.

The collaboration with IT Carlow has been truly excellent. Around 30 per cent of the workforce joined as graduates of the Institute and we have also secured former graduates who were working in Dublin and were keen to return home and settle here. Each year, we hire in 10-12 interns whom we set up in a software lab in the college and they are terrific strategic partners for Unum.

While we are able to secure strong graduate talent, more senior positions and highly specialised tech roles take a little longer to fill.

However, this year we have had great success attracting overseas talent to work in Unum who love the cost-effective renting options and hasslefree commuting compared to the larger cities, enabling us to build a strong diverse inclusive workforce.

Unum is very fortunate to have access to so many great regional clusters on its doorstep, including Crystal Valley Tech, the South East Regional Skills Forum, Skillnet Carlow which has an ICT sector, and most importantly the Institute of Technology in Carlow and its recently established Insurtech Network Centre. Unum is partnering closely with its Business Development Manager Aidan Mahon on a number of initiatives in the data analytics space that are relevant to both Unum and other insurance companies in the South East.

AB AGRI KILKENNY

John McCurdy, Technical Director, Intellync

John McCurdy, Technical Director, Intellync AB Agri is a leading international agricultural business operating across the agri-food industry. Kilkenny has been selected as the location for a new Technology Centre for Intellync, our data and technology business. Intellync works across agricultural supply chains with major food processors, retailers and directly with farmers, developing new generations of technology solutions that will increase productivity, improve animal health and enhance corporate responsibility programmes.

We have just begun recruiting for graduates and experienced engineers and have been very successful so far. The collaborative spirit across industry, education and government is one of the core reasons for

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choosing Kilkenny. Waterford Institute of Technology, Carlow Institute of Technology, the Local Enterprise Office and Kilkenny County Council have been extremely helpful.

BOSTON SCIENTIFIC S O U T H T I P P E R A RY

Conor Russell, Vice President Operations, Boston Scientific, Clonmel Boston Scientific has three strategic locations here, Galway, Cork and Clonmel, and employs Conor Russell, President over 5,500 people. Here in Clonmel, we are in Vice Operations at operation since 1998 and we primarily focus on Boston Scientific long-term implantable electronic devices such as pacemakers, defibrillators, spinal cord stimulators and deep brain stimulators. In its 21 years, the Clonmel site has expanded and grown and today employs over 1,000 employees in areas such as product development, manufacturing operations, capital equipment repair, supply chain and distribution.

These medical devices are highly innovative and transform patients’ lives every day around the world. From our defibrillator device that delivers lifesaving therapy to our cardiac patients when they need it most, to our deep brain stimulation device that delivers an electrical stimulus to the brain to alleviate the involuntary muscle movements associated with Parkinson’s disease, it is easy to see why our work is important. Here at the site, we often say that it is a privilege to work in this industry where we have such a profound impact on patients’ lives. With that privilege is also a responsibility to deliver the highest quality products for our patients.

Our success depends on having a culture where people are highly engaged and are enabled to do their best work. The devices we design and manufacture are complex and require people with strong technical and business skills that can collaborate strongly with other teams across the globe. We are constantly focused on continuously developing our employees and we work closely with our educational partners in the region to develop the technical and leadership capabilities of our people, so they are always learning and stretching to take on the next challenge.

Boston Scientific has invested in Clonmel for many reasons but primarily because of our ability to attract and retain top talent. Clonmel and the surrounding region offers a great quality of life. With affordable housing, high-quality schools and access to many different sports clubs and outdoor amenities such as the recently opened Suir Blueway, it’s easy to see why people choose to relocate to this area and while most of our employees live locally, we have also a significant number of people who take on a relatively short commute from the surrounding areas of Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford and Limerick. Ireland is also recognised as one of the top five global medtech hubs in the world with 38,000 people employed. This has enabled a growing medtech ecosystem to develop through indigenous, startup, academia and the multinational sector, and it will be through this collective strength that the whole industry, as well as Boston Scientific, will continue to lead at a global level within the medtech industry.

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South

EASTERN PROMISE BLESSED WITH THE BEST OF OUR

W E AT H E R , T H E S U N N Y S O U T H E A S T A L S O O F F E R S W O R L D - S TA N D A R D E D U C AT I O N A L I N S T I T U T E S , H I S TO R I C A N D A R C H E O L O G I C A L R I C H E S , A N D C U LT U R A L E V E N T S TO I N T R I G U E A N D D E L I G H T. TA K E O U R W H I S T L E - S TO P TO U R T H R O U G H C A R LO W , K I L K E N N Y, W AT E R F O R D , W E X F O R D A N D S O U T H T I P P E R A RY.

CULTURAL PURSUITS The National Opera House (wexfordopera.com) is Ireland’s first custom-built, multipurpose opera house, a state-of-the-art building with two auditoriums. It is also home to the Wexford Festival Opera, which was founded in 1951, and has since established an international reputation for ambitious and spectacular productions, drawing fans from all over the world.

A new addition to Waterford’s emerging cultural quarter is the Waterford Gallery of Art (waterfordarts.com). Located in the former Waterford Savings Bank, the Thomas Jackson-designed building has been completely reimagined around the Municipal Collection and the gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Aspects: Highlights from the Waterford Art Collection, features the works of Paul and Grace Henry, three generations of the beloved Yeats family, and painter and stained glass artist, Evie Hone amongst many others.

For ten days each August, Kilkenny’s historic churches, castle, courtyards, townhouses and gardens offer a magical setting for the city’s Arts Festival (kilkennyarts. ie). An electrifying and innovative mix of musicians, performers, writers and artists deliver intimate encounters and unique collaborations. Expect openair Shakespeare in neo-Gothic surrounds, contemporary music performed in medieval houses, pop-up concerts across secret gardens, and projection shows at the cathedral and castle.

Those with a hankering for traditional Irish music should step lively to Carrick-on-Suir in south Tipperary on the June Bank holiday weekend when the Clancy Brothers Festival of Music and Art (clancybrothersfestival. com) takes to the streets. The festival honours the legacy of the Clancy Brothers, a music group popular since the 1960s, who are credited with highlighting Irish folk music around the world. With music, art, poetry and storytelling, there are singing and busking competitions, workshops and free open-air concerts.

Budding musicians may like the sound of Music Generation, a programme that provides performance music education opportunities to over 4,500 children and young people in county Carlow. It has a schools programme providing vocal and instrumental tuition, a community music programme, and four county ensembles. The programme is co-funded by U2, The Ireland Funds, the Department of Education and Skills, and Local Music Education Partnerships.

The National Opera House, Wexford Image by Ros Kavanagh

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Clancy Brothers Festival of Music and Art

HIGHER LEARNING Defining itself as a “research-led organisation with a demonstrably impactful, innovative, and dynamic research community,” Waterford Institute of Technology (wit.ie) has secured in excess of €150 million in external research funding over the past decade. Uniquely, the Institute hosts three Enterprise Ireland Technology Gateways that allow industry to engage with and capitalise upon the expertise available at WIT. In the last five years, the Institute has worked with 400 companies, in Ireland and globally, and the Technology Transfer Office has recorded 654 research agreements with industry.

According to Brian Foley, Industry Services Manager at WIT, “If industry approaches us with a problem, we can scope a solution in conjunction with them and work it up into a full collaborative proposal.”

Goderdzi Janelidze plays Don Quichotte (top) and Olafur Siguardson is Sancho (bottom).

Image by Clive Barda

Limerick Institute of Technology (lit.ie) has two campuses in county Tipperary: LIT, Clonmel Campus and LIT, Thurles Campus, which is home to Games Fleadh, Ireland’s largest digital games programming festival.

The Fleadh is the brainchild of data analyst and cybersecurity expert Dr Liam Noonan, a programme leader at LIT’s Department of Information Technology, and he has recently developed a Data Analytics and Cyber Security degree, available at the Thurles campus from 2020. The course will give students the skills to turn data into insights that can be applied by users as diverse as sports managers and coaches, scientists and industry leaders, governments and state agencies to make informed decisions.

Institute of Technology Carlow (itcarlow.ie) was a key draw for insurance multinational Unum, who established its strategic software services centre in the area ten years ago.

Today, almost one third of Unum Irish employees are IT Carlow graduates and the symbiotic relationship between the organisations is based on co and joint learning. One such example is the Research Fellowship Programme, a scholarship launched in 2015 for Unum employees to enable and sustain a creative and collaborative research community between the partners. This partnership continues to strengthen, and in March 2019, Unum announced that Ireland will be its Data Science Incubation Hub, and IT Carlow its collegiate feeder programme.

TOP TO BOTTOM: South Eastern Applied Materials (SEAM), part of the Enterprise Ireland Technology Gateway Network; Games Fleadh at LIT, Thurles Campus; Dargan Centre for Research at IT Carlow

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HISTORY’S ALIVE The world’s oldest intact working lighthouse, Hook Lighthouse (hookheritage.ie) stands proud at the tip of the Hook Peninsula in county Wexford. A monk named Dubhán established a monastery on the peninsula in the fifth century and it is said the monks kept a beacon to warn soldiers of the rocky headland. In the 13th century, the tower of Hook was built by William Marshal to guide ships to his port of Ross, and light was provided by a coal fire.

Take a tour and climb the tower’s 115 wellworn steps before emerging onto the fourth floor balcony to enjoy the incredible view.

The Viking Triangle, in the heart of Waterford city, is home to three unique museums (waterfordtreasures.com) that tell its 1,100-year-old history. The stone fortress that is Reginald’s Tower was built in 914 and houses the treasures of Viking Waterford. The Medieval Museum showcases artefacts from the era and is the only building on the island to incorporate two medieval chambers: the 13thcentury Choristers’ Hall, and the 15th-century Mayor’s Wine Vault. The elegant neoclassical Bishop’s Palace, built in 1743, is home to treasures of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries such as a decanter dated from 1789, the oldest surviving piece of Waterford Crystal.

Hook Lighthouse

Founded soon after the Norman conquest of Ireland in the 13th century, you would be forgiven for thinking that little would remain of Kilkenny Castle (kilkennycastle.ie). This stunning example of a defensive castle has been in continuous use since it was built and thanks to an incredible restoration project, the exuberant spirit of days past has been faithfully brought to life. A must-see is the collection of Ormonde family portraits that take pride of place in the great Picture Gallery, with its hammer-beam roof featuring hand-painted pre-Raphaelite figures and naturalistic scenes.

A journey through Ireland’s ritual and religious history awaits along

Carlow’s Trails of the Saints (carlowtourism.com). Three driving routes

through the south east feature some 51 ecclesiastical attractions, among them a Romanesque doorway at Killeshin, a medieval cathedral at Old Leighlin and the Relic of St Willibrord, the Patron Saint of Luxembourg, and many other sites of archeological importance.

St Patrick’s Trail in the northern part of the county covers 89km, St Laserian’s Trail in mid-Carlow stretches to 69km, and St. Moling’s Trail in the south is 70km, and all can be driven comfortably in a day.

Take advantage of good weather and visit the Tipperary Heritage Way (irishtrails.ie), a 56km walking trail along quiet country roads, forestry tracks and riverside paths. The route follows the course of the River Suir from the Knockmealdown Mountains to the historic town of Cashel and there are several attractions along the way offering rest and interest, from ancient graveyards to abbeys and even a decorated cottage. Try the 10km ramble from the village of Golden to Cashel, or the two-kilometre riverside path from Cahir Castle to the romantic folly of Swiss Cottage.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Cahir Castle, Kilkenny Castle, Carlow Cathedral IDAIRELAND.COM

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PREVAILING Irish Writing

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Irish writing is enjoying renewed attention and appreciation, and while the writing talent has always been there, a collaborative spirit and supporting initiatives and organisations are helping to bring Irish authors to a wider audience.

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o the casual observer, Irish writing is officially having a moment. The Booker Prize, the Costa Novel Award, the European Science Fiction Society Award and The Carnegie Medal are amongst the trophies added to Irish mantels in recent years. Nicola Sturgeon cited Sally Rooney’s Normal People among her best books of 2018, while Sarah Jessica Parker added Kevin Barry’s latest book, The Night Boat to Tangier, to her holiday reading list.

Brave, bold publishers and a strong stable of literary magazines, combined with strategic support from industry bodies and a calendar filled with literary festivals are delivering Irish authors to new audiences. The talent has always been there, says Lisa Coen, co-founder of Irish publisher, Tramp Press, but the platform has not. “We saw in publishing companies that very good work was being turned down. People have been writing ambitiously but hitting a wall in terms of where they can send it.” Coen, together with Sarah Davis-Goff, launched the independent publishing house in 2014 with a mission to offer books of outstanding literary quality and merit.

“We’d heard so many cases of brilliant books being turned down when they get to the marketing team because they don’t know how to pitch them, they’re too cross genre,” says Davis-Goff. “Lisa and I wanted to experiment with just putting out a brilliant novel on the expectation that readers want brilliant work.”

One such book was Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones, a novel written without full stops. “We found that in the past when people marketed Mike’s work, they tended to emphasise things like, ‘he’s a writer’s writer, his work is difficult but worth it,’” says Coen. “When we published Mike, we said, ‘this is accessible, brilliant and it’s a joy. It’s ambitious and formally inventive but don’t get bogged down in that. It’s just a story about a man. It’s often funny and touching.’

A lot of the reviews focused on the formal innovation in the book, but people reacted with, ‘it’s a lovely story, it’s relatable and easy to read.’”

Critics agreed and the book won the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize and the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award.

Their strategy of picking fewer but better has delivered in spades. Their authors have gone on to win Irish Book Awards, the Rooney Prize, a Lannan Fellowship, nominations for the

Among the awards Normal People has won are the 2018 Costa Novel Award and the Book of the Year Award 2019 at the British Book Awards.

Milkman won the Booker Prize 2018 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 2019.

Released earlier this year, Night Boat To Tangier was nominated for the Booker Prize 2019

Solar Bones won the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize and the 2018 International DUBLIN Literary Award.

Lucy Sweeney Byrne’s debut is the first book to be published by Banshee Press.

The awardwinning Storm Keeper quartet has received acclaim here and abroad.

Sarah DavisGoff’s debut novel won the 2019 ESFS Chrysalis Award and has the film rights optioned.

Guardian First Book Award and the First Book Award at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

It’s about publishers being able to take risks, says Davis-Goff. “There has been a boom in good small publishing over the last decade.

The infrastructure is there now, particularly in Ireland, where we have the likes of The Stinging Fly: what they have accomplished is outstanding. Seeing other small publishers like Banshee Press come up is really exciting and writers pay attention to this and they know who to send their work to.”

She points out that the wealth of literary magazines in the country offers something of a training ground for authors setting out. “The Moth, Banshee, Tangerine, Sonder. Dublin Review is a great journal, there are lots of them.

Success for writers is about having literary journals for writers to try out their work.”

Lucy Sweeney Byrne’s short stories have appeared in Banshee, The Dublin Review and Stinging Fly, and now her debut collection of work, The Paris Syndrome, is the first title to be published by the newly-founded Banshee Press.

Sweeney Byrne is just one of a new generation of writers, among them Sally Rooney, Nicole Flattery and Kevin Barry, coming to the fore, according to book publicist Cormac Kinsella, in part due to the wealth of new platforms available to them. “The Dublin Review has been going for nearly 20 years.

Winter Papers, Kevin Barry’s annual is coming up on its fifth year. There’s steadfast people like Poetry Ireland, Stinging Fly who have been quietly publishing new voices all the time.

There’s much more of an outlet.”

Davis-Goff can also add her name to this group. Her debut novel, Last Ones Left Alive was released in 2019 in Ireland, the UK and the US and to date, it has won the ESFS Chrysalis Award, been nominated for an Edinburgh First Book Award and the Not the Booker Prize, shortlisted for an An Post Irish Book Award, and Treasure Entertainment have optioned the film rights. “It’s definitely exciting being part of the Irish writing scene right now.

There’s a special place in Ireland for writers, and a special place in the world for Irish writers.

It’s hard to be surrounded by so much talent without getting inspired, to be honest.”

Other outlets introducing authors to readers are the vast array of literary festivals taking place around the country. “In the last ten years,

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PREVAILING Irish Writing

there has been a huge rise in festivals,” says Kinsella. “The literary years starts in January with the Doolin Writers’ Weekend and finishes at the end of October with the International Literary Festival Dublin. The attraction of festivals are, if you read a book, you can go and meet the writer and ask them a question and have a few minutes with them. Prior to this, authors were seen as much more aloof whereas now they’re much more approachable. It has all changed in the last 30 years.”

Booksellers are championing our homegrown talent too, and as a publisher, that direct line to readers is vital, says Coen. “Bob Johnston of The Gutter Bookshop has events all the time, he’ll have signed first editions and as a publisher, there is already a group of people who will come because they trust what he will do. John Connolly is in The Gutter every time he has a book coming out. A massive success, John Connolly is loyal to this great bookseller because he see’s there is something special going on there.”

A cohesive strategy amongst industry bodies is also helping to spread the word at home and abroad, says Elaina Ryan, CEO of Children’s Books Ireland (CBI). CBI is part of Words Ireland, a group of seven literature organisations who have worked together since 2015 to strengthen the sector. “The idea of Words Ireland is that everyone is working together for the greater good of promoting the literature sector and trying to get a bigger share of the pie for funding. Literature Ireland is tasked with representing Irish literature internationally; The Irish Writers’ Centre runs individual mentoring; Publishing Ireland runs courses where people can share skills and expertise; and we work on professional development both for early stage authors looking to get published and also to upskill writers.”

Tramp Press are quick to credit the The Arts Council, the Irish government agency for developing the arts, for exploring new ways of bringing Irish books to market. “Around the time we were setting up, they were introducing new programmes for funding, they were looking at ways that would allow new players to enter the market, where there weren’t core costs or as much expense. They were very willing to talk, and we couldn’t do what we do without them,” explains Coen. “They do a really good job with

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limited resources,” Davis-Goff adds. “Other countries might have more funds, I’m not sure their councils are as approachable or as willing to take a punt on someone new in a small stakes way, and we’re very grateful for that.”

And that faith is being rewarded across the Elaina bottom line, she points out.

Ryan “We show value for money: we sign incredible writers, they have become successful, we sell rights abroad. We have more money coming into the country because of these rights sales, which are at a very high level sometimes. The economy more than sees that money back, but having that initial investment so you can make these things happen is so important.”

Cormac This spirit of collaboration K insella is seen at every level of the publishing ladder, explains Ryan. “I worked at Little Island Books and O’Brien Press were really influential in sharing their knowledge of what works. They continue to support other publishers, because it’s a small industry. People do tend to give each other a leg up.” Davis-Goff agrees, saying, “There is a sense of camaraderie, we are Lisa Coen all in it because we love books & Sarah and are trying to make D a vis-Goff something happen. We don’t feel we are competing.”

But truly, it’s the readers enjoying Irish writing that is driving this wave of appreciation. “Reading is a regular part of cultural life here and I don’t think that’s always true in other countries,” says Davis-Goff. “Here, people read almost competitively, everyone reads the new Liz Nugent as soon as it comes out because there is a conversation happening and you don’t want to be excluded from it. Here, almost every radio show is interviewing writers or talking about the great new book. It’s not relegated to the arts show. You’ll see Mike McCormack quoted in the sports section of The Irish Times. Writers are rockstars here.”

THE IRISH WRITERS T H AT T H E I N S I D E R S A R E EXCITED ABOUT “Cat Doyle is at the peak of her powers: her Storm Keeper quartet, a fantasy adventure set on a small island, has been translated into 18 languages. It was a huge phenomenon at the Bologna Children’s Book fair. They threw her a party and her Italian publisher, Mondadori, the biggest in Italy, was there.

They are really celebrating her, and the Irishness of her stories, on an international level.”

“Lucy Sweeney Byrne is amazing; Colum McCann has a new novel coming out, 2020 is going to be a big year for him. Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry and Marian Keyes all have novels coming out in the spring.”

“We are working on our spring titles right now and we’re incredibly excited about them. We’ve a new Sara Baume, handiwork is her non-fiction debut and it’s absolutely stunning, we can’t wait to watch readers meet it for the first time. We have another debut too, from renowned poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa, called A Ghost in the Throat – it’s genre-bending and boundarydefying, fresh, romantic and true.”

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In living r u o l o C

Richard Mosse is a multi award-winning Irish conceptual photographer whose work uses hyper-spectral visual effects to explore globalisation, immigration, conflict and human displacement. He is a recipient of the Yale Poynter Fellowship in Journalism, the B3 Award at the Frankfurt Biennial, the Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship.

Hot Rats, 2012, from the series Infra

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Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, 2011, from the series Infra

Tower of Song, 2012, from the series Infra

Mosse’s Heat Maps series depicts temporary encampments and border crossings along migration routes to Europe from the Middle East and Africa. Each ‘heat map’ is constructed from hundreds of frames captured using a super-telephoto lens that is part of a military grade thermographic camera. Reading heat as both metaphor and index, these images do not attempt to represent the refugee crisis in a seemingly “transparent” or objective way. Instead, they ask how the notion of “the visible” might be expanded and how, by using a scopic technology against itself, the conditions of visibility might be fundamentally restructured.

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Using discontinued infrared film originally designed for military use, in Infra, Mosse depicts eastern Congo’s rich topography and how the region’s conflict has affected the landscape. The resulting images carry an uneasy romantic resonance, balancing the sublime with a documentary subtext of environmental damage predicated by the armed groups fighting over natural resources in a place of near anarchy and humanitarian disaster.

Yayladagi, Turkey, 2017, from the series Heat Maps

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EXPLORING World in Focus

In Ultra, Mosse turns to ultraviolet fluorescence to reveal the irreplaceable beauty of the rainforest ecosystem, its symbiotic relationships and interdependency. “The tactile cloud forest mosses, lichens, spiderwebs, bark, corporeal orchid flesh and the dazzling carapaces of insects, once illuminated by this unearthly light, became profoundly beautiful. Wandering through the forest at night with a UV torch, I was enchanted by an unseen glowing world of natural activity.�

Katydid with Nepenthes, 2019, from the series Ultra

Dionaea muscipula with Mantodea , 2019 from the series Ultra All images courtesy of the artist Richard Mosse; carlier | gebauer, Berlin and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

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INNOVATING

Changing Houses

Stately Homes

WORDS BY Ta ra C o rri st i n e

I r e l a n d ’s grand houses are pivoting for a new audience.

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A I R F I E L D E S TAT E COUNTY DUBLIN Home to the Overend family since 1894, Airfield Estate was left in trust to the people of Ireland by Letitia and Naomi Overend in 1974, trailblazing sisters who understood the importance of being self-sufficient and sustainable – and not just with food. These women took on everything from farming and cattle trading to car maintenance.

As local figures, they turned heads around Dublin,

owning three cars at one stage (unheard of at that time). One of those was a Rolls Royce, an investment they would only agree to if it came with a tow bar for transporting their Jersey cows, and a course on car maintenance so that the sisters could keep it on the road for as long as they needed it.

It was, however, their sense of community and a lifetime of charitable endeavours that the Overends are remembered for most. Tuned in to the social challenges of their time, they opened their home to some of Ireland’s most

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INNOVATING Stately Homes

Curraghmore House and Gardens

CURRAGHMORE HOUSE AND GARDENS C O U N T Y W AT E R F O R D

vulnerable, offering respite care to injured soldiers during two world wars, using their dairy herd and life-saving pasteurisation to donate to the safe milk depot, and funding The Children’s Sunshine Home – a charity better known today as The Laura Lynn Foundation.

Today, Airfield Estate is a social and charitable hub, investing in initiatives that reach every corner of the community, via the house, gardens, farm and award-winning restaurant. The focus of the estate is to

Curraghmore House in Waterford is the historic family home of the ninth Marquis of Waterford. His ancestors, the de la Poers, came to Ireland from Normandy around 1170. Some 2,500 acres of formal gardens, woodland and grazing fields make this the largest private demesne in Ireland.

The grounds were laid out by the first de la Poer Beresford Earl of Tyrone around 1750 and provide a splendid example of an eighteenth century romantic landscape, with the house as its centrepiece. In front of the house is the garden in the French manner, designed by Louisa, third Lady Waterford. Its formal terraces, with balustrades and statuary overlook the manmade lake.

The present day Lord and Lady Waterford live and work in the house. Farming, hunting and breeding horses continues as it did centuries ago. Weekly game shooting parties are held every season and in spring, calves, foals and lambs can be seen in abundance on Curraghmore’s verdant fields. Polo is still played on the estate in summer. Throughout Ireland’s turbulent history, the family has never been ‘absentee landlords’ and still provide diverse employment for a number of local people.

During the summer, the house is open for guided tours, including the gardens and Shell House. Hidden in a shrubbery near the main house at Curraghmore, The Shell House was created by Catherine, Countess of Tyrone, with ‘her proper’ hands in 1754.

The decoration of the folly took her 261

days to complete and the intricate patterns of shells from all over the world still glow with colour above a statue of the Countess

by John van Nost.

In the past four years a number of buildings have been renovated, some as rental properties, and the Old Estate Offices have been transformed into charming Tea Rooms where visitors can buy local produce and enjoy cakes and pastries produced onsite by the Curraghmore chef. These old buildings are enjoying a new lease of life, housing entrepreneurial startups that foster sustainability and growth opportunities on the estate. The latest project is the introduction of Curraghmore Whiskey, situated in the Ten Stalls, former coach horse stables led by Richard de la Poer Beresford, Lord Waterford’s eldest son.

The estate has embraced change and welcomed new audiences. The summer season now hosts annual open-air theatre featuring period dramas in keeping with the Curraghmore setting. It has hosted country fair days, charity walks and works closely with the local community.

In recent years, the estate has ventured into the world of music festivals, hosting All Together Now (ATN), its biggest event to date. The family was approached by the late John Reynolds, founder of Electric Picnic, who called it, the best venue he had ever been to. The festival, heading in to its third year, has proved very successful and of great economic benefit to the area.

Curraghmorehouse.ie

ensure that consumers understand the impact of their food choices on themselves, their families, society as a whole and, ultimately, the planet. Using the working farm as the backdrop, it provides education programmes to primary and secondary schools, as well as third-level institutions across Ireland, about seasonality, growing and cooking, sustainability and ecology.

As a not-for-profit organisation, the estate is involved in a number of social impact and outreach programmes including partnering

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INNOVATING Stately Homes

P O W E R S C O U R T E S TAT E COUNTY WICKLOW

A dish from Overends Kitchen, the restaurant at Airfield Estate

with the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute and FoodCloud to create protein-rich soup for the Simon Community Soup Kitchen. The estate’s management team is also part of the crew of volunteers who reach out to Dublin’s homeless every Monday night.

Not only is it a beautiful place with a remarkable history, Airfield Estate has reframed itself as a socially and environmentally conscious space at the heart of the community. Airfield.ie 54

Located at the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, Powerscourt Estate is a modern fable of catastrophe and resurrection. In 1730, the first Viscount Powerscourt commissioned architect Richard Castle to transform a medieval castle into a grand mansion. Powerscourt House was completed in 1741, designed in the style of a great Italian Renaissance villa. Additions and alteration followed throughout the centuries and in 1974 a major refurbishment of the house was completed, readying it to join the gardens as a visitor attraction.

Tragically, one early November morning in 1974, a fire broke out on the top floor The stunning Powerscourt Gardens of Powerscourt House. All of the principal reception rooms and bedrooms were destroyed and when the flames were doused, the main part of the house was a roofless shell.

The house finally opened to the public in 1997 and today, the estate is one of Ireland’s most popular attractions and was recently voted one of the Top Ten Houses and Mansions Worldwide by the Lonely Planet Guide. Visitors from across the globe flock to see not only the incredible refurbishment, but the stunning Powerscourt Estate has added surrounds.

The gardens stretch over 47 a distillery to its offering acres, with sweeping terraces, statues and ornamental lakes, visitors about Ireland’s changing climate, secret hollows and rambling walks. The the science behind it and ways to reduce Walled Gardens, The Italian Garden, The carbon footprint.

Dolphin Pond, The Japanese Gardens, Pet’s The estate continues to evolve to attract Cemetery and Pepperpot Tower, are among the culturally curious and has added a the features that led National Geographic distillery to its offering. Driven by local man to declare it the third most beautiful garden Gerard Ginty who was born and raised in in the world. nearby Enniskerry village, The Powerscourt The custodians of the estate continue to Distillery and Visitor centre combines grainadapt to changing tastes and the house to-cask spirit production with a fully has become a shopping destination, immersive Irish whiskey visitor experience. offering Irish-designed crafts, jewellery and The Old Mill House, located on the estate homewares, and is also home to an and dating back to the 1730s, has been interactive climate action attraction. The faithfully restored and extended to Cool Planet Experience connects science, accommodate a state-of-the-art production engineering, gaming and drama to inform plant. Powerscourt.com

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THRIVING Waterford

To p P i c k s W AT E R F O R D

hours in

Nagle’s Bar

The Granary Café

Grow HQ

The team at Sun Life Financial in Waterford share their insider guide to The Déise!

Waterford City

Bodega

Waterford City

seafood, Emiliano’s for Italian, and Kyoto is our newest Asian food restaurant.”

O r i g i n a l l y f r o m I t a l y , A n d r e a Ta v o n i , CRA team, enjoys learning about Irish craft and heritage.

“At Nagle’s Bar in Dungarvan, everybody is made to feel welcome. They have live music and great craic is always had. House of Waterford Crystal is one of the most interesting places to visit. Each stage of the product-making process is seen, with craftspeople ready to answer questions. The artistry and dedication is unbelievable. Thanks to Reginald’s Tower museum, I learned the very interesting history of Waterford and the influence that the Vikings had over the city.”

Hailing from Peru, Mona Cadenas, International team, enjoys discovering vintage style.

“The Vintage Factory has an impressive variety of cool styles, clothes and accessories in very good condition. Prices are very affordable and sometime they have a kilo sale. Dunhill Castle is a favourite and a very easy trek. You have to climb a bit to get to the top but the view of the river, the ocean and the valley would bring tears to your eyes.”

A native of the county, General Manager Karen Burns has the inside t r a c k o n t h e c i t y ’s b e s t f o o d .

“The Granary Café on the quay offers fabulous home-cooked savouries and desserts, while the Grow HQ café in Ardkeen encourages food to fork, with very creative and tasty food. It’s hard to pick just one restaurant: visit Bodega for Irish-themed

The great outdoors offers family fun for Kilkenny native Anne Kelly, IT Quality Assurance team.

“We like to go on the Waterford Greenway, particularly in the summer as it’s a beautiful and safe place for us and the kids to cycle and walk.

We like to visit the Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens in Tramore. It’s a hidden gem with

gorgeous gardens and fairy trails and the gardens are particularly stunning at Christmas time with an enchanted winter light festival every year.”

Wexford native Georgina Ball, International Life team, is a fan of the c i t y ’s d e l i c i o u s f a r e a n d i t s b e a c h e s .

“La Bohème French restaurant is in the most beautiful Georgian building in the city. The food tastes wonderful and the staff are so knowledgeable and friendly. Annestown beach is a lovely place for a walk, or a swim if you’re brave enough. From there you can see the sea arch and the islands.”

W a t e r f o r d n a t i v e M i c h e l l e To w n s l e y , Application Support team, likes to head for the coast.

“Tramore is a great place to spend family time: the fresh sea air, the best coffee shops and places to eat.

Plus, it’s a great spot for our little boy to walk and play in the beautiful playground or on the beach.”

Kyoto

Japanese Gardens

La Bohème

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PROFILE The Innovator

OFFICES WORLDWIDE

The Innovator Gráinne Barry VP WORKPLACE & B U S I N E S S O P E R AT I O N S S TA T S P E R F O R M

Stats Per for m c o lle c ts sp o r ts d ata an d us es artificial intellig en ce to u n lo c k ins ights for media an d tech n olog y, betting and team p er fo r ma n c e .

“The global sports technology industry has taken off over the last few years with industry revenues expected to triple by 2021.”

How is Stats Perform innovating to stay ahead of its competitors?

Stats Perform embraces and solves the dynamic nature of sport – be that for digital and broadcast media with differentiated storytelling, tech companies with reliable and fast data to power their innovations, sportsbooks with in-play betting and integrity services, or teams with AI analysis software. Our data represents over 35 years of sports data renowned for being the deepest and highest quality in the industry. We live-stream 25,000 events, cover 400,000 matches, and 15,000 competitions annually. We hold 1.3 petabytes of sports data with 30 million additional event data points collected annually.

How important is innovation in your organisation and sector?

The global sports technology industry has taken off over the last few years with industry revenues expected to triple by 2021. In support of the massive influx of interest, investment and innovation, sports brands, technology companies and entrepreneurs are collaborating throughout the world. New technologies core to sports technology are developing at an incredible pace.

New categories of technology are 56

emerging and are expected to grow rapidly – from sporting wearables to sensor-based equipment to performance feedback and applications for fan engagement. AI and machine learning are at the heart of the pace of innovation applied to the world of sport and its challenges. With the introduction of AI, we are witnessing another wave of change, from the way games are played to how they are experienced by fans. Stats Perform has over 50 AI scientists who are wholly sport-focused and to date we have over 20 patents for sports AI issued or submitted.

How is the Irish operation and its talent pool driving innovation in the organisation?

The Irish operation manages some of the global business functions including Video Operations, Coverage, Capacity and Workforce planning. Ireland has a strong pool of management talent which works well cross-functionally in our business and which readily creates and pilots new ideas and processes to drive continuous improvement in the significantly expanded business.

What are the disrupters facing your industry?

Sports integrity has never been under greater threat and scrutiny due to scandals within the industry such as match-fixing, slow data and odds manipulation. There is also the challenge of data privacy and security requirements. Stats Perform proactively tackles all aspects of sports integrity and are industry leaders in data integrity services which focus on prevention, detection and investigation of threats to integrity.

AT A GLANCE

35 150 1,500 1,800+

EMPLOYEES IN IRELAND

EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE

CLIENTS WORLDWIDE

How has Ireland changed as a place to work?

Ireland continues to be pro-business with a diversity of well-educated talent. Stats Perform has been joined by DraftKings and LiveScore who both now have operations in Ireland. Ireland is known for its love of sport and this builds a natural ecosystem for industry-focused talent and collaborative innovation and opportunity.

What is next for Stats Perform?

The opportunities for new sportsrelated technologies is vast, ranging from sports nutrition, personalised genotyping, data management and feedback, smart clothing, technologyequipped training devices and equipment, to data-based performance analysis. Ireland has a proven ‘best-inclass’ record in ICT, pharma and biotech.

Many of the large multinationals who are based here, Google, Microsoft, Intel, AWS and SAP, are bringing the same skills, creativity and innovative thinking and applying their innovations to new adjacent markets in the world of sport.

The development of the International Rugby experience in Limerick City Centre in 2021 and the planned Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in 2026 will serve to further put Limerick, the Mid-west and Ireland on the international sporting map. These activities offer further opportunities for collaborative sports technology and innovation challenges over the coming years. statsperform.com

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We are 9% redhead.

We are 33.3% under 25.

We are 52% of 25-34 year olds with higher level education, 10% above the OECD average.

We are 100% committed to the EU. Ready to talk about locating in Ireland?

We are. You can count on it.

Right place Right time www.idaireland.com

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