innovation ireland review INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW
IN ASSOCIATION WITH in association with
// issue 7 autumn/winter 2013 // // ISSUE 8 SPRING/SUMMER 2014 //
COMPETING TO WIN Ireland jumps two places in 2014 IMD rankings
THE DATA CASE Getting into position for the growing big data analytics trend
COLLABORATION NATION Industry and researchers working together in pioneering Technology Centres Programme
At the summit europe’s premier technology conference continues to blaze a trail
issue ISSUE7 8autumn/winter SPRING/SUMMER 2013 2014
Ireland feels like home
to over 1,000 overseas companies
Silicon Docks INFLUX OF SOME OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN TECHNOLOGY
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Innovation, research, investment and development news from the island of Ireland
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RESEARCH 10 The SFI’s seven research centres are focused on research of scale, excellence and impact COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE Ireland climbs another two places to 15th in the IMD’s 2014 Global Competitiveness Yearbook
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INDUSTRY FOCUS 20 Why Ireland is in the vanguard of the major revolution in connected devices – the Internet of Things DIGITAL WORLD 26 Why Ireland’s Silicon Docks is attracting some of the biggest names in the tech world FREEZEFRAME 34 Shortlisted photos in UCD’s most recent Research Images competition DIGITAL WORLD IDA Ireland’s emerging business
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division is tasting significant success with 100 high growth projects attracted in the last four years GATEWAY LOCATION 48 Scenic beauty combines with excellent infrastructure and transport links to make the Midlands an ideal location for investors
SMBC Aviation Capital chairman Shinichi Hayashida on Ireland’s status as the global capital of aircraft leasing and his own company’s activities since setting up in Dublin THE IRISH MIND 74 Some of the Irish inventions, discoveries and innovations that have changed the world
CREATIVE IRELAND 54 Why Ireland’s film industry is punching well above its weight Richard Mosse wins the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for The Enclave INNOVATION 62 The collaborative Innovation Academy initiative is working to develop PhD graduates who understand how innovation can convert knowledge into products, services and policies ASIAN INVESTMENT Ireland is building on the success stories to date
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Huawei’s Derek Ding explains why his company views Ireland as a rising place for its investment
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Editor: Grainne Rothery. Innovation Ireland Review is published on behalf of IDA Ireland by Business & Leadership Ltd; Tel: +353 1 6251400; Email: IIR@businessandleadership.com; Address: Top Floor, Block 43B, Yeats Way, Park West Business Park, Nangor Road, Dublin 12. © Business & Leadership Ltd 2014. IDA Ireland editor: Caitriona O’Kennedy (Caitriona.OKennedy@ idaireland.com). Address: IDA Ireland, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2
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INNOVATIVE EXPANDING EMEA HQ IN DUBLIN Innovative is adding 25 new jobs at its EMEA HQ in Dublin, bringing employment to 50 by the end 2015. The company is a global provider of integrated library management and automation software. An Taoiseach Enda Kenny met with the company’s CEO Kim Massana on a recent marketing business trip to the US with IDA Ireland. “We have had a very positive experience of the business environment in Ireland since we first set up our EMEA headquarters in Dublin in 2012,” said Massana. “Dublin has a rich talent pool and we have been able to recruit an exceptionally skilled and multilingual staff to serve our customers throughout Europe – our current staff of 25 is fluent in 15 languages. This is a real advantage to a global company like Innovative that serves libraries in more than 60 countries.”
NUVASIVE SETS UP INTERNATIONAL OPERATION CENTRE IN WATERFORD Medical device company NuVasive has established an international operations centre in Waterford that will create up to 30 highly skilled roles over the next two to three years. NuVasive has already started hiring for supply chain, customer service, accounting and IT positions. The San Diego-based company is focused on developing minimally disruptive surgical products and procedures for the spine. The Irish operations centre will strengthen the company’s ability to bring its products, procedures and services to the global marketplace. “We are thrilled to be located in Waterford with access to the strong local talent to support our international operations,” said NuVasive chairman and chief executive officer Alex Lukianov. “The support from everyone in Ireland has been fantastic and we are excited to grow our presence in the area and improve our international business.”
Kim Massana, CEO, Innovative
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SMARTBEAR SOFTWARE PICKS GALWAY FOR NEW EUROPEAN HQ
Members of Smartbear’s Galway-based team (L–R): Sean McCarthy, Himanshu Bahadur, Andrei Gibbon, Miles Kane, John McArdle, Kevin Reid and Maria Connolly
SmartBear Software is setting up a new European headquarters in Galway that is expected to create up to 100 jobs over the next five years. Headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts, the company develops software that other software developers use. It has customers in over 90 countries and additional offices in the US, Sweden, Spain and Russia. “We are excited about opening our European Headquarters in Ireland,” said Doug McNary, CEO, SmartBear Software. “We were impressed by Galway’s vibrant ICT cluster, pro-business environment and attractive lifestyle. This, coupled with the support of IDA Ireland, makes Galway the perfect choice for SmartBear.”
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PAYPAL TO ADD 400 JOBS TO DUNDALK OPERATIONS CENTRE
Louise Phelan, vice-president of global operations for EMEA for PayPal
PayPal is to create 400 new jobs at its eBay Inc European Operations Centre in Dundalk. This will bring the combined PayPal and eBay employee numbers in Dundalk to 1,850 by 2018 and the company’s total Irish workforce to 2,900. “Dundalk is a very important site in our global operations for supporting our customers,” said Louise Phelan, vicepresident of global operations for EMEA for PayPal. “We are already ahead of schedule in recruiting our first 1,000 team mates, thanks to our continued expansion, together with the high calibre people we have already employed.”
HOLLISTER INCORPORATED INVESTING €80M IN BALLINA Specialty medical products company Hollister Incorporated recently announced an €80m investment at its Ballina, Co Mayo facility. The investment will build upon the company’s existing continence care portfolio of intermittent catheter products and services, including its next generation hydrophilic catheters. In the past seven years, significant investments have been made in the Ballina plant, which is located on approximately 40 acres, both in infrastructure and equipment. During that period, a number of additional functions have been added to the original manufacturing process, including research and technology development, new product development, corporate project engineering and, technical services. The Ballina operation also co-ordinates the inventory, distribution and sales invoicing for Hollister throughout Europe and the EMEA region.
WORKDAY DOUBLING IRISH WORKFORCE Enterprise cloud applications company Workday is to double its workforce in Ireland with the creation of 200 new jobs over the next three years. Workday’s Dublin office, the company’s headquarters in Europe, was established in 2008 following the acquisition of Cape Clear. The office is a centre for key roles in product and technology development, customer support, services, data centre operations, and sales. Recruitment for the new positions on those teams is underway. After committing in 2012 to create 100 new positions in Ireland over three years, the company has already recruited more than that number in just over two years. Workday now has around 200 employees based in Dublin out of 350 in Europe. The company has more than 2,900 employees worldwide. “This is the most disruptive time in enterprise applications in more than two decades,” said Aneel Bhusri, cofounder and CEO, Workday. “Companies around the world are replacing their old mainframe and client server systems with modern and innovative cloud applications that actually deliver real business value. “Ireland offers an incredible base of talent, and we are looking for those special individuals who want to join our team and make a big difference.”
L–R: Barry Heavey, IDA Ireland; An Taoiseach Enda Kenny; and George Maliekel, president Hollister Inc
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HP ADDING 100 NEW JOBS TO CLOUD R&D TEAM IN GALWAY HP Ireland plans to add around 100 hi-tech jobs to its cloud R&D team through an investment in OpenStack cloud services at its new Ballybrit, Galway facility, which is currently under construction and due to be completed next year. This investment in Galway is part of the company’s plans to expand the global reach of the HP Helion portfolio of cloud products and services. The HP cloud R&D team in Galway played a large role in delivering HP’s public cloud – one of the largest OpenStack-based public clouds in the world. The team will continue in this role as it focuses on building the HP Helion portfolio of cloud products and services. “Our customers are looking for open solutions, and to be able to create, deploy and manage IT workloads in hybrid cloud environments,” said Mark Gantly, managing director, HP Galway. “The technologies being developed here in our Galway R&D facility are at the forefront of HP’s OpenStack-based Helion programme and will play a key role in future development of global cloud services from HP.”
SAP BOLSTERING R&D PRESENCE IN IRELAND Some 60 new research and development (R&D) jobs are being created in Citywest, Dublin by SAP, which also expects to add 200 support roles to its Irish workforce in Dublin and Galway this year. The R&D jobs, focused on predictive analytics, will significantly expand SAP’s BusinessObjects development organisation in Dublin, which aims to enable enterprises to better consume big data. Head of business intelligence R&D SAP operations in Ireland Dr Tony O’Donnell described predictive analytics as “one of the most exciting next generation technologies in our industry”. “SAP has placed Ireland at the heart of driving global innovation and development in this area, and I know our record of engineering excellence and innovation will make the new mission a success,” he said.
OXFORD INVESTING €16M IN EUROPEAN HQ Recruitment firm Oxford International is to invest €16m in its Cork-based European headquarters, resulting in the creation of 56 new jobs over the next 18 months. This will nearly double the number of employees to 130 at the Penrose Quay facility, making it the largest recruitment office in the southern region. Oxford is a division of On Assignment, which has over 2,850 employees in its network of around 30 branch offices throughout the US, Canada, UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and Spain. The expansion in Cork will make it On Assignment’s largest European office and the flagship of its business in Europe. “Cork has been the hub of our European activity since opening our first office here in 1994,” said Oxford’s president Michael McGowan. “Our workforce has steadily grown because of the quality talent pool available in the region. The ease of access to our European markets makes it the ideal place to do business.”
SAP’s offices in Citywest, Dublin
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BIOMARIN EXPANDS DUBLIN HUB BioMarin Manufacturing Ireland is expecting to create 50 new jobs in its Dublin global commercial operations hub after receiving European Commission approval for Vimizim, an enzyme replacement drug for the treatment of MPS IVA, a lysosomal storage disorder. The Dublin operation is responsible for international supply chain, logistics and high level commercial decision making, including price, distribution and third party contracts for the launch of Vimizim. Meanwhile, BioMarin’s biopharma manufacturing facility in Shanbally, Co Cork is expected to grow to 140 employees by 2015 to support the anticipated commercial demand of Vimizim. Between the two facilities, BioMarin is expecting to have total employment of around 200 people in Ireland by the end of 2017.
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L–R: Leonard Bell MD, CEO of Alexion Pharmaceuticals; An Taoiseach Enda Kenny; and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton
ALEXION PHARMACEUTICALS TO CREATE 200 JOBS AT NEWLY ACQUIRED DUBLIN SITE US biopharmaceuticals company Alexion has acquired a new site in Blanchardstown in Dublin, which will create around 200 new jobs as part of a €75m investment over the next two years. Headquartered in Cheshire, Connecticut, Alexion has been granted planning permission to construct a new 15,000 sq metre laboratory, office, packaging and warehouse facility on a 41-acre greenfield site. Alexion announced its decision to establish global supply chain and quality operations in Ireland in July 2013, and it currently employs more than 60 people at its first site in Park West in Dublin. Last February, it announced plans to acquire a second site in Athlone to create an aseptic vial fill finish facility. This third site in College Park will bring its total job creation in Ireland to around 300 by 2016.
NEW ETHICON BIOSURGERY FACILITY IN LIMERICK TO CREATE 270 JOBS Ethicon Biosurgery is planning to develop an €80m stateof-the art manufacturing facility that will create around 270 jobs in Limerick over the next five years. Part of the Johnson & Johnson Group, which first established a manufacturing facility in Ireland over 30 years ago, Ethicon Biosurgery is a worldwide leader in hemostasis and sealing solutions. The new 60,000 sq ft facility based at the National Technology Park, Plassey, will also mean 150 temporary construction jobs for the area.
Due to be completed by 2015, the plant will manufacture Evarrest Sealant Matrix, a novel product that rapidly and reliably aids in stopping bleeding during surgery. “The decision to manufacture Evarrest Sealant Matrix in Ireland was due to the unique clustering of medical device manufacturing, automation and biomanufacturing skill sets across the Johnson & Johnson companies already operating in Ireland,” said Dan Wildman, worldwide president, Ethicon Biosurgery.
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THIRD CHINESE AVIATION LEASING COMPANY SETTING UP EUROPEAN HQ IN IRELAND Chinese leasing company Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (JY Aviation) has set up its European headquarters in Dublin to manage 21 aircraft from Ireland. The company is the leasing arm of Bank of Communications, which was founded in 1908 and is one of the largest banks in China. It has already started the process of recruiting for its Dublin operation. It’s the third Chinese leasing company in the last 18 months to choose Ireland as a location for its leasing operations. ICBC established its European HQ in Dublin in 2012 and the company currently manages over 360 aircraft from its Irish operation. CDB Leasing also established its European HQ in Dublin in 2012 and manages a large fleet of aircraft from Ireland. “JY currently has a fleet of 21 aircraft leased to both Chinese, Asian and European airline customers, and plans to add another 15 – 20 aircraft to its fleet through sale/lease-back, financial lease and portfolio acquisition within 2014,” said Luo Le, who heads up the Irish operations of Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (JY Aviation). “JY schedules to recruit in Ireland an experienced team of aviation leasing experts including commercial, technical, legal and operation personnel before the end of 2015.”
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L–R: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton; Kemp chief executive Ray Dowling; and IDA’s head of ICT Leo Clancy
KEMP TECHNOLOGIES TO CREATE 50 JOBS IN LIMERICK US software company Kemp Technologies is to create 50 high end jobs over the next three years in Limerick, bringing its total Irish workforce to 80. The company develops advanced load balancers that enable organisations to optimise their e-commerce and online traffic capabilities. Based in Kemp’s Limerick EMEA HQ, the new jobs will bolster the company’s operations in software research and development, quality assurance, customer relationship management, marketing and operations. “Choosing Limerick as Kemp’s gateway to international market expansion has turned out to be a tremendous success story for the company,” said Ray Downes, Kemp Technologies CEO. “Since the first investment the intervening three years has seen an almost five times worldwide revenue growth and headcount increase. Our international business is now 45pc of global revenues.”
HEDGESERV OPENS CORK OPERATION Global hedge fund administrator HedgeServ has officially opened an operation in Cork, having already recruited 50 people there and intending to take on a further 150 over the next few years. The company already employs 380 people at its Dublin operation, which opened in 2008. The new jobs are being created at a state-of-the art facility in City Gate Park, Mahon, Co Cork. CEO of IDA Ireland Barry O’Leary said this expansion by HedgeServ added to the reputation of Ireland as a global hub for the hedge fund industry. “The accelerated growth of the company’s Irish operations proves Ireland’s ability to provide the highly skilled employees it requires for such rapid growth,” he added. “We are delighted with the results that HedgeServ is achieving in Cork,” said Hedgeserv CEO Jim Kelly. “The Cork area is rich with highly educated, talented industry professionals. The quality of the talent available in Ireland has enabled HedgeServ to deliver the highest quality of service to our clients. This has been recognised in industry surveys and is the key to our rapid growth.”
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NEW CEO FOR IDA IRELAND
TYCO TO OPEN CENTRE IN CORK THAT COULD CREATE 500 JOBS
Martin Shanahan is to take over as CEO of IDA Ireland in August. Shanahan joins from Forfás, the Government’s advisory policy agency for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation, where he has been CEO since 2010. He will be charged with consolidating IDA Ireland’s recent success and leading the development of a new strategy for the agency. He replaces Barry O’Leary, who steps down after nearly seven years as CEO and 30 years with the organisation.
Multinational fire and security company Tyco is establishing a business services centre in Cork with the potential to create more than 500 jobs locally over three years. The proposed establishment of this centre will enable the company to improve the efficiency of processes in central support functions. Tyco provides more than three million customers around the globe with fire protection and security products and services. Tyco Business System vicepresident Phil McVey said the company chose Ireland for this centre to take advantage of the country’s knowledge base and successful record of supporting operations centres such as this one. “With 140 similar centres already located here that support companies based around the world, we were attracted to Ireland’s expertise and culture of innovation, as well as the availability of a strong technical workforce that can hit the ground running to support a range of functional areas.”
Martin Shanahan, who will take over as CEO of IDA Ireland in August
BD MARKS 50 YEARS IN DROGHEDA WITH €16M INVESTMENT Global med-tech company BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its plant opening in Drogheda, Co Louth, with the announcement of a €16m investment in new equipment to expand its production of BD PosiFlush syringes. The company said it would also be creating up to 20 additional jobs in Drogheda. Over the past five years BD has invested nearly €73m in its manufacturing plants in Drogheda and Dún Laoghaire, where it employs more than 450 people. “Our additional and ongoing investment in our Drogheda facility reflects BD’s commitment to our associates, the local community and advancing the manufacture of high quality products that contribute to the health and well-being of patients worldwide,” said Jerry Hurwitz, senior vice-president, human resources, BD. “To be in operation for 50 years is a great testament to the workforce in Drogheda and I am extremely grateful for the contributions of the many associates who have worked with us since we opened our doors in Ireland.”
42 NEW JOBS FOR ASPEN IN CITYWEST Aspen Pharma has announced 42 new jobs at its Citywest European operations centre. The new jobs will bring Aspen’s total workforce in Ireland to 100 within the next 12 months. The company, which supplies branded and generic pharmaceuticals in more than 150 countries, first established an operation in Ireland in 2010. It also set up a global regulatory, pharmacovigilance, quality assurance and supply projects centre in Citywest in 2012. Stephen Saad, the company’s group chief executive, said Ireland’s strong pharmaceutical sector provides a workforce with the specialised skills required by the company and a strong regulatory and business environment.
LIBERTY MUTUAL TO CREATE 150 JOBS IN DUBLIN WITHIN TWO YEARS Liberty Mutual Insurance Group is to create 150 new jobs over the next two years at its Blanchardstown office in Dublin, which will bring its total workforce on the island of Ireland up to more than 1,500. The new jobs represent an expansion of the company’s IT operations, which specialise in enterprise-level software engineering support for the group worldwide and currently employ over 350 people in Belfast. The expanded IT operations in Dublin will support the establishment of an IT help desk, a security operations centre and a software engineering unit.
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Prof Mark Ferguson, SFI director general
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Centres of excellence The focus of Ireland’s future research efforts will increasingly be on delivering societal and economic impact from excellent scientific research Seven large scale research centres established over the last year and focusing on key growth areas for Ireland going forward bring together multidisciplinary teams employing 800 scientists working with more than 150 industry partners. Some €200m of Exchequer funding has been committed over a six-year period to create these world-class centres of scale, excellence and impact through Science Foundation Ireland’s Research Centres Programme, while industry partners have pledged over €100m in cash and in-kind contributions, making it the largest ever combined State/industry cofunding initiative in research in Ireland. The seven centres that have been established to date are focused on the areas of big data, marine renewable energy, nanotechnology/engineered materials, food for health/ functional foods, photonics, perinatal translational research and drug synthesis/crystallisation. According to SFI director general Prof Mark Ferguson, scientific excellence is necessary and paramount for the centres but they also have to be able to demonstrate impact to society and the economy. This reflects SFI’s vision for Ireland to be, by 2020, the best country in the world at creating impact from excellent scientific research and demonstrating clear value for money invested. Key objectives of the centres include: achieving, maintaining and improving research excellence; increasing the level of industrial and commercial investment in R&D activities with existing Ireland-based companies and helping to attract large foreign direct investment; spinning out new hi-tech start-up companies; carrying out joint research projects with industry; transferring technology, through licences, to multinationals and SMEs; and transferring knowledge, expertise and know-how to these companies. Another important aim is to train and educate a cohort of engineers and scientists at MSc/MEng, PhD and post-doctoral level who will be available to be employed by Irish-based multinationals and SMEs. And it’s hoped that the centres will be able to attract further external research funding, including from European sources such as Horizon 2020. Industry partners connected to the centres include Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Medtronic, GSK, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, BT, Kerry Group, The Irish Times, ESB, Alere, Intune Networks, Intel, IBM, RTE, Roche and UTRC Ireland. While the centres themselves must all be located in universities, any company, regardless of size, is eligible to become a partner with a centre in its area of operation. While SFI will fund up
to 70pc of the overall research budget over six years, at least 30pc of the budget must be secured from industry partners and at least one third of that has to be cash. THE PROPOSALS According to Prof Ferguson, the seven centres – Amber, APC, Infant, Insight, Ipic, MaREI and SPSS – were selected from 35 proposals after a highly competitive and rigorous international peer review process. “Each centre proposal was examined for scientific excellence through international scientific review by eminent scientists from the world’s leading universities and for potential economic impact through an international impact review by distinguished industrial R&D leaders, high technology investors, translational institute directors and tech transfer directors from world leading universities,” he says. “Over 100 esteemed international reviewers have joined with industry and agency experts to ensure that the centres supported have excellent science with the potential to deliver societal and economic impact.” Each of the centres is intended to become a hub for platform research areas of national importance with an overall operations capability, says Prof Ferguson. “This model enables the centres to add new industry and academic partners in ‘spokes’ or linked research streams to ensure that funding is used in a collaborative and consolidated way,” he says. “This ‘hub and spoke’ model will allow every centre to maximise the potential of the platform research provide flexibility and scalability by allowing new and existing multinational companies, SMEs and academic groups to partner in research projects and potentially create new research breakthroughs.” The SFI plans to add to the number of centres and last year launched another call for proposals from centres focused in the thematic areas of future networks and communications; digital platforms; content and applications; medical devices; diagnostics; sustainable food production and processing; smart grids and smart cities; manufacturing competitiveness; software; geosciences underpinning sustainable economic development; and earth and ocean observation. The deadline for submission of full proposals was April of this year and these applications are now being considered. Prof Ferguson has said that he expects that at least two new centres will be announced this year. Issue 8 Spring/Summer INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW
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ADVANCED MATERIALS AND BIOENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE (AMBER)
‘Over 100 esteemed international reviewers have joined with industry and agency experts to ensure that the centres supported have excellent science with the potential to deliver societal and economic impact’
SYNTHESIS & SOLID STATE PHARMACEUTICAL CENTRE (SSPC) Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton (centre) with with Prof Stefano Sanvito, AMBER (right) and Prof Mark Ferguson, director general of SFI (left) as they launched the Advanced Materials and Bio-Engineering Research Centre (Amber)
Trinity College Dublin-based Amber (Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research) aims to deliver internationally leading materials research that will be industrially and clinically informed with outputs including new discoveries and devices in ICT, medical device and industrial technology sectors.
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Its main areas of focus include:
Industry partners include: Intel, DePuy, Medtronic, Thomas Swan, Sigmoid, Eblana, Western Digital and SAB Miller. Academic partners include: lead institution Trinity College Dublin, together with University College Cork and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
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Development of enhanced nanoscale electronic devices for data processing and memory applications New materials to support innovation in medical devices and delivery systems, implants based on novel therapies, and regenerative tissue engineering
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Novel materials for new products in areas such as the bottling industry, solar energy, medical devices, medical diagnostics, and chemical and biological filtration Novel formulations and packaging to improve the distribution of pharmaceuticals
Budget: €50.5m (SFI €27.3m, industry €23.2m) www.ambercentre.ie
The Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC), a hub of pharmaceutical process innovation and advanced manufacturing, is a partnership of 17 industry partners, eight academic institutions and 12 international academic collaborators. Supporting 90 top-class researchers, the SSPC is the largest research collaboration in Ireland within the pharmaceutical area. Its role is to link experienced scientists and engineers, in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, to address critical research challenges. Its main areas of focus are: • • •
New frontiers in pharmaceutical synthesis Crystal growth and design Drug product formulation and manufacture
Industry partners include: Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline Eli Lilly SA, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche Ireland, Alkermes, Abbvie, UCB (Schwarz Pharma), APC Limited, Scale-Up Systems, Clarochem Ireland, Innopharma Labs, Eirgen Pharma Ltd, Glantreo and Amebis. Academic partners include: lead institution University of Limerick and TCD, UCC, UCD, Athlone IT, Waterford IT and NUI Galway. Budget: €31.8m (SFI €22m, industry €9.8m) www.ul.ie/sspc
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ALIMENTARY PHARMABIOTIC CENTRE (APC) The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre aims to link Irish science with industry and society through excellence in research, education and outreach in gastrointestinal health. The centre is focused on: • • • •
Gut microbiota and health status Health-promoting bacteria and food constituents for incorporation into ‘functional foods’ for improved health Novel bioactives to treat intestinal and infectious diseases Societal issues: disease prevention, improved cognition and healthy aging
Industry partners include: Kerry Group, Suntory, Cremo, General Mills and Alimentary Health. Academic partners include: lead institution University College Cork and Teagasc (Ireland’s agriculture and food development authority). The APC aims to link Irish science with industry and society
Budget: €42.6 (SFI €28m, industry €14.6m) www.ucc.ie/apc
CENTRE FOR DATA ANALYTICS (INSIGHT) The Insight Centre for Data Analytics is involved in high impact research in data analytics that has significant impact on industry and society by enabling better decision-making. The centre, a joint initiative between University College Dublin, NUI Galway, University College Cork and Dublin City University, Insight was established in 2013 by Science Foundation Ireland with funding of €75m. The centre brings together academics from five of Ireland’s leading research centres (Deri, Clarity, Clique, 4C and Tril).
Academic partners: Insight is a joint initiative between DCU, NUI Galway, UCC and UCD and others. Budget: €75.1m (SFI €44.4m, industry €30.7m) www.insight-centre.org
Focus areas of work are: • • • • • •
Data analytics Machine learning and data mining Media analytics and optimisation Optimisation and decision analytics The semantic web, linked data, and the sensor web Connected health
Industry partners include: RTÉ, Cisco, Microsoft, Sports Surgery Clinic, the IRFU, TE Labs, TreeMetrics, NitroSell, Avego, Fujitsu, Adidas and Shimmer.
Oonagh Giggins, PhD, Insight and Kevin Sweeney, postdoc, Insight
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INFANT Based at University College Cork, the Institute of Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (Infant) is a perinatal research centre founded on a decade of collaborative research and a diverse range of national and international academic and industry partnerships. Focus areas: • • •
Perinatal research Novel screening and diagnostic tests Novel methods of monitoring pregnancy and newborns
Industry partners include: Waters Corporation, IBM, Incereb, Inspiration Healthcare, Kvikna, Pfizer, BrepCo Pharmaceutical, Alere, MedSci Net and Newsweaver. Academic partners include: lead institution University College Cork and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Budget: €12m (SFI €6m, industry €6m) www.infantcentre.ie
MARINE RENEWABLE ENERGY IRELAND (MAREI) The MaREI research programme aims to tackle the major barriers remaining for the marine renewable energy sector. While a number of devices have proven their potential as future staples of the world’s power generation sources, challenges of large scale deployment have limited the progress of these technologies.
and other global market leaders and indigenous SMEs. Academic partners include: lead institution University College Cork and University College Dublin, Cork IT, University of Limerick, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Marine Institute and Teagasc.
The centre’s work is focused on:
Budget: €25m (SFI €14.7m, industry €10.3m)
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www.marei.ie
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Marine renewable energy devices Novel materials for marine renewable energy systems Power take off and energy storage for marine renewable energy systems Marine renewable energy decision support and data management
Industry partners include: ESB Energy International, DePuy, Shell, E&P Ireland Ltd, Marsh Technology, SSE Renewables, Techworks Marine
L–R: Gillian Bruton, MaREI; Prof Tony Lewis, MaREI interim director; Prof Mark Ferguson, director general of SFI; UCC president Michael Murphy; and Val Cummins of IMERC
IRISH PHOTONIC INTEGRATION RESEARCH CENTRE (IPIC) The Irish Photonic Integration Centre (Ipic) brings together over 100 researchers from four institutes to develop light-enabled technologies. Targeting the ICT and medical devices sectors, Ipic is working with 18 industry partners to develop the next generation of highly-compact and miniaturised photonic technologies. The centre’s work is focused on revolutionising the speed of data transfer through faster more energy efficient devices and delivering new smart medical devices for improved diagnosis and treatment of disease. The centre is working on photonic device and system integration strategies for applications such as:
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Advanced telecommunications networks Cell and tissue analysis
Industry partners include: Intel, British Telecom, Somex, InfiniLED, Radisens, Firecomms, Luxcel Biosciences, X-Celeprint, Eblana, Pilot Photonics and M/A-COM. Academic partners include: lead institution Tyndall National Institute and University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and Dublin City University (DCU). Budget €23.2m (SFI €15.2m, industry €8m) www.ipic.ie
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RESEARCH
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TWO MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS FOR AMBER RESEARCHERS Researchers in Amber have made two key breakthroughs in recent months. One of these is the development of a new method of producing industrial quantities of high quality graphene. Described as a wonder material, graphene is a single-atom thick sheet of carbon that is extremely light and stronger than steel, but also flexible and extremely electrically conductive. The discovery is expected to change the way many consumer and industrial products are manufactured. The materials will have a multitude of potential applications including advanced food packaging; high strength plastics; foldable touch screens for mobile phones and laptops; super-protective coatings for wind turbines and ships; faster broadband; and batteries with dramatically higher capacity than anything available today. Thomas Swan Ltd has worked with the Amber research team for two years and has signed a licence agreement to scale up production and make the high quality graphene available to industry globally. The company has already announced two new products as a result of the research discovery (Elicarb Graphene Powder and Elicarb Graphene Dispersion). Amber scientists also recently announced the discovery of a completely new material that they say could revolutionise information technology, computer processes and data storage. The creation of the alloy of manganese, ruthenium and gallium, known as MRG, was led by Prof Michael Coey, an Amber principal investigator from Trinity’s School of Physics. MRG is described as a ‘strange new magnet’: internally it is as magnetic as the strongest magnets currenlty available, but from the outside it appears to be barely magnetic.
According to Amber, the material - technically known as a ‘zero-moment half metal’ - will initiate a completely new line of materials research and could open up numerous possibilities for electronics and information technology. “Magnetic materials are what make reading and storing data – either on personal devices or on large scale servers in data centres – possible,” said Prof Coey. “Magnets are at the heart of every electronic device we use – from computers and laptops to tablets, smartphones and digital cameras. Given its unique insensitivity to magnetic fields, and the tenacity of its internal magnetic properties, MRG could now revolutionise how data is stored, which could have major implications for the future development of electronics, information technology and a host of other applications.”
Prof Michael Coey, an Amber principal investigator
APC RESEARCHERS FURTHER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW GUT BACTERIA REGULATE WEIGHT GAIN Researchers at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork have discovered how gut bacteria communicate with their host to specifically regulate weight gain and serum cholesterol levels. The research has implications for the rational selection and design of probiotics for the control of obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes. The team led by Dr Cormac Gahan and Dr Susan Joyce has analysed a bacterial protein that modifies bile acids (a major component of bile secretions) in the gut. This protein, bile salt hydrolase, is commonly made by gut bacteria and
functions to change the chemical properties of bile acids in the gut. The research team has shown that specifically increasing levels of this protein reduces serum cholesterol levels and weight gain in mice. The group is currently exploring the relevance of these findings to humans. “Recent work by other groups has shown that bile acids act as signalling molecules in the host, almost like a hormonal network, with an ability to influence host metabolism,” said Dr Gahan. “What we have done is to show that a specific mechanism exists by which bacteria in the gut can influence this process with significant consequences for the host.”
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COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
‘In two years Ireland has moved up five positions and in the last year two places – this is an amazing achievement for a country that was bailed out’
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Prof Arturo Bris, director, IMD World Competitiveness Centre
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COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
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Ahead of the
competition Ireland’s rise two places to No 15 in this year’s competitive rankings is very impressive, according to Prof Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre, and the country’s handling of its financial crisis has improved its image abroad. KARINA CORBETT reports There was good news for Ireland in May when the IMD World Competitiveness Centre published its IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014. After climbing three places last year to reach No 17, the country rose two more places this year to reach No 15. Ireland has moved up nine places in overall competitiveness over the last four years. Now in its 26th year, the report measures how well countries manage all their resources and competencies to increase their prosperity. The overall ranking reflects more than 300 criteria, two-thirds of which are based on statistical indicators and one-third on an exclusive IMD survey of 4,300 international executives. This year’s results also put Ireland first in the world for availability of skilled labour; for flexibility and adaptability of workforce; for attitudes to globalisation; and for investment incentives. When it comes to economic performance it rose seven places to No 19 and for government efficiency it went up three places to No 14. For business efficiency it climbed nine places to reach No 4 and for infrastructure it came in at No 20, up two places from 2013. More than half the executives surveyed for the report identified a competitive tax regime, skilled workforce, business friendly environment and high educational levels as key attractiveness factors in Ireland. “In two years Ireland has moved up five positions and in the last year two places – this is an amazing achievement for a country that was bailed out,” says Prof Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre. “It really is truly impressive. Ireland ranks with the top European countries like Germany and the Netherlands,
so it has performed extremely well. One of the massive advantages Ireland has is that it has been a great attractor of international investment. It is one of the top five countries in the world when it comes to international investment. And I think this is the result of better policies. The fiscal policy Ireland has followed, for example lowering corporate taxes to the minimum to attract investment – that is a good lesson for a lot of peripheral countries like Italy or even France, as in how the right fiscal policy can help an ecomony.”
KEY FINDINGS The overall competitiveness story for 2014 is one of continued success in the US, partial recovery in Europe, and struggles for some large emerging markets, Bris explains. “Among the key findings in the report this year is that is that first, the US remains the most competitive economy. It is actually difficult to beat – it’s a big economy, it’s very resiliant. It dominates with infrastructure and techology. It’s very open to global trade so it’s naturally the most competitive. “The second thing to note is that Europe is back and I think that’s important for countries like Ireland and Spain, that Europe is back in the competitiveness race. Most countries in Europe, from Germany to Portugal and including Ireland, improved their competitiveness. There are two exceptions – one is Norway and that was because of the exchange rates, and the other is Italy, that seems to be lagging. But all the other countries improved.” With Europe faring better this year, how significant are the rankings in terms of the region’s economic recovery? “Competitiveness isn’t just about economic performance – economic performance accounts for one quarter of the ranking,” explains Bris.
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COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
“Competitiveness is about prosperity and prosperity means jobs, but it also requires education, infrastructure, healthcare and the right values. So the economic performance in Europe has not been stellar but the reason why I think European countries are doing better – and this is not just about Ireland, but in general – is because there is a better sentiment among executives regarding the future of Europe. And because of that I think there is more investment, more capital and more attraction of foreign capital as well. I think this better sentiment is the main cause of Europe’s improvement.” In contrast, most big emerging markets fell in the rankings. The report found that China (No 23) slipped, partly owing to concerns about its business environment, while India (No 44) and Brazil (No 54) suffer from inefficient labour markets and ineffective business management. “If you take countries like India and Brazil and China – these are the promising economies that everybody has been talking about, however they have dropped in the rankings
general there was a strong correlation between a country’s overall competitiveness ranking and its international image as a place to do business. Executives in Singapore were most bullish on their country’s overseas image, while Ireland, Chile, Qatar and South Korea were all far higher on this criterion than in the overall ranking. According to Bris, while economic performance changes from year to year, perceptions are longer term and shift more gradually. They can also lead to a virtuous circle of better image and better economic performance, so how executives feel their country is being perceived is a potentially useful guide to future competitiveness developments there. “I think it is detrimental in the long run for a country to have a mismatch between executives’ opinions and the true view of the world because in the long run what matters is the ability to attract investment and the ability to trade with other economies. And it is very important to have a good perception of your own country because it improves sentiment.” “The perception that executives have regarding the
‘The economic performance in Europe has not been stellar but the reason why I think European countries are doing better – and this is not just about Ireland, but in general – is because there is a better sentiment among executives regarding the future of Europe’ significantly,” says Bris. “The reason for that is a good example of how economic development is not enough. These are economies that have grown amazingly – China, for instance, has grown at an average of at least 10pc every year for the last 10 years. But the problem with these countries is that they have not developed the right institutions, they have not developed ways to extend prosperity to their people, they have not improved healthcare or environmental laws or education systems or even physical infrastruture like in the case of Brazil. So at the end of the day, despite the massive growth that these countries have experienced, it is not sustainable. They need to really work for the long term to make sure that the people can enjoy such prosperity.”
IMAGE ABROAD The report also looked at how a country’s image abroad can influence future competitiveness. Seven of the top 10 countries in the overall ranking for 2014 were also in the top 10 for having an image abroad that encourages business development. In
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prospects of their country determines their willingness to invest and commit capital. “Similarly, foreign direct investments are extremely dependent on trust, and trust is to a great extent a function of a country’s own corporate executives. The examples of the UAE and the US, which are optimistic by nature, are relevant: corporate confidence generates stability, investment, innovation, job creation.” Bris believes that Ireland’s image as a result of the financial crisis has improved rather than deteriorated. “The reason is that the country coped very well with its banking problems and followed the right recipes such as low taxes, attracting foreign investment and focusing on solving the problems in the financial services. “Moreover, compared to the other peripheral countries in Europe, it fared much better. From IMD, a business school specialised in executive education, I have been able to experience the optimism of Irish executives on the future of the country.”
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IRELAND RANKS
for flexibility and adaptability of workforce
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for attitudes towards globalisation
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for immigration laws
for investment incentives
for business efficiency
for productivity of companies
for workforce productivity
for value system
for international investment
for business legislation
most competitive country in the world
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INDUSTRY FOCUS
All kinds of
everything
Ireland is in the vanguard of a major revolution in connected devices known as the ‘Internet of Things’, which is set to see more than 200 billion mobile devices communicating with each other by 2020. JOHN KENNEDY reports 20
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‘The combination of computing, connectivity and the internet has grown the world’s digital economy from zero to tens of trillions of euro in only a couple of decades’
of the iPod, for US$3.2bn. Nest’s devices It was mid-October and a balmy night in self learn users’ habits and allow people Rome on the Piazza della Rotunda. Around to wirelessly – and remotely – control a table over food and wine a group of young equipment in their home. engineers from Ireland could barely contain The IoT is effectively the internet in their excitement as they talked with Intel physical form. The big trend in technology top brass about their role in unleashing a today is wearable computing. Many mysterious new revolution called ‘Designed consumers are carrying wearable devices, in Ireland’. such as Nike Fuel bands to measure fitness. The very next day at the international Recently, Samsung and Google unveiled Maker’s Faire it all became clear. Intel senior their smartwatch technologies, and in the vice-president Philip Moynagh, who at that US privacy debates are raging over people point headed up a 70-strong skunkworks who wear Google Glass eyewear. team at Intel focused on R&D, revealed a In France, a company called Babolat fully working Galileo development board has even developed tennis rackets with powered by a Quark X1000 processor. sensor technology to analyse the quality Embossed on the device were the words Philip Moynagh, of a swing and feed the data to the user’s ‘Designed in Ireland’, a massive statement senior vice-president, Intel smartphone. that Ireland has every intention of riding Inventors are putting the wireless the Internet of Things (IoT) wave. capabilities to a variety of uses, from The device will enable inventors and sensors in plants that tweet their owners designers – not to mention hobbyists – to when they need watering, to Wi-Fi controlled lighting and put technology and intelligence in physical objects like robots, heating. lighting systems and much more. Anyone fancy having a WiAccording to networking equipment maker Cisco, about Fi controlled lawnmower to do the work? 8.7 billion connected objects existed worldwide at the end of The creation of the Intel Quark SoC X1000, the first 2012. It’s predicting that figure to pass a more conservative 50 product from the Intel Quark technology family of low power, billion by 2020. The IoT is tipped by Cisco to have generated small core products, was made possible when the local team US$613bn worth of global profits in 2013 alone. of Intel executives seized the opportunity to create a chip for Recently, UK prime minister David Cameron announced the IoT. additional funding of stg£45m for research into the IoT. And To give you an illustration about how the tech world is in its third Action Plan for Jobs the Irish Government also ramping up for the IoT, Samsung, Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, alluded to measures that included the IoT. Intel and Wind River have joined forces to create the Open Just after announcing its US$4bn investment at Leixlip Interconnect Consortium to set standards that will join near Dublin earlier this year, Intel revealed that it is together billions of devices as part of the IoT revolution. The embarking on a plan with Dublin City Council to make Dublin new consortium will define connectivity requirements to the most densely sensored city in the world. The project to ensure that the 212 billion IoT devices – predicted by IDC to make Dublin a ‘Global Demonstrator for Smart City Sensors’ come on stream by 2020 – can talk to each other. will use Intel Quark-based Gateway platforms. In January 2014, Google acquired Nest, the maker of a Two hundred of these sensing gateways will be placed self learning thermostat created by Tony Fadell, designer Issue 8 Spring/Summer 2014 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW
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INDUSTRY FOCUS
Nest’s devices self learn users’ habits and allow people to wirelessly – and remotely – control equipment in their home
around Dublin City to gather and monitor environmental data, in particular noise and air quality. Each of these gateways can deploy up to six sensors. The pilot project, an international first, will give Dublin the infrastructure to be one of the most densely ‘sensed’ cities in the world. THE SCALE OF THE IOT OPPORTUNITY It’s the scale of that opportunity that we need to get our heads around, explains Philip Moynagh, who in May was one of three Irish people to be appointed senior vice-president at Intel. Moynagh will head up the IoT division at Intel. “The combination of computing, connectivity and the internet has grown the world’s digital economy from zero to tens of trillions of euro in only a couple of decades. Everywhere we look we see laptops, tablets and phones connecting people to one another and connecting people to the internet. How we access information, goods and one
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another has been transformed. It’s a personal and business revolution for sure. “But what if I told you we’ve only just begun? The reality is that all we’ve done so far is use screens to connect people to people and to connect people to data. The real revolution is happening now as we connect ‘all things to the internet’ and ‘all things to one another’. “For all the wonder of the digital economy (and I’ve spent my career in it), we don’t live in screens. We live in the physical world of things. We sleep in beds, eat food, drive cars, work in buildings, socialise in cities. And it’s that physical world of ‘things’ that is starting to be transformed. That’s the Internet of Things. It’s the application of compute, connect and internet to all things. And our world today will be unrecognisable in 10 years.” One sector that looks set to be transformed will be healthcare. “Gathering basic information like blood pressure
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‘The next wave of dramatic internet growth will come through the confluence of people, process, data, and things — the internet of everything’
requires a visit to a doctor to deliver one-off measurements. These will be replaced by small wearable blood pressure monitors that continuously measure and alert patient and doctor with any early warning signs,” says Moynagh. “Consider the dramatic improvement in our health and well-being that will result from those of us with chronic health challenges moving out from hospitals and back to our homes with wearable technology that monitors pulse, temperature, blood glucose, movement, brain activity and the likes. We’ll be happier and healthier. Our physicians and we will get Mike Conroy, general manager, Cisco the right early indication of when to engage the health system. And the effectiveness of the healthcare system will improve at the same time as its cost reduces.” In terms of transport, Moynagh says that in the future all cars will talk to one another, to the road infrastructure and will monitor pedestrians to eliminate accidents, optimise traffic flows, reduce travel times and minimise fuel consumption. THE NEXT BIG THINGS “Shops will become much more intelligent things,” he continues. “By watching weather forecasts and controlling the supply chain, shops will self order suntan lotion or umbrellas. Knowing the date and learning from historical variations, shops will self order more green t-shirts for St Patrick’s Day, more Dublin shirts for upcoming football games. “Seeing that one breakfast cereal is selling slowly and will hit shelf life limits in a week, shops will self adjust the selling price on the digital sign to a price that gets the sell rate is right, a benefit to both the consumer and the business. “In manufacturing supply chains, high sales of a phone to end customers in Brazil will result in shops talking to distribution warehouses, which talk back to phone manufacturing factories, which talk further back to the makers of the chips and the plastics so that the supply chain responds by building what is actually in demand, not what we thought might sell. “When shopping for a new version of a home appliance, only 50pc of people re-choose the brand they have. Embedding
Mike Conroy, general manager, Cisco
compute in that appliance and connecting it to the internet will allow the home owner to have services like automatic ordering of detergent when needed. It will also allow the appliance manufacturer to understand what usage models or issues drive brand loyalty and allow them to build better appliances. “In farming, soil monitors will engage watering systems to maintain optimum growing conditions. Devices on pregnant cattle will ensure that the farmer is present when needed. There is no area of our lives that will not be impacted.” MOORE’S LAW MARCHES ON Moynagh points out that for a thing to be smart, it first needs compute built in. To talk to the internet and to other things, it needs wired or wireless connectivity. On top of this hardware sits software that allows manageability, enables data sharing and ensures security. And on top of that will sit services that connect things to things and things to people. “Today’s IoT market is dominated by custom solutions in
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“The next wave of dramatic internet growth will come markets like transport and manufacturing. Aircraft engines through the confluence of people, process, data, and things — contain computers that analyse and send engine health data the internet of everything [IoE],” he adds. Technology trends to the airline company and the engine maker before and (including cloud and mobile computing, big data, increased during flight,” he says. processing power, and many others) and business economics “Equipment in advanced factories contain compute are driving the IoE economy. that looks for early signs of equipment failure and sends Founder of the Telecommunications Software and that data to maintenance engineers. Shipping containers Systems Group (TSSG) and head of research at Waterford measure temperature, humidity, vibration and location and Institute of Technology (WIT) communicate that to the cargo Prof Willie Donnelly says the owners. internet as consumers know “As Moore’s Law drives it revolves around humans steadily smaller and more interacting with one another powerful computer chips, the via shared computer networks. price point at which compute To understand the IoT, he says, can be incorporated into things think of an internet generated by drops. And as the wireless physical devices without human communications network intervention. continues its build out, better “For instance, we can have and more cost effective pollution sensors on a street connectivity allows those things which can communicate with to be connected to one another sensors in cars to regulate and to the cloud. the cars’ acceleration and “Amazon’s Kindle ebook is speed profile to minimise their a great example of early mass emissions.” application of a cost effective In another example, a home IoT solution, completely or work environment can changing the business model for Intel Galileo development board – ‘Designed in Ireland’ contain a number of sensors that the search, sale and distribution collaborate to manage energy of books. Expect a lot more of consumption in the room. When a room is unoccupied, the that.” sensors will power down all devices and set the temperature to a reasonable level. THE ECONOMY OF THINGS “Health sensors can also be incorporated into the home In Galway, Cisco has a 170-strong R&D team dedicated to the environment,” Donnelly explains. “In the case of the elderly, future of the workplace, as well as developments in areas like body sensors can monitor a patient’s well-being to ensure the IoT. The operation’s general manager Mike Conroy says that environment is optimised to the patient’s needs. In the case while yes, there are 8.7 billion connected objects in the world, of any degradation of the patient’s condition, it may transfer this is just a tiny dent in what the IoT universe could be. information on the patient’s status to a nurse, who can then Cisco estimates 99.5pc of physical objects are still intervene.” unconnected. Conversely, this means only about 10 billion In the telecoms world, communication between devices of the 1.5 trillion things globally are connected. At a more that have a set mission, such as recording temperatures, personal level, there are about 200 ‘connectable’ things footfall at a concert or football match, or diagnostics from the per person in the world today in the home, at work, in the engine of a car, involves what are effectively mobile devices car, at the doctor, at play, all driven by advances in mobile with SIMs inside them. technology. These facts highlight the vast potential of These devices, according to Donnelly, are known in the connecting the unconnected, Conroy explains.
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Philip Moynagh, Intel senior vice-president
telecoms industry as machine-to-machine (M2M) devices. In 2013, the number of M2M connections reached 195 million, showing a growth curve of nearly 40pc per year between 2010 and 2013. By 2020, M2M devices will represent a significant subset of the 212 billion IoT enabled devices forecast by IDC. So it is becoming truly pervasive, Donnelly says. “The utilities markets are a prime example,” he adds. “Devices are being used to more effectively manage power consumption within the home, industry, offices or shopping centres.” IRELAND AND THE FUTURE OF THINGS So if IoT is the future, what is a country like Ireland – synonymous with telecoms since the first transatlantic telecom cables were laid in the 19th century – doing to keep its edge, and how will the country benefit? Ireland is a small, highly networked country with the potential to bring the key producers and consumers together to rapidly build and trial IoT solutions, says Donnelly. In the first instance, he maintains, Ireland should be an early adopter of IoT technology. “We may initially focus on those areas where government
is a major provider of financial support, such as waste management, environmental management, healthcare and urban development. The first generation of IoT solutions are bespoke and specialised to particular domains, such as energy and transport.” From Conroy’s vantage point at Cisco, Ireland has many of the components to be a leader in the IoT. Most of the world leading ICT companies are based in Ireland and have significant operations and skills across compute endpoints, sensor devices, intelligent network transport, edge computing, cloud and data analytics – the end-to-end IoT ecosystem. Ireland also has an internationally competitive research base that partners well with industry (such as the Insight Centre for Data Analytics and many others), arising out of Science Foundation Ireland’s priorities over the last five years and strategic research pillars that are well aligned to the broad IoT landscape and markets, says Conroy. “By international standards, these are large focused assets skills bases and facilities that can play a major part as a hub for commercial collaboration and the promotion of public sector adoption. Ireland has some unique industry partnership models that are differentiating and compelling to attract international investment,” he adds. There is also an increasingly and relevant indigenous company base in the area. In the near term, there is an opportunity for strong public-private consortia to build out national IoT platforms, promoting interoperability and standardisation, in partnership with industry, which will attract investment. For Ireland to benefit from the IoT Intel’s Philip Moynagh recommends investing in IoT fundamentals and applying IoT to the nation’s biggest problems and opportunities. “With an unflinching focus on high return for our investment, we need to architect and implement IoT solutions that address our biggest challenges. We need outstanding cost effective healthcare for an aging population. “We need world-class education for our kids and our adults. We need smart rooms in smart buildings in smart cities with smart transport delivering safer, healthier, energy efficient, productive living. “We need to attract the best companies and we need to start and build the best companies in the world.” John Kennedy is editor of Siliconrepublic.com
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DIGITAL WORLD
Grand central
Attracting some of the biggest names in the tech world over the last few years, Dublin’s Grand Canal Dock has been dubbed by many as ‘Silicon Docks’
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Facebook’s new home off Grand Canal Square
e
A rejuvenation of Dublin’s Docklands in recent years has coincided with an influx of technology companies – large and small, indigenous and multinational – into the area. The trend has been strong enough to earn the area around the Grand Canal Dock the nickname ‘Silicon Docks’. Google set the ball rolling back in 2004 when it moved into its first Irish office on Barrow St. The company initially rented two buildings on the street, which backs onto the Grand Canal Inner Basin, before buying both in 2011. That same year, the company also acquired the Montevetro building across the road on Barrow St for €99.5m. Google said it had bought the Montevetro – Dublin’s tallest building at 15 storeys – to provide more space for existing operations and capacity for future growth. All three buildings are now connected by a second-floor pedestrian bridge. Another reasonably long-time resident in the area is Facebook, which established its international headquarters in Hanover Quay in 2009. The lease on that space expired recently and the company, which employs 500 people in Ireland, has since moved into a brand new 11,000 sq metre
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The Daniel Libeskinddesigned Bord Gáis Energy Theatre
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Âť
Above and below: various views of Grand Canal Dock and the rear of Barrow St
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office space in Grand Canal Square with capacity for 1,000 employees. Architect Frank Gehry – designer of the Guggenheim in Bilbao – was brought in to design the interior of the building. Other notable residents in the vicinity include the likes of Zynga, Airbnb, Adroll, PayPal, Amazon, LinkedIn, Twitter, Hubspot, Indeed.com, Zendesk, Dropbox and Yelp. As well as the growing cluster of established names, there’s also a thriving indigenous start-up scene in and around the area. Barrow St has also been the home since 2010 of Dogpatch Labs, which was originally set up in San Francisco and also has a hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established by Polaris Venture Partners, the facility provides
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Grand Canal Dock from Hanover Quay
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Google’s Dublin HQ
dynamic open plan spaces for early stage, high growth Irish and international companies working on new business ideas. Companies and people who have graduated from or are still at the facility in Dublin include Viddyad, Engine Yard, Coderdojo founder James Whelton, Profitero, BalconyTV. com, NewsWhip and Squarespace. DCU’s Ryan Academy, meanwhile, is running its five-month Propellor accelerator programme in Silicon Docks. The cluster effect is an obvious draw, both for companies and the talent that they are seeking to attract. But the area also has plenty more going for itself, including an attractive waterside location and architecturally interesting buildings, as well as a general buzz from new and trendy local restaurants, bars and cafes, a brand new community, and a vibrant cultural scene underpinned by the Daniel Libeskinddesigned Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and The O2.
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Grand Canal Square skyline
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The Gasworks is one of the striking residential developments in the area
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Silicon Docks is well served by cafes, bars and restaurants
The second-floor pedestrian bridge linking three Google buildings on Barrow St
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FREEZEFRAME
FINDING COLOUR IN A BLACK AND WHITE WORLD “This is an image through the eye of a zebrafish, showing the neurons in the retina that enable us to see colour. This image comes from a study in which we created a model of a human disease that causes blindness due to loss of colour photoreceptors using a novel model we generated in UCD. This model enables us to better understand the disease and to evaluate gene and drug-based therapies.” Dr Breandán Kennedy, senior lecturer, School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science
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RESEARCH IN THE
frame Each year since 2006, University College Dublin (UCD) has been running the Research Images competition, which offers its researchers the opportunity to submit compelling digital images and awards those with the best visual portrayal of some aspect of their research. The competition seeks to find the most innovative and imaginative images that convey the depth and range of research taking place at the university. So far, there have been over 1,650 entries to the competition from postdoctoral fellows, postgraduate students, final year undergraduate students, research technicians and the staff of UCD’s affiliated teaching hospitals. Each year 12 images are shortlisted by a panel of UCD staff and academics, and external judges from the arts and science. In these pages we look at some of the shortlisted images from 2013, along with explanations by their creators.
PSYCHADELIC SILVER “This false colour image shows latex microspheres decorated with silver nanoprisms. These particles have potential applications in catalysis, cellular imaging, surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (SERS) and plasmonics.” David Hinds, postdoctoral researcher, School of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
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POTS IN THE FIRE! “Pottery is of huge significance in archaeological investigations, providing information on past technologies, culture and style, cooking and storage, and even daily life and death through burial practice. UCD School of Archaeology staff and students source natural clay, process and prepare it, and make pots of various types, before firing them in bonfires and kilns at the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Ancient Technologies. UCD Archaeology students experiment with various pottery production methods, and demonstrate creativity, resourcefulness and develop a sense of the embodied skills required in ancient technologies. UCD is currently establishing itself as a European leader in experimental archaeological investigations, while also creating a resource for public outreach and education.” Aidan O’Sullivan, senior lecturer, School of Archaeology
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COCKLE CATASTROPHE “Clean water is equally important for everyone. Contaminated water can lead to sudden mass mortalities of animals such as these cockles. My research involves developing a universally applicable microarray to detect waterborne pathogens and help ensure our waters are clean.” Bas Boots, postdoctoral fellow, School of Biosystems Engineering
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VISULISATION OF THE CO-AUTHOR GRAPH BASED ON UCD RESEARCH REPOSITORY PUBLICATIONS “Aficionado is a commercialisation project with the purpose of creating an academic expertise location system for the purposes of collaboration building. The project aims to automatically profile the expertise of academics based on their publication output. We start by gathering publications (>3,500) of academics from the UCD Research Repository. We then extract the authors and topic information and use this to build expert profiles. A major part of the expert profile of an academic is who they have co-authored publications with and the image presented here depicts a visualisation of the connections between academic staff in UCD based on their co-authorship across publications. The image was created using the Gephi graph visualisation tool.” Kevin McCarthy, research fellow, School of Computer Science & Informatics
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HOPE “The photo shows a simulated astronaut that is waiting for a rover to deliver a pack. This illustrates the idea of human-robot teams in space where a robot becomes a teammate rather than a mere tool. Also, it is a good example of complexity and potential for human-robot interaction and human likeness in robots, real or imagined. Human-robot teams will shape future space exploration, where humans and robots working together can overcome the limits they both have and accomplish tasks that would otherwise not be achievable. The question is whether space robots should be seen as tools (machine-like) complementary to human skills or rather as an extension of the human (human-like).” Karolina Zawieska, PhD student , School of Education
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HAIDAR CIALEKOSUN “Haidar Cialekosun is a worker in a greenhouse in Kumluca, near Antalya, Turkey. Haidar is a wealthy man; he lives and works in rudimentary conditions but local sunshine and poly-tunnels allow him to grow capsicum at great speed. His green peppers are sold across Turkey and throughout Europe. The rural district of Kumluca is linked into the global market and has been transformed by the modernisation of agricultural production in the past 50 years. This photograph was taken on a field trip, sponsored by the LeNotre project that studied rural change. As the world turns its attention towards the urban environment, this project examines the rural condition.” Sophie Meeres, lecturer, School of Architecture
AN EXPRESSION OF TIME, SPACE AND CHARACTER “A snapshot in time – one of 365 photographs taken to capture a shifting urban scape.” Conrad Richardson, research administrator, School of Architecture
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<< Name: Prof Barry O’Sullivan Institute: University College Cork Title: TURING AT 100 “This image presents a portrait of Alan Turing, the great mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. The year 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Turing’s birth. He was one of the founding fathers of computer science, algorithms and computation. Turing is also well known for the Turing test and the concept of artificial intelligence. This image is what’s known as a domino portrait. It is generated by carefully placing each of the 55 dominoes from 361 sets of dominoes, almost 20000 pieces, in a manner that creates a high quality likeness of Turing. Generating such an image is an extremely challenging task bringing together several subfields of artificial intelligence to explore a vast space of configurations of dominoes, not unlike the search that Turing had undertaken during World War II to codebreak Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine. Zoom into the image to see each domino. Zoom out to see Turing.”
THE FLY! “This image of the common green bottle fly is one of the first images to be shot on my home built optical microscope. The microscope was designed and constructed by myself as an affordable alternative to similar more expensive microscopes intended to image macro sized objects such as insects and flowers.” Karl Gaff, research technician, School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science
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Going for growth
The IDA’s increased focus in recent years on winning business from emerging companies has seen quite a number of high growth companies setting up shop in Ireland. GRAINNE ROTHERY reports
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The number and calibre of high growth companies that have chosen Ireland as the base from which to scale up and internationalise in recent years is impressive by any standards. AdRoll, Airbnb, Nitro, Qualtrics, Zendesk, Viagogo and Yelp are just some of the high-profile companies that have announced plans to set up or extend operations here in the last 12 months alone. Many more less well known companies with high potential for growth have also revealed plans for expansion from Ireland. And the hope is that the likes of Minds and Machines, Clio, AerData, StorageCraft, EtQ, Pearl Street Enterprises, CapSpire, StartingDot and NeoMed will all go on to achieve household name status in the future. The fact that so many of these burgeoning enterprises are deciding to set up shop in Ireland reflects the IDA’s increased focus in recent years on winning business from emerging companies, which are defined as high growth technology businesses that have impact hugely disproportional to their size. IDA’s thinking is that these emerging businesses are the seeds of tomorrow’s multinationals. Since setting up a dedicated team focused on the needs of these young companies, 100 projects have been successfully processed through the system, 40 of them in the last year alone. The division works to identify candidate companies in the US and mainland Europe that are looking to scale up and, in many cases, open their first international office. The job for the team – which currently has members on the ground in California, Atlanta, New York and Frankfurt – is to then try to convince them to locate in Ireland. The targeted companies are generally in their early stages of growth, meaning that they are typically less than seven years old and have a turnover of between US$30m and US$40m. Barry O’Dowd, who heads up the division, describes the
‘I feel so privileged to be part of this new wave of companies coming to Ireland. When we first made the visit out here there was lots of familiar names and companies. And the choice was always obvious’ The opening of AdRoll’s Dublin office
Aaron Bell, CEO, AdRoll
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competition for these companies as intense. One of Ireland’s key selling points, he says, is that it gives them the ability to come in quickly and execute business models very efficiently. He notes that good property solutions are available and that Ireland has an efficient legal system so companies can be incorporated and structures put in place very quickly.
FAVOURING FACTORS A strong local talent pool, Ireland’s reputation as a tech hub and a streamlined visa programme to recruit non-European nationals are also strong factors in the country’s favour. Meanwhile, a track record in attracting overseas companies over the years means that many familiar names are present. More than 1,150 multinationals have set up operations in Ireland, including – in the ‘born on the internet’ realm – Facebook, Google, eBay, Amazon, Gilt and PayPal. In Dublin recently for the official opening of Zendesk’s new office space at Grand Parade in Ranelagh, founder Mikkel Svane said the company had chosen to base its development centre in Ireland for a variety of reasons after a number of different locations had been considered. “First and foremost it has a great tradition of American companies setting up here so the mentality’s in place,” he said. “I think the mentality plays a big part and means a lot. Then of course, we also speak the same language, which is extremely helpful.
The opening of Zendesk’s office in Dublin
“And there’s a great tradition also here for people being open minded: they’re open to foreigners, they’re open to new
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‘This year the Dublin office has become the fastest growing Svane, Zendesk Zendesk office in Mikkelfounder and CEO Europe, as well as the largest office by number of employees, not only in Europe, but also outside of the United States’ Mikkel Svane, Zendesk founder and CEO
cultures and so on and that’s very helpful when you come in with a new company and new people. “Then you have the infrastructure in place – things are working here. The universities are great. People are well educated and have a little bit of experience. It’s just a good infrastructure. “And one of the things that’s very unique about Ireland and about Dublin is the effort by the IDA and the local relationship that’s on the ground in San Francisco. It’s amazing. And now there’s a direct flight, we’ve got all the basic ingredients in place. “It made a lot of sense. I’m from Denmark myself and that made less sense. There’s not the same tradition for having foreign companies, there’s not the same mentality.” The company, which provides a cloud-based customer service platform, was set up in Copenhagen in 2007 by Svane, Alexander Aghassipour and Morten Primdahl. The three moved the headquarters to San Francisco in 2009 and since then the company has grown to employ around 600 people, 52 of whom are currently based in Dublin. “This year the Dublin office has become the fastest growing Zendesk office in Europe, as well as the largest office by number of employees, not only in Europe, but also outside of the United States,” said Svane. We have capacity for 150 people here and there’s no reason to have the capacity if you’re not going to use it.”
ADROLL ARRIVAL Meanwhile, at the Web Summit last October, advertising retargeting platform provider AdRoll announced that it would be setting up its European headquarters in Dublin
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FIVE HIGH GROWTH COMPANIES SET UP IN IRELAND In February, five North American and European high growth companies revealed their plans to set in Ireland, creating 132 jobs. Fifty jobs will be created at the new EMEA HQ in Dublin of San Francisco-headquartered software analytics company New Relic. NeoMed Inc, which manufactures enteral nutrition delivery devices, said its new EMEA headquarters in Dublin will create 22 jobs and will be responsible for all sales outside of the US. Also in Dublin, StartingDot, the Paris-based internet domain name registry business, is establishing a finance and operations centre creating 10 jobs across a range of activities including sales, finance, IT and customer support. CapSpire, a global consulting and solutions company serving the energy industry, is opening its first international office to allow the firm to better serve its existing European clients. The company will create 20 new jobs at its new Dublin office business consultancy and software development. Finally, Seko MedTec Solutions, an operating company of Sutherland Global Logistics (SGL), announced plans to set up a European control centre in Galway, with the creation of 30 jobs.
AdRoll’s CEO Aaron Bell with EMEA MD Marius Smyth
YELP OPENS EUROPEAN HQ IN DUBLIN
Yelp’s European HQ on Hatch St in Dublin 2
Yelp recently opened its new European HQ in Dublin where it said it plans to create over 100 new jobs. The company, which helps connect consumers with local businesses online, said a range of new roles are being created to support and drive growth across Europe, including sales executive, account management, product engineering and finance. “Expanding Yelp’s international operations with the opening of our new office in Dublin is a landmark moment in the company’s history,” said the company’s co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman. “This new office will be home to our European operations and will be the engine behind our European revenue generation efforts. “Ireland offers us fantastic access to multiple language capabilities from a tech savvy and educated population, not to mention a country that has proven to be a home-away-from-home for a number of existing Yelp employees that have already relocated there.” would be setting up its European headquarters in Dublin and creating 100 jobs in its first year. In June of this year, the company launched new operations in Dublin and revealed plans to double its office space and take on an extra 100 staff. At that stage, the company had already exceeded its first year growth targets by growing its headcount of 120. “We have outgrown two offices already, and we believe our new space will see us through to fulfilling our ambitions to have a large, high performing multilingual team in Ireland to service our clients across Europe, Middle East and Africa,” said Marius Smyth, AdRoll’s managing director of EMEA. “I feel so privileged to be part of this new wave of companies coming to Ireland,” said AdRoll CEO Aaron Bell. “When we first made the visit out here there was lots of familiar names and companies. And the choice was always obvious. Bell, who started his career with Microsoft in the 1990s, said Dublin reminds him a lot of San Francisco culturally. “People come from all over Europe to work here,” he added. “We originally set up a plan to hire inside sales and account management. That quickly progressed to rolling out all of Issue 8 Spring/Summer 2014 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW
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the other functional roles within the business here in EMEA and we’ve also found some interesting engineering talent and product talent that have joined the business here as well. “We oftentimes joke that the core team here reminds us of the core team that we started the company with in 2007 except the people here are actually experienced and know what they’re doing.”
SURVEYMONKEY OPENS NEW DUBLIN OFFICE Online questionnaire platform SurveyMonkey is opening an office in Dublin that will employ more than 50 people in its first 12 months of operations. The company, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, said the new office will support its many existing Irish and European customers. New employees will join the existing international team that is relocating to Dublin from the company’s Lisbon office. “Helping our customers understand how to use our platform to get the answers they need is our top priority,” said Luis Franco, VP, international operations, SurveyMonkey. “This new office will ensure we can further educate our international customers, all from a central multilingual, multicultural location. The convergence of language talent, technology know-how and cultural savvy makes Dublin the ideal base from which we can meet the needs of our international customers.”
AIRBNB WON OVER BY IRISH HOSPITALITY Earlier this year, community driven hospitality company Airbnb marked the official opening of its new Dublin office with the announcement of an additional 100 new roles. “The thing about Dublin is there’s an incredible ecosystem that already exists here with Google, Facebook and all these tech companies employing many of the same types of people that we want to employ,” said Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk. “There’s also a very rich language skill set and to clinch it is the reputation of hospitality amongst the Irish. That sits really well with our whole brand. “I think that Dublin and the IDA and what you guys have done, we were just welcomed here,” said Brian Chesky, co-founder and chief executive officer. “And it feels really when you’reIRELAND going to make an Issue investment and the 2014 46great INNOVATION REVIEW 8 Spring/Summer government of the city welcomes you. They were giving us
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VIAGOGO GROUP TO OPEN OPERATIONS CENTRE IN LIMERICK Viagogo Group, operator of ticket marketplace Viagogo.com, recently announced plans to open a new purpose-built Viagogo Group’s new operations centre in operations centre will Limerick and is currently be in Limerick recruiting for a range of technical and customer service roles for people with a variety of skills and languages, including German, French, Italian, and Spanish. While the new centre is due to open later this year, those who have already been recruited are currently based at a temporary location in the city centre. “We reviewed many locations for our latest operations centre but we chose Limerick for its reputation as a place of excellence and local talent,” said Edward Parkinson, operations manager for the Viagogo Group. “We have already recruited in the tens but numbers are expected to reach the hundreds in due course. “The primary role of our international customer services team is to ensure that all of our customers have a great experience when buying or selling event tickets, wherever they are in the world.” The company has customers in around 100 countries and its global online platform helps people buy and sell tickets to live sports, entertainment and theatre events all over the world.
tours and connecting us to a variety of people. So that was just an incredibly important consideration for us. “We have an amazing home in Dublin from which we’re supporting our community across Europe and I can’t wait to welcome another 100 people to join us.”
Airbnb’s Dublin home in the Watermarque building on Bridge St in Dublin 4
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#WhyIreland
50%
Speed to market
No.1 for the availability of skilled people IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014
Property Solutions
Vibrant start up scene
2nd
of pop under the age of 35 Eurostat
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Quick set up
most entrepreneurial country in Europe GEM 2014
HI!
Best country in the world for business
Tops the world rankings for flexibility and adaptability Management Talent
Forbes 2014
Ireland is a top performer in delivering innovation
No.1 Globally for investment incentives
IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014
IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014
WOOF!
Quality of Life
Ireland has a proven track record
with over
1,150 1,150 overseas companies
Ireland offers us fantastic access to multiple language capabilities from a tech savvy and educated population, not to mention a country that has proven to be a home-away-from-home for a number of existing Yelp employees that have already relocated there. Jeremy Stoppelman, Co-founder and CEO at Yelp
www.idaireland.com
@IDAIRELAND
@IDAemergebiz
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merits The scenic beauty of Ireland’s lakes and bogs, combined with excellent transport links and infrastructure, make the Midlands an ideal location for investors
Clonmacnoise
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Located in the heart of Ireland and comprising the five counties of Laois, Longford, Offaly, Roscommon and Westmeath, the Midlands region is renowned for its scenic lakes, rivers, wetlands and bogs, as well boasting an excellent infrastructure, highly skilled workforce, and strong business culture and knowledge base. The region has a population of around 350,000, as well as very good commuting options, making it accessible and mobile. Transport links include a motorway connection directly from Athlone, Mullingar and Portlaoise to Dublin, as well as national primary road connections to Galway, Sligo and Cork, a strong rail network and three international airports within an hour and 30 minutes’ drive. The region benefits from competitive prices and a range of property options across a number of fully serviced business and technology parks – IDA has five in the Midlands – meaning choice and affordability to businesses considering investment. On the educational front, the area is serviced by two universities and institutes of technology, which produce around 12,800 graduates between them each year. Both the Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) and NUI Maynooth actively build industry links and offer extensive research capabilities to clients. AIT currently has more than 5,300 students engaged in graduate and postgraduate programmes across business, humanities, engineering and science schools. It currently has four research institutes.
TYPES OF RESEARCH Its Bioscience Research Institute (BRI) is engaged in research on biopolymers and pharmacologically active compounds and materials. It embraces strategic research areas in bioscience and chemistry with an important interface with materials. The Materials Research Institute (MRI) conducts interdisciplinary research focused on materials science and technology, and delivery of contract development and testing services to industry. Its facilities are dedicated to materials synthesis; processing, manufacture, analysis and testing. The Software Research Institute (SRI) is focused on developing strong software engineering capability and deep domain knowledge in both fixed and mobile telecoms. The SRI works with start-ups, SMEs and multinational companies to develop new ideas and innovative technologies. Connected Media Application Design and Delivery (Comand) is a five-year €1.2m research effort designed to help Irish companies innovate in the digital media space. Comand is funded by Enterprise Ireland as part of its Technology Gateway Programme (TGP) and is based out of the SRI. AIT is also home to the Applied Polymer Technologies (APT) Gateway, which is part of the Technology Gateway Network, a nationwide resource for industry based in the institutes of technology and delivering solutions on near to market problems for industrial partners. APT is providing solutions
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for companies using plastics materials across the medical, composite, recycling and pharmaceutical sectors. NUI Maynooth, meanwhile, has over 9,500 students, including 1,500 taught postgraduate and professional students and 400 doctoral students across the three faculties of science and engineering, social sciences and arts, and Celtic studies and philosophy. The university has eight research institutes across these schools, including the Innovation Value Institute – which was co-founded with Intel to create the global standard for IT management; the National Centre for GeoComputation (NCG), which is focused on extending understanding and utilisation of the capture, analysis and modelling of spatial data; the Callan Institute, which combines fundamental and applied research programmes in the areas of wireless systems and applications, physical layer radio, antennas, microelectronics and integrated circuits; and the Hamilton Institute, a multidisciplinary research centre that builds bridges between mathematics and its applications in ICT and biology.
STRONG INDUSTRIAL BASE The Midlands region has over 5,000 people permanently employed in IDA companies. International companies that have chosen to locate in the Midlands include Axa, Abbott, Alkermes, AMS, Braun, Cameron, Covidien, Ericsson, Freund Pharmatec, Harmac, Integra, KCI, Keplac Medical, NPD Group, Oakley, Patterson, PPD, Reliance GeneMedix, Sennheiser, Synergy Health, Taconic, Teleflex and Vention Medical. Successful homegrown businesses that have set up or located in the region include Athlone Extrusions, C&F Automotive, DPD, Europharmaconcepts, FBD, Finesse, IO Systems, Mergon, Rosderra Irish Meats, SolanoTech, Steripack, Teg, 3touch and Trend. Located in the heart of Ireland, the region has a rich tradition in culture, literature, arts and music, as well as hosting an
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abundance of water sports and other activities. Traversed by the River Shannon, it provides a focus for boating and fishing enthusiasts. It is also has excellent golf courses. And it has a strong historical heritage reflected in the monastic settlement at Clonmacnoise, the medieval Athlone Castle, along with the historical manor homes of Belvedere House and Gardens in Mullingar, and Emo Court and Gardens in Co Laois.
JAZZ PHARMACEUTICALS BREAKS GROUND ON NEW ROSCOMMON SITE Jazz Pharmaceuticals recently announced that it has started construction of a manufacturing and development facility to be located on a 17-acre site in Monksland, Co Roscommon, around 75 miles east of the company’s Dublin headquarters. This is the first manufacturing facility to be built by Jazz Pharmaceuticals globally. The company’s chairman and chief executive officer Bruce Cozadd described breaking ground in Ireland and beginning construction on a manufacturing and development facility as a milestone for Jazz Pharmaceuticals. “This investment not only strengthens our international manufacturing capabilities, but importantly represents our commitment to expanding our presence in Ireland,” he said. “We are grateful for the partnership of IDA Ireland and Roscommon County Council who helped make this project possible.” Construction work is expected to be completed by 2016. Jazz Pharmaceuticals expects to invest between €45m and €50m in construction, development and personnel costs to build and open the 55,000 sq ft facility.
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KEY TOWNS Athlone has an urban population of just over 20,000, rising to nearly 340,000 within a 60km radius. The town is connected by motorway to Dublin, is 115km from Dublin Airport, and on the Dublin-Galway Intercity train route with regular daily services. It is home to the Athlone Institute of Technology and hosts the regional office of Solas (national training agency). Multinational companies operating in Athlone include Ericsson, Alkermes, Covidien, KCI, Teleflex Medical, Axa Assistance, the NPD Group and American Medical Systems.
River Shannon
Mullingar has an urban population of 20,000, rising to around 600,000 within a 60 km radius. It is connected by motorway to Dublin, is just 74km to Dublin Airport, and is on the DublinSligo Intercity train route with regular daily services. In addition to its base of Irish-owned companies, Mullingar is a proven location for overseas companies across a number of sectors, including Taconic International, Oakley Optical Ireland and Patterson Pumps. Tullamore has an urban population of nearly 15,000, rising to almost half a million within a 60km radius. It is 102km from Dublin Airport and has regular daily train services to and from Dublin. Overseas companies with significant operations in Tullamore include Covidien, Sennheiser Ireland, Synergy Health, Integra LifeSciences, GeneMedix, Freund Pharmatec and Kelpac Medical.
The Bioscience Research Institute at AIT is engaged in research on biopolymers and pharmacologically active compounds and materials
Portlaoise, with its population of 20,000, rising to 530,000 within a 60km radius, is the principal town and administrative centre of Co Laois. It is well connected to the rest of the country via motorway, national roads and rail lines. Overseas companies in Co Laois include DIS Enbi Seals Ltd and Standex International. Longford town is the administrative centre of Co Longford and has a population of nearly 10,000, rising to 300,000 within a 60km radius. The town is located 120km from Dublin on the N4, the main road between Dublin and Sligo, and on the Dublin-Sligo railway line. Investment by overseas companies in Longford includes Abbott Diagnostics, Cameron Ireland and Epicor Software Corporation. Roscommon town, with its population of 5,700, rising to nearly 300,000 within a 60km radius, is the principal town and administrative centre of Co Roscommon and is situated at the junction of the Dublin/Castlebar arterial road. It is located on the main Dublin/Westport rail line. Overseas companies operating in the town and county include Harmac Medical and Alkermes.
AITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Midlands Innovation and Research Centre provides incubation facilities for innovation and knowledge-based enterprises expertise
The Materials Research Institute at AIT conducts research focused on materials science and technology, and delivery of contract development and testing services to industry
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INTERNAL RESULTS SETTING UP CUSTOMER SUPPORT CENTRE IN PORTLAOISE Lead generation services company Internal Results Ireland is setting up a customer support centre as part of its Portlaoise operation, creating an additional 20 fulltime jobs over the next three years. The Irish subsidiary of UK-based Internal Results was set up in 2011 and currently employs 14 full-time and 15 part-time staff. Late last year, it moved to new high spec offices in the Technology Building on the IDA Business & Technology Park in Portlaoise. “IDA funding was a key factor in Internal Results’ decision to expand our operations in Portlaoise,” said director of delivery Noel Hooban. “We are thrilled to be located in Portlaoise with access to a strong local skills base to support our operations. “To other new and emerging companies I would say: consider Portlaoise, not only is there a strong skills base to tap into, but you can benefit from more competitive rates for property outside of Dublin and Cork. Infrastructure, including the roads network, is excellent too.”
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ALEXION BUYS VIALLING FACILITY IN ATHLONE Biopharmaceutical company Alexion has agreed to purchase a vialling facility in Athlone which it expects to invest further in to fit out and improve for its operations. In July last year, Alexion announced plans to expand its global presence with the opening of a new office and laboratory facility in Dublin in conjunction with the company’s decision to establish a global supply chain facility in Ireland. The acquisition of the facility in Athlone is part of the plan to establish global supply chain operations in Ireland. “The acquisition of the Athlone facility is a sign of our commitment to growing our newly established global supply chain operation in Ireland,” said Stephen Squinto, PhD, executive vice president and chief global operations officer at Alexion. “As we continue to grow and expand our operations to serve more patients, this facility will help us to provide life-transforming medicines to patients in Europe and around the world.” Alexion currently employs people at its Park West facility and is expanding its workforce in Ireland. Following the appropriate validation processes and regulatory approval, the Athlone facility will become its first company-owned vialling facility.
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Why the Midlands for business? The Midlands oďŹ&#x20AC;ers an attractive cluster of life science and international business services companies, excellent access from the capital and world class collaboration between academia and industry
Companies in the location 44 multinational companies operating in the Midlands including:
Talent There are two universities and two institutes of technology in the area, with around 37,800 students enrolled and approximately 13,000 graduates per annum is an award-winning higher education institution located in the heart of Ireland
Demographics
347,000
More than 5,300 students are undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in business, humanities, engineering and science
People in the location
Access
Collaboration
Excellent road infrastructure with a motorway to Dublin Proximity to three international airports at Dublin, Shannon and Knock Strong rail network
Athlone Institute of echnology has three strategic research institutes in materials (MRI), biosciences (BRI) and software (SRI)
Lifestyle
Infrastructure There are a number of business and technology parks landscaped and designed to international standards
Athlone was awarded the prestigious title of European Town of Sport 2013 The river Shannon and Lough Ree create a natural home for water sports
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CREATIVE IRELAND
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Film Star For a country of its size, Ireland’s film industry is punching well above its weight, and all the signs point to it going from strength to strength. SORCHA CORCORAN reports
Brendan Gleeson in Calvary
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Travis Fimmel and Katheryn Winnick in Vikings
John Logan, creator of Penny Dreadful, a major TV series recently completed in Ardmore Studios in Co Wicklow, said of film-making in Ireland: “You get better Victorian London in Dublin than you do in London.” This observation reflects a trend evident in the Irish film industry of Ireland being increasingly viewed as strong in terms of locations for feature films and TV drama, and not just those intended to be set here. Over the past 20 years, Ireland has played host to a number of successful international productions such as Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Michael Collins and, more recently, Harry Potter, PS I Love You, Becoming Jane and The Lobster. Chief executive Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) James Hickey says that while turnover in the industry overall has increased only modestly over the past few years, international TV drama and animation are areas that have been doing particularly well lately. The audio visual content production sector in Ireland as a whole is estimated to be worth over €55om and employs
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over 6,000 people, with over 560 small and medium-sized enterprises operating within it. This is before the added value that the industry can bring to the tourist industry – Hickey notes that research has shown that one in five people visit Ireland because they have seen it in a feature film or in a TV programme. “2013 saw significant growth in major international high end TV drama production in Ireland. Production activity in this area has increased over the past two years from €28m in 2011 to €81m in 2013,” he says. “Support from the IFB International Production Fund contributed to bringing Ripper Street James[BBC] Wheltonand Vikings [History Channel] to Ireland for their first seasons and both have come back for a second season.” The first series of the aforementioned Penny Dreadful produced by Showtime, also a receiver of the IFB International Production Fund, was worth over €33m to the Irish economy. Production activity for the independent (non-broadcaster) film, television drama and animation sector generally reached
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the highest level on record in 2013, contributing over €168m into the Irish economy through employment creation and spend on local goods and services. This represents an increase of around 18pc on 2012 figures and 42pc on 2011 figures. In 2013, the IFB supported 12 Irish feature films, six creative feature coproductions, 17 feature documentaries, two TV dramas and eight animated projects. The IFB’s funding arm directly invested €7.5m in feature film, television drama and animation projects in 2013, which enabled Irish producers to raise €59.5m. “Considering the size of the country, we are performing well compared to our neighbours the UK, which is a strong production hub, and Hollywood, which has major facilities,” says Hickey. “This is largely thanks to the strength
‘2013 saw significant growth in major international high end TV drama production in Ireland. Production activity in this area has increased over the past two years from €28m in 2011 to €81m in 2013’
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of our creative talent and the fact that we combine creative skills and technology well, which drives innovation.” Variety magazine verified Hickey’s view recently when it state that “…the industry is now achieving critical mass of film-making talent to match the kind of influence, disproportionate to its small size that it has always enjoyed in the fields of literature and culture. “Following in the footsteps of [Jim] Sheridan and [Neil] Jordan comes a generation that includes such directors as Lenny Abrahamson, Conor McPherson, John Crowley and Martin McDonagh...and writers such as Mark O’Rowe, Enda Walsh and Mark O’Halloran.” The tax incentives introduced by the Government are also important in terms of attracting foreign investment and driving industry growth. It recently extended the tax incentive scheme,
Eva Green in Penny Dreadful
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THE LOBSTER FILMED ON COILLTE LAND Filming finished in May of this year on The Lobster, the first English language film by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, on the Coillte estate in Dromore Woods, Co Kerry. In 2013 Coillte’s enterprise division, the venturing arm of the Coillte Group, established a dedicated film, television and events business in partnership with O’Carroll Mulhern Services (OCMS). This business recently launched CoillteonFilm.ie, a website devoted to showcasing Coillte properties to the film, television and event industries. “The filming of The Lobster on Coillte land in Dromore woods is an example of how we seek to capitalise on our expansive woodland resources and maximise the land usage potential of the Coillte estate,” says Mark Foley, managing director of Coillte’s enterprise division. “With the launch of CoillteonFilm.ie, Coillte aims to become Ireland’s biggest provider of outdoor film locations by 2018.” Starring Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell, The Lobster is an unconventional love story set in a dystopian future where
finding a partner is a matter of life or death. In addition to the Irish Film Board, it is being financed by the BFI Film Fund, Eurimages, the Greek Film Centre, CNC and the Dutch Film Fund. Protagonist Pictures will be selling the film at the European Film Market in Berlin.
John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw and Colin Farrell in The Lobster
Barry Ward and Simone Kirby in Jimmy’s Hall
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‘Considering the size of the country, we are performing well compared to our neighbours the UK, which is a strong production hub, and Hollywood, which has major facilities’ Section 481, to 2020 and increased in the value of the tax incentive from 28pc to 32pc from 2015.
INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION In terms of the international reputation of Irish-made films, this is going from strength to strength, if representation at festivals and awards is anything to go by. For example, Jimmy’s Hall, directed by Ken Loach, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on 22 May. The film shot for seven weeks in Co Leitrim and Co Sligo last summer and stars Irish actors Barry Ward, Simone Kirby and Andrew Scott. John Boorman’s latest film Queen and Country, a sequel to his Oscar-nominated film Hope and Glory, was chosen for the prestigious directors’ fortnight selection at Cannes. Set in 1952, it stars Caleb Landry Jones as an 18-year-old British man who joins the National Service and meets an amoral prankster who becomes his friend. Meanwhile, Irish feature films Calvary and Frank had their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Calvary, directed by John Michael McDonagh, is a blackly comic drama about a good priest tormented by his community. Filmed in Sligo and Dublin, it is McDonagh’s follow-up to The Guard in 2011 and again stars Brendan Gleeson. Directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Adam & Paul, What Richard Did), Frank is a comedy about a wannabe musician who joins a band of eccentric pop stars led by the enigmatic Frank, who wears a false head. Written by Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan and starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Domhnall Gleeson, Frank was filmed in Co Wicklow and Co Dublin. “Irish film has performed very well at Sundance over the last number of years,” says Hickey. “Films such as The Guard, Once, His & Hers, and The Summit have all been discovered at the festival and have gone on from there to be distributed internationally.” IFB-funded films won awards at the Emmys, Sundance, the LA Shorts Fest and the London Evening Standard British Film Awards in 2013, as well as taking the top prizes at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, the Iftas and the Galway Film Fleadh. Hickey notes that Irish short films, particularly animated shorts, swept the boards last year in terms of international festival prizes. For example, animated short film The Missing Scarf won the ‘Best Animation’ title at four different festivals as well as ‘Best European Short Film’ at two others.
RIPPER STREET TO PROVIDE ECONOMIC BOOST
Charlene McKenna in Ripper Street
The third series of TV drama Ripper Street currently being filmed in Ireland is expected to provide a major boost to the Irish film and TV industry. The total value of the first and second series to the Irish economy so far has been around €20m in terms of spend on local goods and services. They employed 5,000 Irish cast, extras and crew, providing about 170,000 Irish work hours per series. Ripper Street follows the H Division, the police precinct charged with keeping order on Victorian Whitechapel. Ripper Street has benefited from the Irish Film Board’s International Production Fund, which aims to attract major TV and film projects to film on location in Ireland with Irish cast and crew. “It is a perfect example of a series which has showcased Irish actors, the excellent work of Irish crew and Ireland as a film location to audiences all over the world,” says James Hickey, chief executive Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. Filming started May and the production will be based in Clancy Barracks in Dublin for several months.
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lens Life through a
Irish war photographer Richard Mosse was recently awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for a series of images that attempt to communicate the complex and tragic cycle of violence in eastern Congo Platon North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2012 Digital C-Print, AP, 183 x 229 cm Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery * Collection of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon
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‘The Congolese themselves don’t quite understand the conflict and how it changes almost daily that the different groups’
A series of hauntingly beautiful infrared photographs depicting the horrors of conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 5.4 million people have died as a result of the war since 1998, recently won the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for Irish artist Richard Mosse. The international award is given to a contemporary photographer of any nationality who is deemed to have made the most significant contribution to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year through a publication or exhibition. The Enclave project, which included 16mm infrared film transferred to HD video, was Ireland’s representation last year at the Venice Art Biennale, where it drew an audience of nearly 80,000 people. It then returned to Ireland for a tour of the work, including an exhibition in at the RHA Gallery in Dublin and a show in Limerick as part of the Limerick City of Culture programme. The images were shot on infrared film, a Kodak collaboration with the US military in the early 1940s. The main purpose of the film, which was discontinued in 2009, was to detect camouflage. Mosse has said he wanted to use the film after he heard it was discontinued. “I wanted to use it reflexively to explore aspects of the specifics of the war in eastern Congo [...] and also to question the conventions of war photography more generally,” he said in an interview with Arte. BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY In that interview, he described war photography as being on the boundaries between fiction and the real. “My aspiration in the world is to tell more ecstatic truth, to borrow the phrase from Werner Herzog, through fiction and through contemporary art than is possible than through journalism and through factual documentation,” he said. He has worked in Congo for a number of years. “The more I learn about the place, the less I know and the more it presses into the literary and into the pathological,” he told Arte. “It’s a very opaque conflict, intangible, ineffable. It’s really incomprehensible. The Congolese themselves don’t quite understand the conflict and how it changes almost daily.” Mosse has said he was drawn to the area because of the “inherent problems of representing its cancerous cycle of war”. Struck by the lack of a concrete trace of the conflict on the landscape, he chose to document rebel enclaves and sites of human rights violations in a way that tries to overturn traditional realism, and see beneath the surface. To produce The Enclave he worked collaboratively with
cinematographer Trevor Tweeten to evolve a style of long tracking shot made with Steadicam, resulting in a spectral, disembodied gaze shot on 16mm infrared film. The soundscape to the piece is layered spatially by 11-point surround sound, composed by Ben Frost from recordings gathered in North and South Kivu. The Enclave is made up of six doublesided screens installed in a large darkened chamber designed to create a physically immersive experience. The disorienting and kaleidoscopic installation is intended to parallel eastern Congo’s multifaceted conflict, forcing the viewer to interact spatially a range of different viewpoints. According to Mosse, The Enclave is an experiential environment that attempts to reconfigure the dictates of photojournalism and expanded video art. Sheila Pratschke, chair of the Arts Council, described Mosse’s winning of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize as a fitting reward for a remarkable talent. “He’s quite a remarkable young man, not only for his technical skills and imagination, but for just his sheer cool courage and ability to handle the way he goes about his work and his life,” she said. “There is a sensibility, which is very human at a certain level and a capacity to empathise. I think he can imagine himself in the life of the people he’s photographing. It’s a very tricky thing, photographing and in some ways making ‘pretty’ images, which are images of war and horror and terrible things like child soldiers and so on. I think he undercuts that with a real human empathy and ability to imagine himself in the other.”
Safe From Harm North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2012 Digital C-Print, 71 x 89 cm Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery
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INNOVATION
Academy
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The collaborative initiative that is the Innovation Academy is aiming to provide a transformational educational experience for the betterment of Irish society and the economy, writes SORCHA CORCORAN
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Innovation Academy premises at Trinity College Dublin
‘The individuals working for the Innovation Academy bring a lot of valuable experience and we tend to employ non-traditional staff at both TCD and UCD, many with a background in marketing or business development. This doesn’t fit in with the norm in a university setting’ Dr Barry McMahon, Innovation Academy course director
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When it was officially launched in November 2010, the Innovation Academy was a response to the fact that typically only around 10pc of PhDs in Ireland take up tenured academic positions after they qualify. The collaborative initiative between University College Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and, since 2012, Queen’s University Belfast has evolved over the past few years to incorporate programmes for undergraduates, trainers and owner-managers. Its overarching aim is “to provide a transformational educational experience for the betterment of Irish society and the economy”, explains founding director Dr Suzi Jarvis, who is based in UCD. “Set up as the educational centrepiece under the Innovation Alliance launched by the then taoiseach Brian Cowen in 2009, the Innovation Academy started out as an addition to a PhD. We wanted to look at how best to serve the 90pc of PhDs who weren’t going to work in academia. “Before long, we realised from student feedback that the academy wasn’t specific to PhDs as it involved a lot of development around soft skills such as working in teams and self efficacy – it deals with the entire mindset rather than just business skills.” The joint certificate run between UCD, TCD and Queen’s available to all PhD students from the three institutions – the postgraduate certificate in innovation and entrepreneurship – continues to be at the heart of the Innovation Academy but new programmes specific to each university have been added. “In UCD we expanded the programme to include the Springboard programme [the Higher Education Authority managed initiative aimed at providing courses for free to the unemployed]. This has gone well with a 91pc graduation rate and 74pc of participants going on to establish their own business – this is a very high rate for a labour activation mechanism,” notes Jarvis. This year UCD also piloted a new undergraduate programme available to students from every discipline, which has been completed by the first cohort of 34 students. So far at UCD, 500 people have gone through the Innovation Academy’s Springboard programme, 350 PhD students have been on the certificate programme, there have been 70 people involved at undergraduate level and 21 entrepreneurial teachers have been trained. “The next area we are focusing on is SME owners,” says Jarvis. “We have always kept the academy neutral [ie not owned by any department or discipline], and one of our strengths is that we bring people from very different disciplines together to work closely with communities, agencies, businesses and charities,” says Jarvis. “The first module that people normally undertake – creative thinking and innovation – involves group teaching of no more than 40 students who are set challenges relating to real problems within these organisations. Everything is challenge-based – for example, with ‘The Newspaper Challenge’ students are tasked
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THE MODULES
During the summer of 2013, the three founders of The two core modules of the Innovation Academy’s programme are ‘Creative Thinking & Innovation’ and ‘Opportunity Generation & Recognition’. The three-week creative thinking module helps students understand the key attributes associated with creative thought and innovation and how they might be applied to research in any discipline. It involves an intensive programme of workshops, seminars, design thinking challenges and innovative projects, aimed at encouraging skilled, enterprising individuals who understand their value in cultural, social and economic terms. One of the Innovation Academy’s core missions is to assist PhD students in identifying the skills they need for the development and communication of their research. At the end of the ‘Opportunity Generation & Recognition’ module, all students will have produced a three-minute video on their research, which they have scripted, shot and edited themselves. Students use these videos to connect with other researchers and pitch for funding and are encouraged to consider how their research is relevant to society. For example, one of the videos is of Innovation Academy and Trinity College Dublin engineering student Joanne McMahon, who raised over €25,000 on the back of her crowd funding campaign for a water disinfection unit in Kenya. To date there are over 150 researcher video pitches on the Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/ user/TheInnovationAcademy. Aside from the core modules, there are a number of specialised modules as part of the PhD couse, including ‘Planning Your New Venture’, ‘Protecting & Exploiting Your Intellectual Property’, ‘Creative Capital’ and ‘Leadership Development’.
with finding an opportunity in the newspaper at the start of a day and realising it by 4pm.” At TCD, the Innovation Academy team has taken a slightly different approach to extending the programme, explains course director Dr Barry McMahon. “We have developed a ‘train the trainer’ programme, bringing in Malaysian and Brazilian academics and training them as well as a module for undergraduates focused on entrepreneurial skills. More recently, we have put a lot of energy into developing the executive education side and will run an executive breakfast in October.”
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Dr Suzi Jarvis, Innovation Academy founding director
‘Set up as the educational centrepiece under the Innovation Alliance launched by the then taoiseach Brian Cowen in 2009, the Innovation Academy started out as an addition to a PhD. We wanted to look at how best to serve the 90pc of PhDs that weren’t going to work in academia’ Dr Suzi Jarvis, Innovation Academy founding director
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WORKING WITH INDUSTRY The Innovation Academy has developed strong links with external organisations and fully integrates industry into the programme. Industry interactions are varied, including the cocreation and development of the curriculum, guest speaker engagements, industry workshops, site visits, case study development and mentorships. The academy has worked with over 50 host organisations across a wide variety of ventures including social, charity, commercial, private and public. Action learning is a underlying design feature of the academy and students get the opportunity to work with organisations on a two week ‘Innovation Project’, immersing them in the real-world challenges facing the host organisation. Since 2010, 300 PhD students from University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast have participated in around 50 projects linked with external host organisations. Host organisations include Dell, SAP, Citi, university spin-outs Cellix, Adama Technologies and SureWash, Government agencies Coillte, Fáilte Ireland and Waterways Ireland, and charity and non-profit Save Our Seahorses and Community Garden Network.
A TEAM OUTSIDE THE NORM Both McMahon and Jarvis say the staff and the learning environment of the academy are very important in terms of fostering ideas and helping to bring them to fruition in the outside world. McMahon himself is an inventor who has successfully licensed to a medical devices spin-out initiative.
THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION When creating the Innovation Academy its founding directors looked abroad for inspiration and the international dimension continues to play an important role in how it’s run. “We looked at programmes that came out of engineering at Stanford University in California as well as those at Babson College in Massachusetts, which is one of the top three colleges for entrepreneurship in the world,” says founding director at UCD Prof Suzi Jarvis. “We needed to find a common ground between the different disciplines – business schools tend to be slanted towards the case study approach while engineering leans
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Of the four other full-time team members at TCD, facilitator Dr Dan Rodgers is founder of a record label called Echobus Records and runs a blog interviewing music producers. Facilitator Louise Andrews has several years’ experience in product management and marketing, mainly in the pharmaceutical sector and is director of her family’s property venture, while business development manager Ruth Kearney ran her own company in the food and wine sector before switching to education. “The individuals working for the Innovation Academy bring a lot of valuable experience and we tend to employ nontraditional staff at both TCD and UCD, many with a background in marketing or business development. This doesn’t fit in with the norm in a university setting,” notes McMahon. Jarvis adds: “We are not academic in the classic sense. What makes us different is we are not teaching business skills but life skills that are entrepreneurial in nature. I am a very entrepreneurial person – not in terms of setting up a business, but rather in terms of change and growth projects. For example, I was the founding principle investigator for Crann [the nanoscience research institute at TCD]. The same mindsets and motivations are involved in growing and building structures and new initiatives as in starting a business venture. “Otherwise, over 70pc of our 15 staff are entrepreneurs in their own right. For example, one of our specialists Maurice Knightly was involved in the development of O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bars.” Currently a director of several companies ranging from food and catering to new media, Knightly was deputy managing director of the O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bars franchise from 1992 to 2009. He helped to grow the chain to 282 outlets in 10 countries and developed the brand’s initial presence in each new market. “Having experienced the chain going in and out of receivership in late 2009, Maurice has been through the whole cycle of business success and seeing it fall apart,” notes Jarvis. Another member of her team Brendan Allen is an entrepreneur,
more towards problem solving. Both imply there is always a solution. With entrepreneurship, there is no one solution; things are more of a mystery.” As a result, the founding directors also explored the Entrepreneurial University Leaders Programme in the UK, which is a pioneering programme for senior university leaders delivered by NCEE and Universities UK, in partnership with Oxford University. Course director of the Innovation Academy at TCD Dr Barry McMahon says the programme there was developed based on visits to leading centres for entrepreneurship in Europe, particularly Aalto University in Finland and VentureLabs in the Netherlands.
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farmer and marine scientist, having established food business Castlemine Farm with his brother in Roscommon. He was instrumental in expanding the Innovation Academy around the country through a formal collaboration with the GAA, which was launched in January. “We were struggling to reach out to rural communities and Brendan felt strongly about this. Now employing 12 people in his local community in Co Roscommon, he wanted to share that experience but knew a different approach was needed – linking up with an organisation such as the GAA which is embedded in local communities was the ideal solution. Hurler Michael Fennelly is delivering the programme in Kilkenny at the moment,” says Jarvis. A PURPOSE-BUILT SPACE Turning to the learning environment, the academy at UCD opened a new purpose-built space last January – the Shackleton Lounge – aimed at acting as a catalyst for innovation. Located in the O’Brien Centre for Science at the heart of the Belfield campus, Jarvis designed the space named after Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton in 2010. “It is the only purpose-built space for the Innovation Academy in Ireland designed to be very flexible and welcoming; it is a big open space where you can move tables around and write on the walls,” she explains. “We commissioned artist Patricia Murphy to do a painting imagining what it must have been like for Shackleton when he saw the sunset after reaching the Antarctic – this was meant as a metaphor for Ireland coming out of the recession.” Over at TCD, the Innovation Academy is based in a building that used to be an old bank just off College Green. “It is a safe place – and it’s important that it is a bit outside the rest of the campus,” says McMahon. There are currently around 400 people doing modules as part of the academy at TCD. As the programme can take over three years to complete, a lot have yet to graduate, but McMahon says many are involved in start-ups and have taken part in the TCD incubation programme LaunchBox. “Others have gone back into the environment they were in before and brought new skills to the table. One of the aspects most participants find very valuable is how they have improved at communicating their research and articulating in the right language to pitch to entrepreneurs or investors,” notes McMahon. Jarvis says the Innovation Academy views itself as “an educational feeder” into the incubators that are already established in Ireland.
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A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PERCEPTION
During the summer of 2013, the three founders of tech start-up Digital Perception – Aaron Byrne, Liam Brennan and Shourjya Sanyal – were all either doing PhDs or postdoctoral research in UCD when the opportunity arose for them to go for the graduate certificate from the Innovation Academy. They met in the Innovation Academy and the early original idea for Digital Perception was born there. CEO Byrne explains: “The skills and methodologies we learned there focusing on design school thinking and the lean start-up movement have helped us to grow our company and rapidly refine our business model from just a concept to an investable commercial company. “People involved in academic research are always coming up with great ideas so what intrigued us about the Innovation Academy was that we could acquire the skills to put those great ideas into action.” Digital Perception has built proprietary technology that combines together search algorithms, artificial intelligence and image recognition technology, enabling the identification of where images have spread to on the internet and social media. Its flagship product Imtellect enables companies to know the reach and impact of their brands online for a monthly software-as-a-service subscription. “We’ve gone on from originally developing the idea with the Innovation Academy to taking part in the NDRC’s Launchpad programme and after winning numerous awards we are now looking to our first round of funding,” says Byrne.
L–R: Digital Perception founders Shourjya Sanyal, Aaron Byrne and Liam Brennan
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ASIAN INVESTMENT
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The Asian
opportunity When it comes to investment from the Asia Pacific region Ireland has had a number of success stories to date, and now wants to build on that, explains IDA Ireland’s John Conlon Asia Pacific is becoming increasingly important in terms of Ireland attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), with 18pc of new name business coming from the region in 2013, according to executive vice-president and head of Asia Pacific at IDA Ireland John Conlon. Recently appointed to the role, Conlon says this is the first time a member of the executive management team at the agency has been assigned to run the Asia Pacific operation. “Of IDA Ireland’s 1,100 client companies in Ireland, fewer than 10pc are from Asia and our objective is to grow this business,” he explains. Three-quarters of FDI comes from the US with 10–15pc from Europe and Conlon is moving to Shanghai, China in September to drive growth in Asia on the ground. There are a number of success stories to date, which Ireland wants to build on. For example, a long history exists with Japan going back to the mid-Seventies when IDA Ireland opened its Tokyo office. There are over 30 Japanese companies with operations in Ireland now. These include pharmaceutical company Astellas, which employs over 250 people in Killorglin, Co Kerry and electromechanical components manufacturer Alps Electric, which has been in Millstreet, Co Cork since 1988 and employs over 500 people. Other Asian success stories include Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei (see interview on page 70) and the strong position Ireland has developed in aircraft leasing with the likes of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. “When companies decide to locate in Ireland, such as IBM, Intel and Google, their initial projects tend to be small and they then expand once they’re established here. “We are treating Asian investment in the same way, focusing on encouraging Asian companies to locate here first of all and then getting them to increase their operations,” says Conlon. “Asian companies are driven by mergers and acquisitions, market access, development and acquisition of technology, and
capability development. The other thing they’re interested in is globalisation – we want Ireland to be part of Asian companies’ success in going global.” Conlon says there has been major growth in IDA Ireland’s Asian footprint since 2005 when it opened the Shanghai office. This was followed by offices in Beijing and Shenzhen in China, Mumbai and Bangalore in India in the years after and Singapore in 2010. It also has an office in Seoul Korea, which Conlon was in charge of establishing and growing. “The geography of Asia is vast and our offices are now spread over a huge area. This gives us a better geographical spread and the ability to build long-term relationships. Business is a contact sport in Asia and one-to-one relationships and building trust are even more important there than in other parts of the world,” says Conlon. “Ministerial-led trade missions and visits are important in this respect. The fact that we can demonstrate such short lines of communication between IDA Ireland and the Irish Government is crucial in building our relationships with companies out there.” Turning to areas of opportunity for FDI from Asia for Ireland, Conlon says generally this will be mainly in hi-tech, highly skilled types of projects involving multilingual facilities, highend manufacturing and research and development. “History has shown that Ireland has helped many companies such as Apple, Dell and Microsoft to globalise, acting as a gateway into Europe and the US,” he notes. “Aside from this aspect, in each market in Asia different things will be important. India, for example, is a shared services market with many business process outsourcing companies, so we’re targeting higher end activities there, such as multilingual services. In China, ICT and financial services are of most interest, while in Japan the focus is on ICT, life sciences and services.”
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‘Ireland is the Silicon Valley of western Europe. If you look at the Docklands area of Dublin it is full of the greatest technology companies in the world such as Google, Facebook and Amazon’ Derek Ding, managing director, Huawei Ireland
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On the rise
Huawei’s managing director in Ireland Derek Ding explains why the company views Ireland as a rising place for its investment Establishing a presence in Ireland in 2004 was a strategic decision for Chinese networking and telecommunications equipment and services company Huawei, according to Derek Ding, managing director of Huawei Ireland. Founded by engineer and ex-military officer Ren Zhengfei in 1987, Huawei grew quickly in the domestic market by starting out in rural areas and moving upwards to small and mediumsized towns and gradually to major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. “Competition in 1988 in the technology sector globally was fierce, dominated by western European, Japanese or American companies and it was the very beginning of the open policy of government in China. No one believed at the time that Chinese companies could do hi-tech things, which was why Huawei started in rural areas. Technology giants preferred to stay in major cities, whereas we started in small villages,” Ding explains. “We grew to be the No 1 among Chinese telecom providers very fast and around 1996 top management started to think we needed to go outside China to find business. Technicians and sales people were placed in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Africa, which was hugely successful because of a huge demand for telecoms infrastructure and in 2001/2002 Huawei started to send personnel to developed countries.” The company’s first official Europe headquarters outside of China was in the UK, established as a result of a partnership with British Telecom. Although it was difficult in the beginning, Ding says business started to boom in Europe from 2004, and especially in the period between 2007 and 2009 when Huawei built up a lot of market share in the radio/wireless equipment space. Huawei has built its business internationally through partnerships. To date around 45 of the world’s top 50 telecoms companies have worked with the company, including Vodafone, France Telecom, T-Mobile and Bell Canada. In Ireland, Huawai started out in 2004 with a sales office and but in more recent years recognised that Ireland was a good location to set up research and development (R&D) operations, according to Ding.
R&D CENTRES “Ireland is a good place to have R&D because of its education system, young talent, skilled workers, software development environment and support for foreign investment. We started with a facility in Athlone, Co Westmeath and last January opened R&D centres in Cork and Dublin and the plan is to employ 50 people in R&D in Ireland within the next three years.” Huawei currently employs 75 people in Ireland and to date
has accumulatively invested more than €50m in its operations in Athlone, Cork and Dublin since beginning. Initially the new R&D centres will focus on Huawei’s next generation customer experience management product SmartCare, supporting the company in providing customer services to telecoms operators both in Ireland and internationally. It already has 16 R&D centres around the world, including in Bangalore, India, the US, Sweden and Milan and of its 150,000 employees worldwide, around 46pc are engaged in R&D. Ding says the company views Ireland as “a rising place” for it to invest as part of its global plan because information technology and communications technology are merging and software suppliers to the telecoms sector are becoming increasingly important. “Ireland is the Silicon Valley of western Europe. If you look at the Docklands area of Dublin it is full of the greatest technology companies in the world such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. “There has to be a good reason behind these companies choosing to locate in Ireland. It is a very good story to share. Eight of the top 10 ICT giants in the world have established their EMEA headquarters in Ireland. “This puts Ireland in a unique position and creates a good environment as well as talent and knowledge of IT. Universities are fine-tuning their courses to match industry requirements. “There are very good IT companies in China that are now big enough to build business outside the domestic market – in one year some of them could be in the top 10 in the world. Huawei established a big regional office in Germany and to move would be too much upheaval now, however it would be the right time to persuade other Chinese IT companies to locate their first headquarters in Ireland. “Huawei was a pioneer in terms of going abroad from China. There are a lot of Chinese companies that are already very big but have no global footprint. We would always encourage other Chinese companies to come to Ireland because it is English speaking, has a good innovation atmosphere and is a good hub from which to target Europe. There needs to be more promotion of Ireland in China so enterprising companies know the benefits.”
This article first appeared in the Ireland Asia Business Yearbook 2014, which was published by think tank Asia Matters in association with Business & Leadership
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Flying high Ireland is widely seen as the global capital of the aircraft leasing business and continues to win investments in this area. SMBC Aviation Capital’s Shinichi Hayashida discusses trends in the aviation leasing sector and his own company’s activities since setting up in Dublin two years ago Completed in May 2012, the acquisition by a Japanese consortium made up of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing (SMFL) and Sumitomo Corporation of Dublin-headquartered RBS Aviation Capital from Royal Bank of Scotland for US$7.3bn was the largest ever sale of an aircraft lessor. Renamed SMBC Aviation Capital in June 2012, the company is now the world’s fourth largest aircraft lessor by owned and managed fleet value, with 351 aircraft valued at over US$10bn and airline customers in over 40 countries around the world as of April 2014. The deal was one in a series of high-profile investments by Asian entities in the Irish leasing market in recent years and reflects Ireland’s considerable reputation in the sector. An estimated 50pc of the world’s commercial aircraft fleet is now managed from Ireland, representing over €83bn in assets, while nine of the top 10 global lessors have located here. According to/ name SMBC Aviation Capital chairman Shinichi Caption Hayashida, it is not an exaggeration to describe Ireland as the
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global capital of the aircraft leasing business. “It is well known in our industry that Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), an Irish aircraft leasing company established back in 1980s and later acquired by General Electric, was the pioneer of the business model,” he explains. On the back of this reputation and history Ireland has developed a number of advantages, including a large pool of highly skilled professionals specialising in the sector across a range of disciplines, including financing, accounting, legal and engineering. It has also built up best-in-class support industries such as aircraft maintenance, retrofitting and painting. Other factors include a wide double tax treaty network – agreements have been signed with 70 countries so far and many of these provide for zero withholding tax on inbound lease rentals – as well as a low corporate tax regime. The country has generally amicable transport regulations and easy access to global transport networks. “As an added bonus, Ireland is a place where you can enjoy the quality of life: good food and drinks, green environment,
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fresh air and, on top of everything, very friendly people,” says Hayashida. Most major Japanese lessors now have operations in Ireland, including MUFJ, Mitsubishi, ORIX and Mizuho/Fuyo. And, in the past two years, three Chinese aviation operations have located their European headquarters in Ireland. The most recent of these, announced in January 2014, is Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (JY Aviation), which has set up its European HQ in Dublin to manage 21 aircraft from Ireland. The company is the leasing arm of Bank of Communications, which was founded in 1908 and is one of the largest banks in China. It joins ICBC and CDB, which both announced that they were setting up their European headquarters in Dublin 2012. ICBC Leasing is the leasing arm of ICBC Bank, the largest bank in the world by total assets and market capitalisation and one of China’s ‘Big Four’ state-owned commercial banks. The company currently manages over 360 aircraft from its Irish operation. CDB Leasing (Sinoaero) is the leasing arm of China Development Bank, one of the China’s policy banks and under the direct jurisdiction of the State Council of People’s Republic of China. The company now manages a large fleet of aircraft from Ireland. “Many Asian financiers have concluded that aircraft leasing is a highly promising sector and are expected to enter or expand in this sector,” says Hayashida.
TRENDS IN THE SECTOR Meanwhile, China is seen as a huge growth market for aviation leasing in the coming years. According to IDA Ireland, Chinese airlines will need nearly 6,000 new airplanes valued at US$780bn over the next 20 years. “Even though China continues to roll out an impressive network of high speed trains, air transportation remains the practical means to move between the cities,” explains Hayashida. “The Chinese government understands this and is committed to expand the air transportation sector. In this regard, we envisage that the market will continue to require large numbers of aircraft and this is a good opportunity for us. Of course, Chinese lessors, many of which are owned by large domestic banks, are rapidly expanding their fleets and the competition is and will be intense.” Another trend that will impact on the market and Ireland’s aviation leasing sector over the next few years, according to Hayashida, includes the introduction of the new generation narrow body aircraft. There is a large order book for these planes and delivery will start from 2016 in the case of the Airbus 320neo and 2017 for the Boeing 737 MAX. “While this may start affecting the value/rent for the existing narrow body aircraft, we would expect to see these aircraft becoming increasingly important for the Irish based lessors,” he says. New generation wide body aircraft will also have an impact, he says. Following the successful introduction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus is now launching the A350 series and
Boeing is focusing on the next generation 777 (777X). “These aircraft are expected to demonstrate higher market liquidity, compared to the current generation, as they have incorporated many aspects recommended by the lessor community with enhanced liquidity in mind. Up to now, lessors have been less receptive to owning wide body aircraft but this attitude may change going forward.” Another trend will be industry consolidation. “As the world demand for aircraft increases, the lessors who are keen to grow their market position are under pressure to acquire a large number of aircraft,” says Hayashida. “This means, literally, ‘size matters’ and we expect that some lessors are better positioned to procure the funding for such acquisition than others. This process will require deeper pocket shareholders and sponsors.” The recent €4bn takeover of ILFC by AerCap, which has operations in Shannon, has fuelled a growing expectation that more industry consolidation is on the way, adds Hayashida. This article first appeared in the Ireland Asia Business Yearbook 2014, which was published by think tank Asia Matters in association with Business & Leadership
SMBC AVIATION CAPITAL IN IRELAND SMBC Aviation Capital is the third entity established in Ireland by Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), which set up a financing subsidiary in the 1980s, now called Sumitomo Mitsui Finance Dublin Ltd. In 2011, the group’s IT consulting affiliate JRI opened an operation in Tralee. Since June 2012 SMBC Aviation Capital has consolidated the existing aircraft leasing business of its parent companies. SMBC has also established a branch office of SMBC Europe in Dublin. The company’s strategy over the next few years has several strands, according to chairman Shinichi Hayashida. “We will continue to expand our existing bread and butter business: namely sourcing and placing aircraft to airlines through leasing transactions,” he says. “As a source of aircraft acquisition, we have concluded several large purchase orders with manufacturers in the past and we continue to seek opportunities to replicate such orders. “If there is an opportunity, we may consider corporate acquisition or purchase of aircraft in bulk. As the industry is in the middle of dynamic transition, we feel that it is important that we are ready to move if suitable opportunities arise.” In July, the company ordered 115 Airbus A320 family aircraft in the industry’s largest ever single firm order by a worldwide leasing company for single-aisle aircraft.
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THE IRISH MIND
Stories of
invention In terms of innovation and discovery, Irish inventors, scientists and researchers have made a considerable contribution to the world over the years. Over the next few pages, and in no particular order, we look at just some of these notable Irish achievements
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THE SUBMARINE John Philip Holland is generally regarded as the father of the modern submarine. Holland, who was born in Liscannor, Co Clare in 1840, moved to Boston in 1873 after leaving the Christian Brothers because of ill health. A teacher and engineer, he submitted his first designs for an underwater vessel to the US Navy in 1875 but these were rejected because they were considered unworkable. He designed the Fenian Ram for the Fenian Brotherhood, which was launched in 1881. Described as the first true submarine built anywhere, the vessel can still be seen in the Paterson Museum in New Jersey. In 1898, after receiving a contract from the US navy, Holland built and launched the first practical submarine, which was commissioned as the USS Holland in 1900. The design was subsequently also used by the British, Japanese and Russian navies.
THE TRACTOR The modern tractor was invented by Harry Ferguson from Co Down. Ferguson was fascinated by aviation and in 1909 at the age of 25 he designed and, together with his brother, built the Ferguson monoplane and became the first Irish person to fly a plane. He then designed and built a
new plough that was coupled with a tractor in three-point linkage to form a single unit. He patented the Ferguson System in 1926 and this is widely credited with having revolutionised farming. Ferguson also developed the first fourwheel drive Formula One car.
refineries.
THE STEAM TURBINE Brought up in Birr Castle in Co Offaly, Sir Charles Parsons developed the world’s first steam turbine to use vapourised water to power a rotor directly in 1884. This innovation helped to make largescale electricity generation possible. Parsons’ father was William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, who built a reflecting telescope at Birr Castle that was the largest in the world for 70 years.
CANCER TREATMENT RADIATION
WHISKEY DISTILLING APPARATUS Dubliner Aeneas Coffey invented the world’s first heat-exchange device, which he patented in 1830. This patent still was an efficient apparatus that led to many advances in distilling whiskey. It was adopted by industry and its principle continues to be used in the chemical industry and also in
John Joly, who was professor of geology at Trinity College Dublin at the time, came up with the first cheap, effective and relatively safe radiotherapy for cancer in 1914. The process, which was known internationally as the Dublin method, used radioactive radon gas rather than the more expensive radium. Joly, who was from Co Offaly, also invented the meldometer for measuring the melting points of minerals, a photometer for measuring light intensity, a steam calorimeter for measuring specific heats and a constant volume gas thermometer. He also developed the Joly Colour
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process, the first successful method for producing colour photographs from a single plate.
CHEMISTRY
Government to discontinue their use.
CURE FOR LEPROSY Cork-born chemist Vincent Barry was trying to find a cure for tuberculosis when the research team he was leading discovered a compound that was effective in curing leprosy. Today, the drug is one of the three first-line drugs therapies used in the treatment of leprosy.
EJECTOR SEAT Born in Lismore Castle, Co Waterford, Robert Boyle is widely regarded as the first modern chemist. He is famous for his experiments with an air pump and for Boyle’s Law, which he formulated in 1662 and describes the relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas at a constant temperature. Boyle spent his working life in Oxford and was also one of the founders of the Royal Society in London.
Baker in the 1930s. He became focused on pilot safety after Baker was killed during a test flight of one of their prototype planes in 1942. In 1944 Britain’s Ministry of Aircraft Production asked him to look at the practicality of providing assisted escape for fighter aircraft pilots. He subsequently developed the Martin-Baker ejection seat, which used an explosive charge to force ejection. The first mid-flight test ejection was made in 1946. The first ever live ejection took place in 1949. Martin’s design has gone on to have over 7,400 successful ejections.
PORTABLE DEFIBRILLATOR
HOLLOW NEEDLE IN SYRINGE The first hypodermic hollow syringe was developed by Dublin physician Dr Francis Rynd, who was interested in finding a way to cure neuralgia by injecting sedatives straight into the bloodstream. In 1844, he administered the world’s first subcutaneous injection at the Meath Hospital in Dublin.
The world’s first ejector seat was invented by Sir James Martin, an engineer from Co Down. Martin set up MartinBaker Aircraft with Capt Valentine
The mobile defibrillator was invented by physician and cardiologist Prof James Francis Pantridge, who was born in Hill-
NICKEL ZINC BATTERY Irish research chemist Dr James Drumm developed the nickel-zinc rechargeable battery, which was installed in Drumm trains and used between 1932 and 1949 on the Dublin to Bray railway route with charging stations at both ends of the line. Replacement costs compared with cheaper alternatives at the time led to the decision by the
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sborough, Co Down in 1916. Defibrillators deliver controlled electrical current to the heart when there is a life threatening arrhythmia. While working at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, Pantridge developed his portable version in 1965. Weighing 70kg, it was installed onto one ambulance, which was converted into a mobile coronary care unit. This was the first time that a defibrillator could be used outside a hospital. Using a Nasa capacitor, he went on to refine the device so it now weighs just 3kg.
INDUCTION COIL The first induction coil was invented in 1836 by Rev Nicholas Callan, the professor of philosophy at St Patrick’s College Maynooth. Callan’s many electrical inventions included the most powerful batteries and electromagnets of the time. He is credited with inventing the first cheap commercial battery using cast iron in place of platinum.
BEAUFORT SCALE Meath-born Irish Royal Navy officer Francis Beaufort is best known for developing the Beaufort Scale, a standardised method for measuring wind speeds and their effects on the sea. The 13-point scale was created in 1805 and adopted officially in the 1830s and first used in during the voyage of the HMS Beagle, led by Captain Robert Fitzroy.
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tor that was relatively cheap to make and pioneering a technique for feeding premature babies via nasal tube.
KELVIN SCALE Belfast-born William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) defined the absolute scale of temperature – the Kelvin scale – in 1847. He was knighted for his work on the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, which ran from Newfoundland to Valentia Island in Co Kerry. He also helped formulate the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
SPLITTING THE ATOM Waterford-born Ernest Walton is the only Irish person to date to have won a Nobel Prize for science. In 1932 in Cambridge University, in collaboration with John Cockcroft, he designed and built the first successful particle accelerator, which enabled them to artificially split the atom for the first time in history. In 1951, Walton and Cockcroft were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Walton was professor of physics at Trinity College Dublin from 1947 to 1974. Some of the sources used for compiling this information include Askaboutireland.ie, Irishpatentsoffice.ie, Ingeniousireland.ie and www.ucd.ie/merrionstreet
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CONTENTS
IDA Ireland’s new Landscape App
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It’s the perfect tool for researching and investigating Ireland’s business landscape. Full of information about companies and examples of why Ireland is the right location for your business.
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26 62 The App is free and simple to use and is in three handy sections. Companies: This section contains information on companies that are succeeding worldwide that have based themselves in Ireland. This area allows you to match the DNA of your company with similar companies that successfully operate from Ireland.
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Places: This section allows you to locate great places for business and pleasure. It’s an easily navigable look at the cultural and business landscape of Ireland. Notes: A place to make notes, record information or take photos of places or companies of interest. Please note that this prototype version of IDA Landscape is focused on Dublin and the technology sector.
48 Front cover image: Angela Halpin
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