Innovation Ireland Review Summer 2015 by Whitespace

INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

// ISSUE 10 SUMMER 2015 //

INSPIRED THINKING New sci-tech festival puts diversity at its core

CONNECTED WORLD

How Ireland is becoming a hub of the internet of things revolution

ISSUE 10 SUMMER 2015

DESIGN ISLAND PROMOTING AND CELEBRATING IRISH DESIGN

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Front cover image: ‘Liminal – Irish design at the threshold’, the travelling flagship show from Irish Design 2015, at Milan Design Week, April 2015. Photo courtesy of Alex Calder

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Innovation, research, investment and development news from around Ireland 10 INDUSTRY FOCUS Why Ireland is set to be a world leader in the internet of things arena RESEARCH 18 Connect – the one-stop shop for future networks and communications INVESTMENT LINKS 22 North America’s west coast is still an important source of FDI for Ireland R&D is a key component of Tyco’s expansion in Ireland COMPETITIVENESS 28 Ireland’s competitiveness continues to be a good news story FREEZEFRAME 32 Shortlisted photos in UCD’s most recent Research Images competition

DIGITAL WORLD As the world marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, we look at George Boole’s life and legacy

DESIGN IRELAND 72 ID 2015 is celebrating all that’s great about Irish design – on a national and world stage

GATEWAY LOCATION 46 Why Cork continues to be a key location for investors INNOVATION 52 Ireland’s top US FDI-supported research and ideas recognised in US Ireland Research Innovation Awards THE IRISH MIND 60 Why WB Yeats remains a giant of Irish culture 150 years on from his birth TALENT 65 Ireland is one of the top performers in a new index of human capital DIVERSE IRELAND 66 The inaugural InspireFest was a sci-tech event with a difference

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: Office 4, 6 Main St, Dundrum, Dublin 14 © Business & Leadership Ltd 2015. IDA Ireland editor: Caitriona O’Kennedy (Caitriona.OKennedy@ida.com). Address: IDA Ireland, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2

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QUALTRICS TO EXPAND ROLES AT NEW EU HQ IN DUBLIN Software company Qualtrics is creating 100 new jobs at its recently-opened 27,000 sq ft EU headquarters on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin’s city centre. This will bring the company’s total number of people employed in Ireland to 250 by the end of 2016. Founded in Utah by CEO Ryan Smith in 2002, Qualtrics is a software-as-aservice company that provides an insight platform used by 7,000 enterprises around the world, as well as by academic institutions and government agencies. Smith described the company’s experience of doing business in Europe from the Irish base as “phenomenal”.

BAUSCH + LOMB INVESTING €75M IN WATERFORD FACILITY Global eye health firm Bausch+Lomb is expected to create 125 new jobs at its Waterford facility by the end of 2017, further to announcing plans to invest €75m in extra manufacturing capacity there. The company is planning to add 112,000 sq ft of space on a 17-acre site adjacent to its current facility, which will provide the capacity needed to meet expected demand for its Biotrue range of contact lenses. Construction on the site is due to be completed by the end of 2016. The move follows an announcement by the company last November that €41m was being invested in Waterford, creating 50 new jobs. Work on this phase of investment is underway at present. Operating in Waterford for 35 years, Bausch+Lomb currently employs 1,000 people at the site.

AGORA LOCATING TWO NEW CENTRES IN WATERFORD Maryland-headquartered Agora Publishing is to establish a multilingual contact centre and technology services centre in Waterford, which will add 100 new jobs to its operations there over the next three years. The group located its lifestyle publishing operation International Living in Waterford City in 1998, where 33 people are currently employed. International Living, the contact centre and the technology services centre will base their centralised operations in Portlaw, Co Waterford in a period building that is currently under renovation. A capital investment of €4.4m is being made in the project, which should be complete by mid-2016. The contact centre will provide multilingual customer support via phone, electronic correspondence and click to chat to Agora’s international and US affiliates’ clients. The technology services group is being set up to provide application support, web and mobile application development services to the Agora group of companies. “We have had a long relationship with Waterford and this investment allows us to meet the demands of our growing business and take advantage of the high quality of talent available,” said Daryl Berver, president of publishing services.

Ryan Smith, CEO, Qualtrics

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AMCHAM AND IDA IRELAND CAMPAIGN AIMS TO ATTRACT TALENT INTO IRELAND American Chamber of Commerce and IDA Ireland have launched a new campaign aimed at attracting talent into Ireland. ‘World of Talent in Ireland’ will initially target the country’s global graduate community, highlighting the opportunities that now exist in Ireland. The campaign is being supported by higher education institutes and Chamber members in the US FDI sector across Ireland. One of the campaign’s key elements is an online resource – worldoftalentinireland.com – that includes information for people considering moving to Ireland as well as testimonials from those who already have. The American Chamber’s jobs board currently has details of around 2,000 career opportunities available with US employers in Ireland. “For Ireland to continue to grow its economy it will be essential that we attract the best and the brightest talent from across the world,” said Mark Redmond, chief executive of the American Chamber. “This campaign is about reaching out to anyone who attended college here and therefore has an affinity with Ireland but is currently living and working elsewhere. We want to ensure that they know the great career opportunities that now exist here and how they can avail of them.” “When we meet with clients and ask them about their priorities when developing their businesses in Ireland, talent is always at the top of the list,” said IDA CEO, Martin Shanahan. “No business can succeed without good talent, and this initiative will make our diaspora aware of the many fantastic opportunities that exist within companies located in Ireland.”

ZALANDO TO LOCATE NEW FASHION INSIGHTS CENTRE IN DUBLIN Online fashion platform Zalando has announced plans to create up to 200 jobs in Dublin over the next three years. Zalando said it is locating in Ireland to meet the growing demand for top quality candidates in the field of research and development, big data analysis, data science and engineering. Headquartered in Berlin, Zalando was founded in 2008 by co-CEOs David Schneider and Robert Gentz and now has a presence in 15 European countries selling fashion clothing, sports gear and shoes to close to 15 million active customers. “Zalando is the most trafficked fashion site in Europe with well over 100 million visits to the site per month,” said Gentz. “Understanding our customers, and gaining deep insights into their purchasing patterns and their behaviour online means we can provide them with a personalised and compelling offering. Investing to understand these insights has driven our growth since the earliest days of our company and has been the key to our success. “The new Zalando fashion insights centre in Dublin will play a major role as we continue to lead online fashion and grow our presence across Europe.”

ALEXION INVESTING €450M IN NEW BLANCHARDSTOWN BIOLOGICS FACILITY American biopharmaceutical company Alexion Pharmaceuticals is to build a €450m biologics manufacturing facility at its College Park, Blanchardstown site, which will create 200 jobs when it is completed within four years. The company’s first biologics manufacturing facility outside the US, it will bring Alexion’s total workforce in Ireland up to around 500. Since first setting up operations in Ireland in 2013, Alexion has invested €130m in a vial fill-finish facility in Athlone and a global supply chain facility at College Park. Phase 1 of the College Park facility, comprising global supply chain HQ, laboratories, packaging and warehousing operations is expected to be operational by yearend. “With this major expansion, our Irish operations, comprising biologics manufacturing, vial fill-finish and global supply chain, will be at the forefront of this vital work globally,” said Julie O’Neill, executive vice president, Alexion global operations.

Robert Gentz, co-CEO and founder, Zalando

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PROMETRIC EXPANDING IN DUNDALK AFTER AGREEING THREE-YEAR DCU RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP US-based testing company Prometric has entered into a three-year research partnership with Dublin City University (DCU) valued at around €1m that will create 40 new jobs in Dundalk, Co Louth. Supported by IDA Ireland, Prometric has invested more than €75m in Ireland over 10 years of operation. This announcement means a further injection of more than €3.5m to expand its Co Louth presence and partner with DCU. The new project involves the establishment of the Centre for Assessment Research in Education (Care) at DCU and the development of test types that can better assess the preparedness of Irish students in the areas of critical thinking and skills assessment, in addition to knowledge recall. Prometric’s 40 new jobs will add finance and customer service functions to its test development, technology, operations and human resources teams already there. “If we wish to encourage our students to be creative problem solvers ready to face the challenges of our globalised, knowledge-based modern world, we must embrace new, cuttingedge methodologies such as those offered by Prometric,” said Prof Brian MacCraith, president of DCU. “Our partnership with Prometric will allow DCU to establish a national resource to conduct research and develop best practice in education and job skills assessment, potentially having a transformative impact on the quality of teaching, learning and jobs growth for generations to come.”

GUIDEWIRE SOFTWARE TO CREATE UP TO 80 NEW JOBS IN DUBLIN American multinational Guidewire Software is to hire between 60 and 80 new staff in Dublin over the next two years. Guidewire Software already employs over 150 people at its global services and development centre in Blanchardstown, which it set up in 2011. The expansion will position Ireland as the largest office outside of the US for the company, which provides software products to the general insurance industry. “We have been very pleased with the quality of talent and output from our Dublin office, and I regard our decision to start operations in Ireland as one of the best we have made in the last several years,” said Marcus Ryu, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. Dan Lonborg, engineering director and head of the European development centre, added that this expansion would allow the company to take on “bigger, more complex and new types of projects in Dublin”.

Niall Lalor, distribution consulting director, Guidewire

SIX HIGH GROWTH FIRMS ESTABLISHING OPERATIONS IN DUBLIN AND WEXFORD Five North American companies and one European-based high growth company are creating 185 new jobs in Dublin and Wexford in sectors including medical devices and business analytics. A database technology company founded in Massachusetts in 2010, NuoDB, is to open its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) development centre in Dublin and a new office in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It intends to hire 50 developers, engineers and tech support professionals in Dublin over the next three years. Cloud management software company Artisan Infrastructure, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, is establishing its EMEA headquarters in Dublin, creating 30 new information technology jobs. With offices all over Europe and the US, business analytics company DataClarity is also to take on 30 people over the next two years in an ICT capacity at a newly established EMEA headquarters in Dublin. Moving south, medical device manufacturer CRI will create 25 new jobs over the next three years at its Wexford facility. CRI Wexford, Ireland specialises in custom interventional balloon design and manufacturing. Over the next three years, it will expand to support operations at CRI’s other locations in Indianapolis, Costa Rica and Minnesota. New York-based global sales optimisation company Modern Marketing Concepts, which provides outsourced multichannel sales and marketing for healthcare and building products, aims to build a 30-strong sales and marketing team at its new EMEA headquarters in Dublin. Finally, small French financial technology company Megatransfert SAS set up in 2011 specialising in micropayments via telephone, plans to take on 20 additional people at its Dublin office, doubling the existing workforce there.

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IDT911 SETTING UP EUROPEAN BASE IN GALWAY Identity and data protection company IDT911 has chosen Galway as the base for its European operations and plans to hire 60 new staff in the city during the next five years. The company is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. “The decision to locate in Galway was made very easy by the great level of support we have received from the IDA and Minister [Richard] Bruton’s Department,” said the company’s COO, Sean Daly. “Galway has a dynamic business culture that will enable us to launch IDT911 into the European market and scale upwards during the next five years. As leaders in the world of data protection and identity management, the Irish environment is an ideal fit to recruit excellent talent with the expertise we will need moving forward.”

VIAGOGO GROUP DOUBLING WORKFORCE IN LIMERICK Ticket marketplace Viagogo Group announced plans to double its workforce in Ireland to 200 people over the next three years at the recent official opening of its Limerick operations centre. The company has transformed part of the former Flextronics building in the Kilmurry Business Centre at the edge of the University of Limerick campus into a new 14,000 sq ft, state-of-the-art centre.

Michelle Kelleher, real estate and facilities manager, EMEA, Airbnb; Shane Scully, development director, The Reveal Developments; and Aisling Hassell, global head of customer experience, Airbnb

AIRBNB TAKING ON 200 EXTRA STAFF IN SILICON DOCKS Airbnb recently started hiring for 200 new positions at its Dublin operation in the areas of customer experience, human resources, finance, trust and safety and IT. The company, which has already taken on 300 people in the capital, also confirmed a lease for ‘The Warehouse’, a planned 40,000 sq ft contemporary office space at Hanover Quay, Dublin 2. Over the next year, this 19th century derelict warehouse will undergo a “sympathetic restoration and modernisation” for Airbnb. The company has also taken additional space at its existing office location, The Watermarque Building in Dublin 4, to allow for its continued growth. “It’s been almost one year since we officially opened our Dublin office and we have been really pleased with our progress so far in terms of talent and growth,” said Aisling Hassell, global head of customer experience and head of Airbnb in Ireland. “Our Dublin operation is a core part of the company and we are very excited to be in a position to build on our current success.”

SUN LIFE FINANCIAL OPENS EXPANDED WATERFORD OFFICE American company Sun Life Financial’s newly expanded offices in Waterford have been officially opened, giving it the potential to grow its workforce from 350 currently up to 400. The company opened its Waterford office in 1998 with a team of 12 people and since then has drawn on the talent pool available from graduates of Waterford Institute of Technology, University College Cork and other third level institutions. It is currently recruiting for roles on its security team as

well as in training, QA automation and Java development. The 4,500 sq ft expansion and upgrade represents a “substantial investment” and a “real vote of confidence in its workforce”, according to CEO of IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan. Video-conferencing facilities, conference lines and interactive meeting rooms will allow enhanced interaction and integration between the Waterford team and those located in Sun Life’s US and Canadian headquarters.

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ABBVIE TO EXPAND SLIGO MANUFACTURING FACILITY

NORTHERN TRUST EXPANDING LIMERICK OPERATIONS Chicago-based financial services company Northern Trust is expanding its operations in Limerick with the creation of 300 new jobs over the next three years, which will bring its workforce there up to 1,000. The company’s first Limerick office was opened in 2006. Clive Bellows, country head Northern Trust Ireland, said the continued expansion of the Limerick office was as a result of sustained business growth. “In addition to recruiting graduates from the local region, we are also looking for experienced professionals from across the world, or perhaps those looking to return to Ireland,” said Catherine Duffy, head of Northern Trust’s Limerick office. “The expansion of our second building in Limerick will offer greater capacity to continue to support this sustained acceleration of our business in Ireland.”

Clive Bellows, country head Northern Trust Ireland

ZIMMER OPENING NEW ORANMORE FACILITY Medical technology company Zimmer is to open a new facility in Oranmore, Co Galway, where it will create 250 manufacturing jobs over the next five years. Zimmer set up a manufacturing facility in Shannon in 2007 and currently employs 330 people there. Following a strategic review, the company decided to expand its presence in Ireland and will invest over €51m in a building in Oranmore to manufacture orthopaedic implants. “Zimmer has had a very positive experience of doing business in Ireland,” said Adrian Furey, general manager for Zimmer Ireland. “We are looking forward to building on the success of our Shannon operation by expanding in Galway. Our Shannon facility will continue to be our flagship for Ireland and we will continue to invest in our operations there.” The new facility will also be home to the sales and marketing division for a direct sales force in Ireland and to a professional education centre.

Biopharma company AbbVie is planning to create 50 jobs over the next four years with the further expansion of its medical device manufacturing facility in Ballytivnan, Sligo. With this announcement, the company said its investment in Ballytivnan and other manufacturing operations in Ireland has topped €134m since 2013, when it launched as an independent company, having previously been part of Abbott. The Ballytivnan site currently produces drug delivery devices, including a pen-style injector used for a range of auto-immune conditions. The site is AbbVie’s centre of excellence for medical device manufacture, precision engineering, plastics moulding and metrology.

PROSEEDER CHOOSES DUBLIN FOR ITS FIRST EUROPEAN SUBSIDIARY New York headquartered financial software firm ProSeeder Technologies is establishing its first European subsidiary office in Dublin where it will hire 15 people. The Dublin operation will be a technology centre for software development activities and will also house a small sales and business development team. ProSeeder is a provider of a customisable financial technology platform for investment firms and networks to conduct their operations related to direct investment in private securities. “ProSeeder has become a global bridge between the US and EU seed and venture investment communities,” said Ken Gatz, CEO of ProSeeder. “Our Dublin office will bring further collaboration between investment organisations and growing companies.”

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HORIZON PHARMA OPENS NEW GLOBAL HQ Speciality biopharmaceutical company Horizon Pharma has opened its new global corporate headquarters (HQ) in Dublin with plans to hire 60 people there over the next three years. The new recruits in the Burlington Road, Dublin 4 HQ will fill positions in areas such as research and development, supply chain and finance. “The opening of our new corporate headquarters is a significant milestone in the company’s development and Dublin provides a perfect location from which to manage our company,” said Timothy Walbert, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Horizon Pharma. “We are very impressed with the economic progress Ireland has made in recent years and we believe the outlook for the economy is very positive. Dublin is widely recognised as a leading centre for the pharmaceutical industry and has a deep pool of talented young people who can join our team and help us to grow our operations.”

Timothy P Walbert, chairman, president and CEO Horizon Pharma

BRAZILIAN E-LEARNING COMPANY SETS UP EUROPEAN OPERATIONS CENTRE IN DUBLIN Rio de Janeiro-headquartered e-learning company Affero Lab is to locate its European operations centre in Dublin. The company, which plans to locate 40 “highly skilled” jobs at the centre, becomes IDA Ireland’s first investment win from Brazil. The centre’s main focus will be research and development. It will develop the company’s technologies in the adaptive learning, gamification, mobile learning and data analytics areas. The centre will also employ sales and support staff to support the company’s clients in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. “Affero Lab has identified Ireland as a leading innovation hub for e-learning companies and a source of first rate software and engineering skills,” said Fabio Barcellos, Affero Lab chief strategy officer. “The European operations centre in Dublin will play an essential role in Affero Lab’s internationalisation strategy, leveraging our investments in innovative products and technologies and supporting us to grow our revenues in new, international markets outside of Latin America.”

METLIFE EXPANDING EUROPEAN OPERATION IN DUBLIN American insurance company MetLife is expanding its European operation in Dublin, having officially opened a new floor at its Hatch Street Lower offices recently. Over the past nine years MetLife has grown its presence in Dublin from 10 employees to 260. “The term ‘hub and spoke’ has come to commonly describe how Dublin is increasingly serving as the centre of our regional operations,” said Dirk Ostijn, CEO MetLife Europe. “From these four walls, we oversee the provision of life and non-life insurance products in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria and the UK, with plans to create new branches in other EEA countries by 1 January 2016 in preparation for Solvency II.”

LEXISNEXIS ESTABLISHING DATA ANALYTICS CENTRE IN DUBLIN US service and technology provider to the insurance industry LexisNexis Risk Solutions is setting up a data analytics centre in Dublin, which will mean 70 new jobs being created over the next three years. The new centre of excellence for data analytics will support the company’s UK and Ireland insurance operations as well as supplement US-based operations. The Dublin office for LexisNexis was formed as a result of the company’s acquisition of Mapflow, a Dublin-based geographic risk assessment technology company, in September 2013.

DELL ADDING NEW R&D ROLES IN LIMERICK Dell is creating 100 new innovation technology R&D roles at its Limerick campus. Last October, the company announced the creation of 60 commerce services roles created at its Cherrywood R&D centre in Dublin. With these two centres, Ireland will become a central development hub for Dell’s innovation technology team. Dell said the team in Limerick will focus on creating more ease and flexibility in the end-to-end customer journey including the sales experience. The Limerick based R&D team will work closely with the Cherrywood R&D team, as well as with IT colleagues across the globe.

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collaboration Ireland is at the tipping point now in terms of industrial applications of the internet of things (IoT) and all the pieces are in place for the country to be a world leader in this area, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

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oth government and industry heavy hitters are of the strong belief at the moment that Ireland is perfectly positioned to be a trailblazer in the development and deployment of the internet of things in the business world. This is not just because the country has the ideal ecosystem for this to happen, but rather more because of the actual activity that is going on in terms of applications coming on stream and the level of collaboration that already exists. The IoT is a scenario in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. US market research firm Gartner has estimated that the IoT will include 26 billion units by 2020 and by that time IoT product and service providers will generate incremental revenue exceeding US$300bn, mostly in services. With this in mind, IDA Ireland has earmarked the IoT as one of the areas for Ireland to pursue in its recently announced five-year strategy (see infographic on page 18) and it was incorporated in the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs last January. Ken Finnegan was appointed IoT lead at IDA Ireland in July 2014 and in his first year in the position has experienced enough to convince him of the real opportunity that exists for Ireland in this space.

‘The IoT is the top global tech trend and is happening in Ireland, right here and now, taking in about 80pc of the technology ecosystem’

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“The IoT is the top global tech trend and is happening in Ireland, right here and now, taking in about 80pc of the technology ecosystem. I went on a reconnaissance mission around Ireland looking at both Irish and international companies involved in IoT and also went to Paris and Amsterdam for benchmarking purposes. It was clear that Ireland is doing really well in terms of solutions – in Paris I saw a lot of smart devices but didn’t really see solutions to real world problems,” he explains. In terms of examples of companies in Ireland solving real world problems via the IoT, he cites Dublin-based Smart Bin (a provider of intelligent remote monitoring systems for the waste and recycling sectors); Ambisense (a Dublin City University spin-out using sensor technology for methane measurement); Shimmer (Dublin-based provider of wearable body technology solutions now shipped to 65 countries around the world); and building materials company Kingspan, which is creating a new business model for energy production and sales. “Ireland can really lead in IoT because we have a rich and strong history in the technology sector, so many successful companies and individuals and a really unique research ecosystem as well,” says Finnegan. “The environment is highly collaborative – universities are not in competition for industrial partnerships and from an industry perspective you can see convergence happening in lots of different industries and many verticals forming such as smart cities and smart health. “The IoT is all about interconnectivity and that horizontal value chain is so important. It is very rare that one company will have all the capabilities required, so it is essential for companies to collaborate. “The recently announced collaboration between Vodafone and EMC to create the Infinite platform is a great win for Ireland in that respect [see panel on page 14]. Meanwhile Dell and Intel are sending out the message that Ireland is the place to come to test your IoT ideas [see panels on pages 13 and 15]. “Right now, Ireland is small enough to trial and large enough to prove IoT solutions.” THE FAST BEATS THE SLOW Philip Moynagh, vice president, internet of things group at Intel Corp, echoes this view: “With previous technology revolutions it used to be big always beats small but with IoT it’s the fast that beats the slow. Can we say that Ireland is a fast-moving space and economy? Hell yeah. You can get to the provost of Trinity College Dublin in one phone call; in a heartbeat engage with great universities, IDA Ireland; gain access to the Taoiseach’s office incredibly easily and reach Nasdaq listed companies within two hours. “The SME and start-up side of things is exploding and there are lots of interesting companies in hubs. In Dublin

‘Ireland can really lead in IoT because we have a rich and strong history in the technology sector, so many successful companies and individuals and a really unique research ecosystem as well’

in particular I think we’re starting to operate some of the mechanisms stolen from the Bay Area better than they are there, such as CoderDojo and hackathons.” In this context, Moynagh highlights an example of IoT activity in Ireland that epitomises how Ireland can have an edge: “Larry Goodman’s ABP Group has recently entered Japan, China and the US with its grass-fed beef. It has a great product and a great attitude. Having looked at this business line it recognised that margins were tight and questioned whether there was a way of deploying smart connected IoT wearable technologies to the business that would transform it. “ABP Group sponsored a beef hackathon in Dublin City University in partnership with Intel last May – the first of its kind in the world. It presented its problems to 120 people ranging in age from 14 to 74 who came up with 12 ideas and ABP Group chose the winner [a prototype of a device able to measure the tenderness of meat].” Moynagh spent a lot of his working life in the 120km strip between San Francisco and San Jose on the west coast of the US and his experience there is making him excited about what is possible in Ireland. “Silicon Valley is this completely distorted source of

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INDUSTRY FOCUS great technologies that everybody knows about, way disproportionate to its geographical size. I’ve known all of my career that it’s possible to be way over represented per capita in terms of breakthrough, revolutionary ideas in technology and business models. The thing that excites me about the IoT with a green jersey on is that this now makes sense in the Irish context,” he says. “When you look at infrastructure and enablement, we’re right up there with the Bay Area this time and there is no reason for Ireland not to be on the front edge. “None of the revolutionary steps in technology I have witnessed in my time [the microprocessor, computer, the internet, smart phones, Wi-Fi] have come out of Ireland or

DELL’S FIRST DEDICATED IOT LAB IN EUROPE Technology solutions and services provider Dell launched its first dedicated IoT lab in Europe at its Limerick operation in June. The lab will be one of the bases for its new global IoT division focused on bringing together end-to-end IoT solutions that span hardware, software and services. “Dell’s IoT lab in Limerick complements our existing solution centre there and expands Dell’s portfolio by providing European customers with a dedicated space to build, model, architect and test their IoT solutions,” says Dermot O’Connell, executive director and general manager, OEM solutions, Dell EMEA. “For Ireland, this is a significant strategic investment supporting the Government’s strategy of building a knowledge-based society. The track record and success of our solutions centre made Ireland an obvious choice. The country has a great talent pool, universities engaged in research and a vibrant technology landscape. “I believe Ireland has a real opportunity to be a

close to that. However, if you peel that back a bit, Ireland is the size of Colorado or Greater Manchester and with IoT you have to say, well why not?” Country manager for Ireland at Cisco Adam Grennan recently chaired the inaugural IoT Summit and says there was real recognition at that event that Ireland has many if not all the constituent parts needed to take the lead. “Large companies like Cisco and many others in the IoT area are represented in Ireland and there are some very clever and futuristic innovations coming out of research centres such as the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group [TSSG] in Waterford and Tyndall National Institute in Cork. We’re a close society and there are no shrinking violets – leader and early adopter of IoT technology in areas like agriculture, tourism, construction, urban development and healthcare.” Dell’s IoT division’s first products are gateways - small, wireless or connected devices that collect, help secure and process sensor data at the edge of a network. “One of the biggest barriers to realising the full advantages of IoT adoption is the high number of existing products which are not designed to connect to the internet and cannot share data,” O’Connell explains. “One way of doing this is through the deployment of sensors and gateways for mobile, home and industry which act as intermediaries between legacy devices and systems and the cloud.” The launch of the Limerick IoT lab follows the opening of Dell and Intel’s first IoT lab in Santa Clara, California in November last year. According to O’Connell, the Limerick lab is now fully operational and EMEA customers are already taking advantage of the space. For example, a customer in Ireland is currently working with Dell OEM Solutions and Intel to develop intelligent feeding Dell’s Limerick operation machines for beef farmers. Data such as weather conditions and field information collected from various data points will allow farmers to identify the optimal feed for the herd in order to produce the best quality meat. The lab is jointly funded by Intel and Dell OEM Solutions. O’Connell says: “We are a member of Intel’s Internet of Things Solution Alliance so we very much work together in collaboration in order to develop customers’ IoT solutions.” Issue 10 Summer 2015 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW

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everybody is happy to talk about their little patch,” he says. “However, there was broad consensus that we need to move beyond the conversation or be left behind by other countries. We all want to move things on, consolidate and work together to drive things forward. For example, Prof Linda Doyle, director of Connect research centre in Trinity College Dublin talked about the need now to blanket Ireland in IoT infrastructure and represent it as the ultimate test-bed for IoT.”

Prof Willie Donnelly at TSSG is another prominent academic research figure when it comes to IoT in Ireland. Grennan notes that researchers there are trying to drive enhancement in the volume and quality of milk using sensor technology on cows in collaboration with Kerry Group and Glanbia. The sensors will allow farmers to adjust the feed cows are getting so they are provided with nutrients at the right time. “The solution they’re developing will work all the way

INFINITE POSSIBILITIES

The platform is spread across three data centres – those of EMC, Vodafone and data centre and cloud provider Cork Internet eXchange. Infinite encompasses all the significant technologies, domains and platforms to support businesses to introduce major advancements in cloud, networks, mobile, wireless, edge gateways, sensors and analytics that are defining the Tech multinational EMC has developed an innovation IoT globally. platform from its Cork base specifically designed for This will be made available to organisations that want industrial IoT development, in partnership with Vodafone to create products capitalising upon the IoT and will Ireland. considerably reduce their cost and time of development. Involving an initial €2m investment and called Infinite, “We’re looking at a point now where there are a lot this is the first large-scale Industrial Internet Consortium of interesting IoT start-ups and industrial applications (IIC) approved industrial IoT innovation platform in for IoT are starting Europe. to develop. There is a Led by GE and great opportunity to formed in July 2014, work collaboratively and the IIC is a grouping of for Ireland to become 184 big players in the a centre of excellence IoT space worldwide internationally,” says and EMC has been Buckley. a member since the “People have to work beginning. together on this. It is There are two not about one or two threads to what the IIC companies heading does – firstly getting off on their own. For industries to work industrial IoT you need a together coherently and cloud platform, network raising awareness of the connectivity and a device need for industrial IoT at the edge. Very few solutions to be robust organisations can provide and trustworthy and all of those elements. We secondly to create a Donagh Buckley, Head of EMC Research Europe; Minister for Jobs, can offer all of the backsmall number of large testEnterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton; end required so people only beds globally for industrial Anne O’Leary, CEO Vodafone Ireland have to worry about the IoT. bits that they want to do.” “On joining the IIC we Dr Richard Soley, executive director IIC, says Infinite felt the test-bed idea represented a great opportunity for will prove to be a valuable industrial internet test-bed for a Ireland because we have the multinationals and the startcountless number of industries including smart cities and up community here is really vibrant,” explains Donagh healthcare. Buckley, head of EMC research Europe. “As the need for more dynamic systems continues to “So we expanded out the infrastructure we already had grow, organisations will turn to utilising mobile networks to underway and added a couple of data centres onto that. To connect to virtual systems. have a scalable platform, we felt we needed a partner on “This test-bed is going to prove the viability of doing all the connectivity side and Vodafone said it would like to be this with systems that require the utmost security – such as involved.” those used by hospitals and emergency medical services.”

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INDUSTRY FOCUS through the process from farm to fork and will open up a huge opportunity for Ireland in the supply of milk and other dairy products.” The over-arching takeaway from the IoT summit held in Carton House in Dublin was that everybody was in agreement that IoT is the next phase of the internet and we really are only scratching the surface, according to Grennan. “There is a huge amount happening in IoT both here and abroad. One of the interesting pitches on the day indicative of this was from Prof Noel O’Connor at Dublin City University (DCU),” he says. “He talked about the use of Croke Park as a living lab, in the

IRELAND BECOMES INTEL’S SIXTH EMEA IGNITION LAB LOCATION Ireland has been picked as the location for Intel’s latest internet of things (IoT) Ignition Lab, which officially opened in June at the company’s campus in Leixlip in Dublin. The lab is a dedicated facility for developing novel IoT solutions that will be delivered in collaboration with local companies. Intel’s other Ignition labs set up so far in Europe and the Middle East are located in Swindon, Stockholm, Munich, Istanbul and Haifa. Each one focuses on the needs of a specific set of vertical markets. In Ireland, this will be smart home and building, smart cities, energy and utilities and smart agriculture. “The Leixlip lab provides one place where people can come together, collaborate and kickstart their ideas, bridging the gap between different organisations,” says Louise Summerton, who is responsible for running the Ignition Labs across Europe Middle East & Africa. “We have already hosted several customers in the lab to show them what’s happening and allow them to use the space for development work. A big part of what we do is matchmaking and prototyping.” She explains that the Dublin lab has a showcase area featuring around 10 different demos covering the various vertical markets: “The thing about IoT is

context of using it to better understand safety and security, how to manage the environment and improve the fan experience. “DCU has a collaboration with the GAA, Intel and Arizona State University underpinning this, which will do very practical things like making the lighting more efficient to significantly reduce costs and better understanding the physical needs of the pitch and improve the care of that. “Elements of industry and all manner of life are going to be ultimately changed by the IoT. Through initiatives such as Intel’s innovation lab and collaboration with people like Willie Donnelly as well as big brands, Ireland can drive IoT innovation which I believe will have an impact beyond our borders.”

that it’s a great topic, but people want to see what’s real. We have created a cross-section of cases in our demonstration area of the lab in Dublin where people can see what has been developed already in Ireland and the new business models being created. “The smart agriculture vertical is really being led by Ireland at the moment, with solutions already in deployment. For example, Intel is working with agri-tech company Keenan Systems on a smart wagon feeder to create an intelligent feeding system which takes real-time data from cows and mixes the feed appropriately. It has been shown to improve the quality of milk by 20pc.” The Leixlip campus is also home to the Intel Labs IoT systems research lab, which carries out research focused on the IoT with a particular emphasis on distributed edge computing, machine to machine (M2M) communications, IoT applications, and data analytics. Intel says the diversity of its business operations in Ireland provides an “opportune backdrop” for the new Ignition Lab and for the development of solutions in the IoT space.

Louise Summerton, EMEA ecosystem sales director for the internet of things at Intel

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Infographic1.pdf

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2015

Ireland - collecting, connecting and transforming People, process, data and things - the internet of everything

Internet of Things (IoT) and Ireland Collect, connect and transform

Collect

Connect

Transform

Ireland is the most connected place in the world

Physical World

Data Harvesting

Data Transmission

Data Hosting

Data Analysis

Value Discovery

Did you know... Ireland has the Infinite IoT Testbed, an innovation platform where Industrial IoT solutions and services are deployed and validated in an environment that resembles real-world conditions Intel’s Galileo development board and Quark chip were designed in Ireland IBM’s SmartBay has it’s own floating sea laboratory facility ‘Sealab’ The most energy efficient high-speed analogue to digital converter was created by Irish company S3 Group National Geographic recently named Dublin as a capital for the Internet of Things Ireland has unique industry partnership models attracting international investment and creating indigenous growth.

Collect

Ireland has developed resources and capabilities in the semiconductor and microprocessor industry for over 30 years

Some of the companies in Ireland involved in IoT

Ireland has been ranked 6th

and 8th in the world

for nanoscience and materials science, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators We have a highly collaborative R&D ecosystem

Research in Ireland in Internet of Things Nimbus Centre Ireland's largest internationally recognised research centre entirely focused on IoT technology applications

Tyndall for microelectronics and MEMs, wearable surgical training glove, capsule technology

Connect

Amber/CRANN for nanotechnology, have developed a new method of producing industrial quantities of high quality graphene Insight for data analytics, the largest publicly funded data analytics R&D centre in Europe Connect for advanced telecommunications, created the world’s longest IoT backbone over TV whitespace spectrum Adapt for Digital Content, pioneering intelligent behaviour TSSG for Telecommunications Systems & Software.

Ireland can provide test and trial access to the radio spectrum We have an advanced telecommunications network boasting

7th in the world for broadband speed,

according to the global State Of The Internet index

Ireland has an ideal climate to host data Vodafone’s M2M technology in Ireland is powering connected solutions in everything from airlines to cattle feed

Ireland of Things Analog Devices: Thousands of advanced product lines in IoT SAP: Next generation R&D data analytics Intel: The ‘IoT’ Quark chip designed in Ireland

Smart Ireland

IBM: SmartBay and Smart Cities projects HP: HAVEn big data platform

Transform

EMC: Collaborating partner in a large European IoT testbed Movidius: Creators of the myriad chip, a vision processing platform Grasp: Wearable technologies

Insight Research Centre, Europe’s largest publicly funded R&D centre for data analytics with significant IoT capability

SAP chose Ireland as its prime location for next generation analytics

SAS: Centre for data analytics NCAD: Design thinking and prototyping

Our universities are producing world class, highly skilled data scientists and analysts Ireland is one of only two countries in the world with a Minister for Data Protection.

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INDUSTRY FOCUS

AUGMENTED DEVELOPMENT US augmented reality company Daqri opened its Dublin office recently and has already started connecting with academic researchers and developers here to advance the industrial use of its Smart Helmet

Gaia Dempsey, co-founder and managing director of American augmented reality company Daqri International, says the company is “thrilled” with the expertise it has come across in Irish universities and finds the culture to be unique in terms of openness to collaboration with others. “We have been working closely with the academic community, researchers and research centres to define innovative research and development [R&D] programmes,” she says. “Openness to collaboration is exactly what you need when building new silos and in Ireland everyone knows each other and is happy to connect and make introductions.” Daqri opened its new European headquarters and development centre on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin in June where it will hire 30 people in software and hardware development. Dempsey says recruitment is going well so far from within Ireland and is encouraged by the fact that Daqri has successfully recruited talent from other European capitals as well to work in Dublin.

The company is currently in the pilot phase of rolling out its Smart Helmet product geared towards industries such as shipbuilding and oil and gas. Powered by next generation computer vision, the Smart Helmet has an industrial grade inertial measurement unit, 360-degree field of view via multiple navigation cameras and thermal imaging and is controlled via gaze tracking and voice recognition. “The Smart Helmet is already being piloted with customers. We were at the Achema process automation trade fair in Germany in June where two of our customers were showing use cases for the product one was a bioreactor being controlled by an interface and the other involved a step-bystep maintenance process,” says Dempsey. “The Smart Helmet is the most sophisticated and highest power wearable device ever designed involving the best package of sensors yet to deliver an augmented reality user experience. Daqri has not invented each component; the innovation lies in the combination of technologies in one product for the first time. It will result in a whole new way of working.” Part of the pilot phase for the Smart Helmet was to hold a hackathon at DCU Innovation Campus on 19 and 20 June where the 100 attendees competed to build apps for the potential industrial case uses. “This represented the first time that we showed the underlying hardware and software components and how they fit together. The Dublin hackathon was a great opportunity for Daqri to come together with the development community,” notes Dempsey. Aside from the new Dublin operation, Daqri is headquartered in Los Angeles with an R&D facility in Sunnyvale, California. “Having strong interest from European customers in aerospace, energy, manufacturing and agriculture, engineering and construction sectors, including some based in Ireland, it made clear business sense to be based in Dublin,” says Dempsey. “It also marks a milestone in our company’s growth and strengthens our ability to serve our European clients.”

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RESEARCH

Connected

THINKING It may be less than a year old, but the Connect research centre has big ideas when it comes to the development of Ireland’s future networks. GRAINNE ROTHERY reports

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s Ireland gears itself up to become a world leader in all things relating to the internet of things (IoT), one of the country’s newest Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centres is aiming to play a key role in developments in this area, as well as in its other core areas of novel broadband architectures and cellular technologies. Officially set up earlier this year, Connect’s mission is to solve multi-faceted scientific and engineering challenges relating to the design of flexible and responsive future communications networks. Co-funded by SFI and industry, the centre is receiving an initial €50m to support 165 researchers. According to its director, Prof Linda Doyle, the centre’s aim is to be a one-stop shop for any research carried out around future networks and communications in Ireland. “You can come here and do anything from fundamental research right down to applied levels of research in this area,” she says. “We’re interested in networks from a very holistic or end-toend perspective. So we look at everything to do with the things that are part of the network - the smart sensors, the radios and the nodes - right through to the network infrastructure and architecture and up to the applications and services that sit on the network.

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Prof Linda Doyle, director of Connect, speaking at InspireFest in June

Connect currently has around 40 industry partners, including global giants in the area such as EMC, Google, Cisco, Alcatel Lucent, IBM, Xilinx and Ericsson. “We draw on companies from right across the value chain,” says Doyle. “We have the typical multinationals and we also have Irish SMEs as partners.” Its research programme is divided into two parts. “There’s the platform research that looks at the longer term, so it’s more blue skies,” Doyle explains. “Then there’s targeted project research. Companies have the option of working on an individual targeted project or groups of companies can come together to work on projects.” The centre is currently involved in more than 40 assignments, she says. DISTRIBUTED EXPERTISE Headquartered in Trinity College Dublin, Connect is spread across 10 academic partner institutes throughout the country (see panel, opposite page). “We extended the skillset by bringing these groups together,” says Doyle. “Being distributed really is the only way to get a critical mass in a country the size of Ireland.” The centre is still in hiring mode and the current contingent of 165 researchers will increase to around 200 when it’s fully

recruited. The team includes 35 principal investigators spread across the 10 institutions. “They’re the core anchor academic staff who add a rainbow of expertise from the bottom up to the top,” Doyle says. Connect has evolved out of CTVR, the national telecommunications research centre, which was also headquartered in Trinity College and worked in partnership with NUI Maynooth, University of Limerick, University College Cork, Tyndall National Institute, Dublin Institute of Technology and Dublin City University. Doyle, who is professor of engineering and the arts and Trinity, was also director of CTVR. “We knew that CTVR encompassed a certain part of the disciplines needed to cover communications and networking. We extended that down deeper into the hardware and up into the higher layers. We went down and up to give this fully fleshed out picture.” She returns to the notion of the one-stop shop. “If a company turns up and wants to do anything in telecommunications or networking, they just need to talk to one of us and we can either give them the skills from the group we have or point to one of the other groups they should work with. So they have a very smooth

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experience and are not running from pillar to post.” Connect’s offering extends beyond skills and technical knowhow, she says. “For example, there are lots of really interesting funding instruments in Ireland. It’s actually a very good landscape for companies to come and work here. But the companies don’t need to worry about the ins and outs of what’s available. We’ll sort it out for them. We’ll find the right funding instruments and the right set of collaborators.” AGILE RESPONSE She gives the example of a company Connect is working with that’s currently in the start-up phase. “They need a huge amount of expertise and we’re able to say they need expertise from these three institutions in this phase of the project and for the next phase they need expertise from these other four. “So, we’re composing a team on the basis of the company’s needs at a particular stage. And we’re doing that in a very seamless way so they don’t need to worry about the fact that the team members all come from different institutions. And they don’t need to sign multiple agreements with multiple institutions; they’re just signing one agreement. “We can be very agile in response to the companies. That’s really where we’re aiming to be better and better as time goes on.” As well as working directly with companies on technical projects, Connect is involved in helping to develop Ireland’s internet of things policy. And it works with various Government agencies on an ongoing basis. “I would say a week doesn’t go by without us doing a presentation for the IDA. In the future, we want to be able to say that we helped very proactively in getting foreign direct investment into Ireland. So we’re trying to streamline how we do business with the IDA to help that even more.” Another one of Connect’s big selling points is its experience – gained both from its current iteration and from CTVR – in collaborating with companies and providing the skills required to

RESEARCH AREAS Future networks, including wireless and optical technologies n Network-aware services and service-aware networks n Responsive things (key components of the internet of things) n Test-bed-based experimentation and iterative development n

CONNECT’S ACADEMIC PARTNERS n Trinity College Dublin n Cork Institute of Technology n Dublin City University n Dublin Institute of Technology n Maynooth University n University College Cork n University College Dublin n University of Limerick n Waterford Institute of Technology n Tyndall National Institute

start research projects. “We have gotten very used to working with companies and we understand that every organisation has a different culture and you work with them in different ways and they have different styles of working. “I think the academic landscape now is much more attuned to that. We’re able to talk to companies and figure out what it is they need. Some people want very practical help, some want you to be a thought leader and provocative, others want you to be a connector where you can connect the different academic pieces together. We’re quite good at understanding that and what the company needs and helping support that.” Becoming an SFI research centre has already had a big impact, says Doyle. “There’s a really clear Government and Ireland-wide support for these centres and you feel that support really strongly. “One of the other things I love is that SFI and the IDA want us to think big and that’s very exciting. Being a centre like this you’re pushed in a good way into thinking really big and really strategically. We have a lot of ideas.” One of those big ideas, says Doyle, is what she calls the ‘pervasive nation’. “We want to roll out a whole IoT infrastructure for Ireland. So, in the urban, suburban and rural space people can get the connectivity and the infrastructure they need to support IoT applications. We want to do this on a national scale and Ireland would be the only place internationally where something like this exists. So you start to dream very big with these centres and you feel that there’s support policy-wise as well as funding-wise and that makes a huge difference.”

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INVESTMENT LINKS

Bridge beyond

THE BAY FDI from North America’s west coast has been characterised by significant job creation by large multinationals and, most recently, a steady stream of new name companies setting up operations in Ireland, writes Sorcha Corcoran

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INVESTMENT LINKS

pple’s decision to establish a manufacturing operation in Cork in 1982 began a journey of investment from America’s west coast that included the same company’s announcement earlier this year that it plans to build an €850m data centre in Athenry, Co Galway. As Rory Mullen, senior vice president and west coast director at IDA Ireland points out, Cork continues to be Apple’s only global manufacturing site although its operation there has completely transformed: it now employs 4,500 people across a range of functions, including customer support, finance and licensing, with

500 currently involved in manufacturing. “When Apple first arrived Ireland had a low manufacturing rate of tax of 10pc and a lot of available labour because of high unemployment - we were the low cost manufacturing location in the EU,” he says. “The fact that Apple is no longer really involved in manufacturing as a company and that it continues to operate here is a result of constant engagement over the years.” IDA Ireland’s original office serving the west coast opened over 40 years ago in southern Los Angeles where two thirds of the population of California lives, but things really took off when it opened its office in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley in the mid 1980s, according to Mullen.

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INVESTMENT LINKS

“Growth back then was really driven by the early Silicon Valley innovators such as Apple, HP and Intel who all went into Ireland with transformative projects in the 1980s and continue to this day to employ around 5,000 apiece in the country. “The next phase of investment came after the dot-com collapse when Google decided to go into Ireland, where it now employs around 2,000 people, and this move led to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter following suit. Silicon Valley was originally an integrated circuit hub but is now much more about software development – Ireland has ridden that wave as well.” Last year, the west coast region accounted for almost half of all IDA Ireland’s US business in terms of numbers of job approved. This figure has varied between 40pc and 50pc over the past few years, according to Mullen. Overall, the US accounts for 80pc of Ireland’s FDI, with the number of new jobs created by all IDA client firms in 2014 at just over 15,000. Of the 1,150 or so foreign companies with operations in Ireland, 200 hail from the west coast - a relatively low number compared with EU member states, which account for 400. However, what’s important about the west coast as an investment region is the large number of massive companies involved, Mullen notes. “You have Apple, Intel and HP all employing around 5,000; then eBay, PayPal and Google with a couple of thousand each and there are loads at the 1,000 employee mark such as Microsoft, Allergan, Amazon, Oracle and Symantec. Then come the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn, which we believe have the potential to grow to the scale of the biggest projects.”

‘Silicon Valley is what has driven our success, but we are using resources as well to make sure we shake every tree in terms of identifying projects that might fit better in regional areas of Ireland’

Looking at investment size, the largest from the west coast have come from the semiconductor or biotech sectors over the past few years. “Services jobs don’t require a huge amount of investment apart from renting or building office space. There has been a total investment of US$7.5bn from the west coast over the past four years, with the bulk of this being accounted for by Intel, Amgen and BioMarin, which invested in new equipment and upgrading of plants,” Mullen explains. While the large companies and well-known names continue to invest and grow in terms of job numbers in Ireland, an increasing number of new-name projects from the west coast have come on stream recently, he continues. “On average every two and a half weeks a new name from the

SLACK OPENS EUROPEAN HQ IN DUBLIN

In May American software company Slack Technologies opened a European HQ in Dublin where it plans to hire 100 people in the next two years. Slack is a messaging and search platform that brings team communication into one place, creating a single unified archive accessible through powerful search. It launched in February 2014 and now has over 750,000 daily active users. Customers include Adobe, Airbnb, BuzzFeed, Dow Jones, eBay, Expedia, HBO and The New York Times. Based in San Francisco, and with offices in Vancouver, Slack has raised US$340m in venture capital to date. The jobs being created in Dublin are in customer support and account management for the European market. “The launch of our European headquarters is a significant milestone for Slack as we grow our business,” said James Sherrett, Slack’s Dublin-based accounts team lead. “With an initial focus on customer experience and account management, our Dublin office will play a central role in our international footprint.” CEO of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan said Slack was “one of the most talked about companies on the tech scene right now”.

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west coast is establishing a presence in Ireland, many of which are new small companies such as Fitbit, SurveyMonkey, New Relic and Slack [see panel]. At least one company a month is an emerging high growth company,” says Mullen. “A lot of these are involved in analytics, ad-tech and different forms of social networking or work collaboration tools. People will not be as familiar with the brand names but we are hoping this is where the next Facebook or LinkedIn will come from.” American technology companies have traditionally invested a lot in Dublin and Cork and have since developed their own momentum in those hubs. A new trend is emerging now involving existing companies looking at second site strategies in Ireland: for example, PayPal has facilities in Dundalk, Co Louth now as well as in Blanchardstown in Dublin. In tandem with this, IDA Ireland has been targeting companies outside of Silicon Valley with the aim of steering investment to locations around Ireland outside of Cork and Dublin. For example, two years ago Utah-based online discount retailer Overstock.com was secured with plans to create over 45 software jobs in Co Sligo. Four extra people have been taken on at IDA Ireland’s Palo Alto office primarily focused on extending its geographic reach outside Silicon Valley. “We want to make sure we are going often enough to Portland, San Diego, Seattle and Orange County. Silicon Valley is what has driven our success, but we are using resources as well to make sure we shake every tree in terms of identifying projects that might fit better in regional areas of Ireland,” says Mullen. “Counties Donegal and Kerry are only three or four hours from Dublin, which is the difference between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. Ireland is equivalent in size to the Bay Area. We are saying to west coast companies that Ireland as a whole is a tech hub and there are various locations within the country that might make sense for them.”

APPLE BUILDING DATA CENTRE IN ATHENRY Apple announced plans last February to build an €850m data centre in Athenry, Co Galway. The company also said it will spend another €850m on a data centre in Denmark’s central Jutland. The two centres, which represent Apple’s biggest projects in Europe to date, will operate on 100pc renewable energy and will power the company’s online services, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe. The centres, which will each measure 166,000 sq m, are expected to begin operations in 2017 and, according to Apple, include designs with additional benefits for their communities. In Athenry, Apple will recover land previously used for growing and harvesting non-native trees and restore native trees to Derrydonnell Forest. The project will also provide an outdoor education space for local schools, as well as a walking trail for the community. The Athenry centre will provide 300 jobs during its multiple phases. IDA Ireland said it worked closely with Coillte to provide a property solution to secure the Apple investment. The data centre will be located on land owned by Coillte at Derrydonnell.

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INVESTMENT LINKS

Rising from the ashes Expansion at Tyco’s 18-month old global business services centre in Cork is on target with research and development as a key component, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

What fire protection and security company Tyco now does in Ireland is far removed from the assembly operations it once had and its Cork base is now a key hub for the transformational activity underway in the overall organisation, according to Donal Sullivan, Tyco Ireland’s general manager. Established in the US in 1960, Tyco is the world’s largest fire protection and security company with an 11pc share of a US$100bn market. Employing 57,000 people on 1,000 sites in nearly 50 countries, it provides safety and security solutions to over 3 million companies worldwide. In January of last year it announced its intention to establish a global business services centre in Cork that would hire up to 500 people within three years. The company first came to Ireland in 2001 through its US$2.2bn acquisition of Florida-based theft-detection firm Sensormatic, which already had a manufacturing operation in Cork.

In 2008, Tyco moved its assembly operations from Cork to the lower cost locations China and Mexico, resulting in the loss of 320 jobs. Twenty people were kept on in Cork as part of the restructuring plan. Sullivan explains that in 2011 Tyco separated into three independent companies, one of which is Tyco International. “This ‘new’ Tyco is transitioning from a holding company structure to an operating company and, as part of that transition, was seeking a location where it could centralise, streamline and simplify many of its business functions,” he says. “Following significant review and due diligence, we selected Ireland and specifically Cork as the location for a global business services centre. “It was important in our decision making to locate in Cork to be part of a cluster involved in cloud computing, cyber security, mobility application development and internet of things research. This opens up collaboration opportunities with world-

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INVESTMENT LINKS

‘We have found a ready supply of highly skilled candidates across all functions and candidates are very pleased with the challenging roles that Tyco has to offer.’

class companies.” In terms of the recruitment drive in Cork, Sullivan says things are going according to plan with around 100 people on board and the company is very pleased with the talent it has added so far. “We have found a ready supply of highly skilled candidates across all functions and candidates are very pleased with the challenging roles that Tyco has to offer.” Compared to its previous iteration, the Irish operation has moved up the value chain within Tyco, delivering business services that support it as an enterprise, rather than product assembly for a single business unit. As a result, it is adding roles in areas such as IT, finance, HR, research and development [R&D] and compliance, Sullivan notes. “The Irish operation is very important from a global perspective. We have responsibility to transform business processes, to lower cost and deliver greater value across our many businesses.

“R&D is one of the most important components of the Cork base. To this end we have formed significant partnerships with University College Cork (UCC) and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT). “We are very interested in the internet of things. We design and install significant sensor networks globally in both fire protection and security applications. Together with researchers from UCC and CIT we are researching new ways to collect, analyse, store, transmit and secure this data and create new value added services for our customers.” Part of Tyco’s expansion in Cork is to construct a new building at 1 Albert Quay in the city as part of a three-year programme and this is well underway. “We look forward to moving into what will be a superb and ‘smart’ building deploying all Tyco’s fire and security product offerings in early 2016,” says Sullivan. “We will continue to build out the team here over the next 24 months, so we do expect to add significantly to the workforce during this period.”

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COMPETITIVENESS

Intangible

STRENGTHS The competitiveness of the Irish economy continues to be a good news story, as it holds its own in the top 20 in IMD’s world rankings, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

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COMPETITIVENESS

The trend in relation to Ireland’s competitiveness has been positive over the past few years due to the country’s strengths in intangible attractiveness factors such as education and the fact that it has been in ‘reform mode’ for longer than other countries in Europe, according to Prof Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre. Ireland slipped one place from 15th to 16th in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2015 ranking published at the end of May, but Bris says this is not something to be concerned about. “The big change for Ireland has been happening since 2012/2013. It is probably the only country in Europe where things have been done properly in relation to its bailout and they seem to have worked. “Statistically the ranking drop is not significant as it has much more to do with other countries increasing than Ireland decreasing. Ireland’s core competitiveness has barely moved – it’s just that other countries have improved.” The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook measures how well countries manage all their resources and competencies to facilitate long-term value creation. The overall ranking reflects more than 300 criteria, around two-thirds of which are based on statistical indicators and one-third on an exclusive IMD survey of 6,234 international executives. One of the biggest improvements cited in the yearbook for Ireland since the 2014 ranking is in economic performance, which Bris is particularly upbeat about from a global perspective. “The world economy grew at the rate of 6pc in 2007 and

the expectation this year is that it will grow by 3pc or less. Growth will come again from traditional economies in the next 10 years and I think Ireland will be one of them - the 5.5pc growth in GDP forecast [by EY] for this year would be really excellent,” he says. “The US will barely make 3pc GDP growth at most this year, with Russia only expected to grow by 0.5pc. And China, which was growing by 14pc a year seven years ago, is going to drop to a 7pc growth rate in 2015.” Meanwhile, Ireland’s GDP grew by 5.2pc in 2014 and the Central Bank of Ireland’s latest forecast for 2015 is 4.8pc. “Ireland will be one of the very few countries in the world that will keep on growing at the same rate it did in 2007. The BRIC phenomenon is history from IMD’s perspective as all of these countries have disappointed so much – all of them are in the bottom 30 of the yearbook ranking except China [which is ranked second].” This year, Ireland continues to be ahead of markets such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan in the IMD rankings, which Bris says has a lot to do with its approach to reform. “We have been saying for the past five years that we expect economies to be in ‘reform mode’. You have to look at South East Asia or the Middle East to truly find countries in reform mode however. They always tend to be in survival mode in Europe. Ireland was forced by circumstances to be one of the very few exceptions. “There are two countries in reform mode in Europe this year – Italy and Ireland – while last year it was Portugal, Spain and Ireland and the year before only Ireland. Vis a vis other European countries, Ireland is doing extremely well,

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» COMPETITIVENESS

which may be because it started with reforms much earlier, in late 2010.” From a list of 15 indicators, respondents of the executive opinion survey in the yearbook were asked to select five that they perceived as the key attractiveness factors of their economy. The vast majority listed the country’s skilled workforce as No 1, while only 2pc of executives see access to finance as being an attractiveness factor (see infographic on facing page). “The factors at the top, such as business-friendly environment and open and positive attitudes are some of the intangibles in Ireland’s favour in terms of competitiveness. The areas perceived as weaknesses such as quality of corporate governance are luckily things that can be changed quite easily, whereas it is difficult to change the educational level of an economy, for example, from one day to the next. So I think in that sense the trend in Ireland is very positive.” Ireland’s education system is ranked ninth in the yearbook. CHALLENGES The challenges for Ireland in 2015 provided by IDA Ireland to IMD in compiling the data are: maintaining focus on cost competitiveness and public sector reform, strengthening competition for foreign direct investment (FDI), and investment in infrastructure. Bris endorses the need to address these challenges, but doesn’t necessarily see them in a negative light when taken in a European and global context. “We agree a focus on cost competitiveness is important. When you look at the big picture in Europe and the whole world you don’t see improvements in productivity driven by technology, better processes or by focusing on particular sectors,” he notes. “Most improvements in productivity happen because of cost reduction or reduction in employment. Ireland has been doing this successfully and has already achieved a lot in the area of cost competitiveness in recent years.” Regarding public sector reform, in his view the problems in the economy didn’t have much to do with lack of government efficiency when compared with some other peripheral

‘The factors at the top, such as business-friendly environment and open and positive attitudes are some of the intangibles in Ireland’s favour in terms of competitiveness’ 30

countries but more to do with business regulation and the banking sector. “Public sector reform is relatively speaking one of the strengths of the country. The institutional framework is rated highly and fiscal policy compares well with other European countries.” IMD’s home country of Switzerland is confronted with similar challenges to Ireland when it comes to competing for foreign direct investment Prof Arturo Bris, director and the sustainability of its low of the IMD World corporation tax, but again Bris Competitiveness Centre doesn’t see this as a bad thing at present. “My personal view when we talk about tax advantages it is more about those countries that are not willing to give them. That is the problem with those countries in terms of attracting FDI. Tax competition is great as long as it doesn’t lead to unfair or outrageous behaviour. The fact that Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland are keeping their corporation tax rates low is perfectly fine. However it is a strength that cannot continue forever so it is important to compete on various levels, not just corporation tax.” Turning to the overall ranking in the yearbook, the US holds onto the top spot this year as a result of its strong business efficiency and financial sector, its innovation drive and the effectiveness of its infrastructure, according to IMD. Hong Kong and Singapore have moved up to second and third, respectively, overtaking Switzerland, which has dropped to fourth place. Canada (5), Norway (7), Denmark (8), Sweden (9) and Germany (10) remain in the top 10, with Luxembourg joining them in sixth position having been 11th last year. “A general analysis of the 2015 ranking shows that top countries are going back to the basics,” says Bris. “Productivity and efficiency are in the driver’s seat of the competitiveness wagon. Companies in those countries are increasing their efforts to minimise their environmental impact and provide a strong organisational structure for workforces to thrive. “It is difficult to generalise otherwise but we can say that countries that don’t invest in infrastructure and education do not improve. Among the top 10 there is no commonality or recipe for success. It features big economies such as the US and small ones like Singapore, exporting economies, importing economies, democracies, dictatorships. “The message is that countries need to find their own uniqueness to move up the competitiveness rankings. At the end of the day competitiveness is prosperity and this needs to be built in different ways.”

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Infographic.pdf

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IRISH

A round-up

of key ﬁndings on Ireland in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2015

COMPETITIVENESS

Ranking trend

2011 - 24 2013 - 17

2012 - 20 2014 - 15

2015 - 16 Top ten key attractiveness indicators From a list of 15 indicators, executive respondents were asked to select ﬁve they perceived as key. The list shows the percentage of responses per indicator from the highest number of responses to the lowest.

1. Skilled workforce

75.6pc 63.4pc

2. Business friendly environment 3. Competitive tax regime

63.4pc

4. High educational Level

61pc

48.8pc

5. Policy stability and predictability

6. Open and positive attitudes

46.3pc

2.Policy

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7. Dynamism of the economy 8. Reliable infrastructure

39pc 63.4pc

9. Eﬀective labour relations

17.1pc

€ € 14.6pc

10. Cost competitiveness

Factor breakdown ranking 2015

Economic performance Government eﬃciency Business eﬃciency Infrastructure

12 15 13 24

Where does Ireland come out on top?

Adjusted consumer price inﬂation Investment incentives Flexibility and adaptability Large corporations National culture Competent senior managers Fixed telephone tariﬀs

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RESEARCH IN THE

frame Each year, University College Dublin (UCD) invites its researchers to submit compelling digital images created in the course of their work to the UCD Images of Research competition. The competition seeks to find the most innovative and imaginative images that convey the depth and range of research taking place at the university. Twelve images are shortlisted each year by a panel of UCD staff and external judges from the arts and science. In the 2014 competition, the overall winner and 11 runners-up were chosen from 90 entries. The winning image, taken by Karl Gaff, a research technician in UCD’s School of Biology and Environmental Science, depicts a family of Daphnia collected from the university’s lake. In these pages, we look at some of the shortlisted images from 2014, along with explanations from UCD Research.

DAPHNIA FAMILY Daphnia, commonly known as water fleas, are transparent organisms found in fresh water ponds. They range in size from 0.251.55mm. One member of this group (upper right) is encrusted with photosynthetic ciliates (green micro-organisms), which suggests it is bound in a symbiotic affair. These organisms were collected from the lake at UCD. Karl Gaff, research technician, School of Biology and Environmental Science

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MARS CINEMA, KILRUSH (INTERIOR) This is an image of the Mars Cinema in Kilrush, Co Clare (April 2014), which closed its doors in 1991. The interior is in a state of decay as nature has begun to claim it, with angry swallows protesting the human invasion as the researcher took this photograph. The abandonment represented in the image is in stark contrast to the lively ‘cinema paradiso’ it was in the 1970s and 1980s, where the researcher spent his childhood. Initial research into the history of the Mars Cinema was carried out in 1994 for an MA thesis in UCD, resulting in a cultural research reference for local historians that still stands. The 2014 visit was the first time the researcher had been inside the building in more than 20 years. Dr Harvey O’Brien, lecturer, School of English, Drama and Film

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COME ON, COME ON LET’S STICK TOGETHER This image illustrates the symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae that makes up the organism called a lichen. Both pixie cup and matchstick lichens are visible. The fungus provides the algae with a structure to live on and the algae helps make food for the fungus. The red tips make spores for reproduction. The process of how the fungal spores capture the algae to initiate the relationship is still not yet fully understood. Interpretation aims to facilitate appreciation of a natural site and to stimulate visitors to make connections and deepen their experience of a place or habitat in an intriguing manner. This research examines environmental interpretation and education programmes at peatland sites in Ireland. Kate Flood, research master’s student, School of Biology and Environmental Science

» QUANTUM LEAF This image of a leaf shows a revolutionary type of solar nanotechnology that attempts to copy how a plant absorbs sunlight at the quantum level. The solar cell consists of three parts. The grey metallic spheres at the bottom are the titanium dioxide that conducts electricity. The green ‘blob’ in the centre is the dye that absorbs sunlight in exactly the same way as a leaf does. The liquid surrounding the dye recharges the system with the magenta showing positive charge and blue negative charge. Systems like the one shown have the potential to revolutionise the world’s energy supply giving abundant, cheap, clean energy and allowing us to move away from the burning of fossil fuels. This research involves simulating solar cells using quantum physics on enormous specialised computers to try to understand how the sunlight is transformed into energy we can use. Aaron Byrne, PhD student, School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering

» VEIN ARCHITECTURE AND STOMATA OF ‘VICIA FABA’ This is an image of a leaf taken using a light microscope under X50 magnification using a protocol that allows the venation and stomata of the leaf to be visualised simultaneously. The stomatal density and vein density of a leaf are examples of the types of parameters used to assess plant-atmosphere interactions. This research involves examining plant responses to growth in various atmospheres in order to understand plant evolution over the last 400 million years. Christiana Evans-FitzGerald PhD student, School of Biology and Environmental Science

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NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA............. BAT-SCAN! This is an image of a lesser horseshoe bat viewed from two angles. It was taken using a technique called computerised tomography (a sectional x-ray), which makes the bone structure and soft tissue information visible. In certain species of bats, the pre-maxilla (bone at the tip of the upper jaw) is free floating and potentially movable, whereas in most other bats and in all other mammals, the pre-maxilla is fused. This means that bats are potentially a great model to explore the development of cleft palate. The image was created with CTVox free volume rendering software from BRUKER as part of collaboration between UCD Molecular Imaging Facility and the UCD Bat Research Centre. Emer Conroy, research engineer, School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science

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INISHMORE STONE GATE This is an image of an indigenous stone gate recorded on the Aran Islands during a study trip, the initial phase of which was to understand the various tectonic approaches taken in the building of dry stone walls in Ireland prior to building prototype constructions using local materials and technologies. The stonework, found in various forms across the Irish landscape, although charming, was built for practical reasons – typically to clear the land. Different landscapes offered different stones and therefore required different modes of construction. The walls of Aran, referred to as lacework, for how they knit across the larger landscape and the tenuous filigree character of their single walls, are made possible because of the shattered form of rectilinear limestone rock found on the surface of the islands. In contrast, the landscape of Connemara offers rounded stones that pose a far more complex balancing act. This research was carried out by students and staff on the Erasmus intensive programme series, ‘Tectonics in Building Culture’. Dr Elizabeth Shotton, lecturer, School of Architecture

DUBLIN BY LASER LIGHT In preparation for Metro North an aerial survey was conducted of Dublin city centre. An aircraft fitted with a LIDAR scanner bathed Dublin in laser light and with millimetre accuracy recorded up to 100 points per square meter. This image shows the 500 million points collected by the survey. The accuracy of this dataset is such that features of listed buildings are recorded in detail and structural analysis can be performed on the building facades to examine where cracking might occur. Dr Jonathan Byrne, postdoctoral fellow, School of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering

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FREEZEFRAME STICKY CILIA ISLAND This image of the female reproductive tract illustrates the effect that the male hormone testosterone has on oviductal functions of the female reproductive tract, such as fertilisation and early embryonic development. It is suspected that testosterone increases mucous secretion causing cellular breakdown which can lead to closure of the oviduct, greatly impeding reproductive success. Clinically this effect mimics one of the main components of polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition affecting 10% of the female population in which a woman has an imbalance of female sex hormones. Infertility is a symptom of this condition. Further research into how testosterone affects the female reproductive tract is essential for helping women with polycystic ovary syndrome to increase their reproductive success rate. Kate Dulohery, PhD student, School of Medicine and Medical Science

FRACTALS This is an image of the region of the fractured surface of a broken joint taken under an optical microscope. A standard fracture toughness test was carried out on an adhesive joint, comprising of fibre reinforced polymer composite substrates bonded together with cyanoacrylate adhesive (superglue). Composite materials are now widely used in the aerospace and automotive industries. They are also used in the leisure industry in applications such as tent poles and fishing rods because they are extremely strong and light-weight, and can effectively be joined together using adhesives. Superglue is highly efficient and relatively high strength but usually exhibits brittle behaviour. To counteract the brittleness an elastomeric material is added to the formulation resistance to increase crack propagation. This research involves looking at the mechanical and fracture properties of the rubber toughened adhesives using both composite and metal substrates. Tatiana Stefanov, PhD student, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering

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AN ELECTRICAL LUNG? ANOTHER LOOK AT IRELAND’S NATIONAL GRID This image seeks to reveal the electrical structure of Ireland’s high voltage power transmission system. The thick, red lines in the centre of the image are the highest voltage lines, the 400 kV circuits which form the core of the system. Arrayed about this inner core is the 220 kV network, in lighter red, and the expansive 110 kV system, in orange. The diagram is created using a force-directed layout algorithm, so that edges are drawn with a length proportional to their electrical impedance; as such closely located nodes will be electrical neighbours, though looking at the labels demonstrates that this doesn’t always correspond to the familiar physical geography. Dr Paul Cuffe, senior researcher, School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering

SMELLING IN THE DARK The question of ’how we smell’ is not yet fully understood. Humans have approximately 800 genes that encode the olfactory receptors inside our nose; however, it is still unclear as to how particular smells are interpreted. Mammals that live in different ecological environments have evolved different suites of olfactory receptors, suggesting that the ability to smell different odours is important for survival in different environments. Research has shown that bats that specialise in eating fruit have distinctive patterns of olfactory receptors. This is the first time a distinctive olfactory receptor gene repertoire linked to fruit eating has been identified. This research highlights the utility of exploring the diversity seen in nature to better understand how a genome functions and how it has evolved. Prof Emma Teeling, associate professor, School of Biology and Environmental Science

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DIGITAL WORLD

BOOLEAN

legacy

With celebrations underway to mark the 200th anniversary of George Boole’s birth, MARIE BORAN considers his lasting impact on the world 40

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DIGITAL WORLD

f asked to visualise computer programming most of us invariably conjure up images of binary code: those little ones and zeros that sweep across the screens of hackers in movies like The Matrix. Well, those little ones and zeros are the bits and bytes of digital computing and when used in combination with the mathematical work of a certain George Boole they can perform any computation you can think of. That is to say, without Boole we would most certainly not have the digital landscape of iPhones, tablets and Twitter that we live in today. SELF-TAUGHT MAN Boole was a 19th century mathematical genius who became University College Cork’s (UCC) first appointed professor of mathematics, a great feat considering he never received a formal university education and was almost entirely self-educated. In 2015 we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth in recognition of a brilliant mind who can be credited not only as the father of the information age but the father of pure mathematics. Prof Desmond MacHale is a lecturer in the School of Mathematical Sciences at University College Cork. He penned the first Boole biography in 1985, which has been updated and reissued by Cork University Press. Although acknowledged as one of the foremost

experts on Boole, MacHale says he was not familiar with his story until he arrived in UCC: “I’d never heard about Boole until I came to Cork in 1971. I realised that he was very important and that nothing had been written about him so I decided to write his biography. “I do the same type of mathematics as Boole did. He invented Boolean algebra and I feel very much a kinship with him in the sense that his attitude towards mathematics was very much like mine,” explains MacHale. “It’s a pity that more people don’t study algebra; it’s a beautiful area of knowledge. My attitude is that it is the one area of life where you will find absolute certainty and I find that very satisfying. If you prove something now it is proved for all time,” he adds. Although Prof MacHale points out that a good maths teacher is key to loving the subject, he notes that Boole was the exception to the rule in that he was self-taught: “Boole had no teacher at all, which just goes to show how much you can do by yourself if you’re clever enough and you work hard enough. “A [mathematical] breakthrough will only happen if you are also inspired and enjoy what’s going on.” Boole was born on 2 November 1815 to English shoemaker John Boole and his wife Mary Ann. Although John Boole was an intelligent man who was curious about the way the world worked, he didn’t have the money to get an education beyond

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Prof Des MacHale, author of the first Boole biography

George Boole

primary school for his son George. Early on, however, the Booles noticed how bright their son was and how quick he was to learn. They nurtured his intellectual ability as best they could and trusted him to fill in the gaps with his own reading. Boole was not only a quick learner, he also became a teacher by setting up a boarding school in his hometown of Lincoln at the tender age of 19. Perhaps freed from the shackles of a formal secondary education and formal training, Boole developed his own unique teaching methods aimed at bypassing rote learning and helping the student to understand at a deeper level. In his ‘Essay on Education’, Boole’s philosophy seemed ahead of its time and echoes that of modern pedagogical practice: “The pupil is required to commit nothing to memory before it is understood”. “In those days nobody was going to ask you what your qualifications were or if you were being trained, so you could set up your own school if you were clever enough and Boole was clever enough,” explains MacHale. Boole truly was one of a kind, both in terms of his intellect and his drive to push the boundaries of knowledge for others as well as for himself. “Most people wouldn’t be able to do this and go on to make a living on their own knowledge and their own

ingenuity,” says MacHale. One of the important reasons to celebrate Boole’s achievements is to highlight the importance of mathematical reasoning as a skill for everyone, according to MacHale. We might live in a technologically advanced world but most of us don’t know what is going on under the bonnet. “Boolean algebra has made its way into the mainstream but only for the elite few. It’s a bit like the situation where you don’t have to know how the engine of a car works in order to drive it and most people won’t be able to fix an engine if something goes wrong.” MacHale says that while young adults use technology all the time they don’t necessarily understand how it is created or how it works. By looking to Boole’s life and work we can perhaps ignite an interest in the world of mathematical thinking. “When he was a professor at UCC, Boole wanted every student in Cork to take a course in logic. I think I agree with him because most people you meet literally cannot think logically because they don’t know the basic rules of logic!” But how did the work of a Cork-based mathematician end up driving every computer manufactured today? “The modern computer is, in a sense, due to Boole’s work. He

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envisaged computers as things that carried out calculations, I don’t think he saw them as the medium for communication that they have become,” says MacHale. Ironically, it was the field of communications that brought Boole’s work to light after many years because although Boolean algebra was interesting to fellow mathematicians it had no practical use in the real world. APPLYING MATHS This was the case until the 1930s when mathematician, electronic engineer and cryptographer Claude Shannon applied Boole’s logic to telephone switch design. Shannon was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he wrote a master’s thesis titled ‘A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits’ in which he applied Boolean algebra to the design of logic circuits. “Electronic devices obviously didn’t exist in Boole’s day. Shannon was an important player because he saw the relevance of Boole’s work to modern circuitry.” When talking of Boole, MacHale says it is important to note that he wasn’t merely a mathematical genius. He was a 19th century polymath with a love of poetry and the classics who learned to speak multiple languages at a young age. The modern innovator can also learn some valuable lessons from the way Boole saw the world. Comparing modern thinkers to Boole and his contemporaries, MacHale says that we’re so busy trying to push the boundaries of knowledge that we have, to a degree, lost our powers of analysis. “Learning from George Boole, I would always think that the thing to look for [when problem solving] is simplicity. When someone comes up with an invention or solution you always think, it’s so simple, now why didn’t I think of that.” For a genius who became the founding father of complex mathematical and computing concepts, Boole’s legacy is not so complicated; it is the gift of thinking logically and with simplicity.

‘Without Boole we would most certainly not have the digital landscape of iPhones, tablets and Twitter that we live in today’’

Stained glass window commemorating George Boole in UCC’s Aula Maxima

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NEXT GENERATION DIGITAL WORLD INNOVATION

CELEBRATING GENIUS A series of events is taking place throughout the year to celebrate Boole’s life and lasting legacy UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK (UCC) is currently running a year-long celebration of the life and legacy of George Boole to mark the bicentenary since the mathematician’s birth. Events to be held during the year include conferences, exhibitions and outreach activities. August and September are set to be the big months for Boole-related conferences at the university, with no fewer than five events taking place over a three-week period. Most notable of these will be the George Boole Mathematical Sciences Conference, which be held from 17 to 28 August. According to its organisers, as well as celebrating the mathematician and contributing to his legacy at UCC, some of the key aims of this event are to provide a forum for international experts in selected mathematical fields to discuss their research and stimulate future work; to give young Irish mathematicians the opportunity to interact with world leaders in pure mathematics and its applications; and to improve the international standing of mathematical research being conducted in Ireland. Some of the lecture topics at the conference will include: Boole and beyond in quantum information theory; Boole’s algebra is not equal to Boolean algebra; past and present implications; complex and Boolean networks; geometry and visualisation; harmonic analysis; invariants from moduli

spaces; mathematical financial modelling post-crisis; and quantum probabilistic symmetries and quantised Boolean algebras. The George Boole Bicentenary conference will take place in the university on the last weekend of August 2015. According to its organisers, this event will provide a forum for a comprehensive, accessible celebration of Boole. Its aims are to celebrate the life and legacy of the mathematician’s works and to bring together distinguished academics and personalities to mark the occasion. UCC’s Boole Library, meanwhile, is running ‘The life and legacy of George Boole’ exhibition until the end of this year. The exhibition, which has been drawn from the library’s special collections as well as those of the Royal Society, London, explores the life cycle of Boole’s ideas. Elsewhere on campus, the Lewis Glucksman Gallery is hosting ‘Boolean expressions: contemporary art and mathematical data’ from 25 July to 8 November 2015. The exhibition of contemporary work will examine themes relevant to the legacy of Boole and explore ways in which artists use mathematical ideas and systems in their work. According to the gallery, it will “demonstrate the creative synergies between scientific and artistic thinking and invite audiences to explore mathematical concepts, the impact of

‘It’s a pity that more people don’t study algebra; it’s a beautiful area of knowledge. My attitude is that it is the one area of life where you will find absolute certainty’

5 Grenville Place as it looks today (left) and how it’s expected to look when the renovations are complete (right)

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NEXT GENERATIONDIGITAL INNOVATION WORLD big data on contemporary life, the ways in which systems and codes support creative production, and how artists have used logic and technology for their own artistic purposes”. Outreach programmes during the year will include Boole2School on 2 November 2015, George Boole Day. This is an initiative that will provide children in Ireland, China, Vietnam and North America with the opportunity to take part in a Boolean maths lesson. The children will be introduced to Boole, his mathematics, logic and legacy. The lessons, which will be freely available online for teachers, will have a historical and a mathematical aspect. Age-appropriate maths lessons, designed to suit children aged from eight to 18, will involve puzzles and activities that apply concepts from probability theory to Boolean algebra. Some will be based on popular games, including Minecraft and Pacman. UCC is also looking at ways of commemorating Boole beyond 2015. One of the more long-term plans for preserving his legacy in Cork is the proposed redevelopment of the house in which he lived from 1849 until 1855. During his time at 5 Grenville Place, Boole wrote his masterpiece, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, which was published in 1854 and focused on his theory of logic and probabilities. Plans for the renovated building include a visitor and interpretive centre dedicated to education and innovation in computer science and mathematics. It is also intended that part of the building will be developed as a Silicon Valley-style

» »

business accelerator hub to help mentor and foster hi-tech start-up companies. And, as part of its strategic development plan, UCC says The George Boole House of Innovation – as the four-storey over basement building will be known – will also become an integral part of the George Boole Institute the university plans to establish to focus on cutting-edge research in computer science and mathematics. The site is owned by Cork City Council and planning permission will be sought shortly for the first phase of the redevelopment. The local authority, which has acquired the building under the Derelict Sites Act, will renovate the mainframe with funding from UCC. The building will then be handed over to UCC for the second phase, which will be the internal fit out. Talks to secure funding for the second phase are ongoing with philanthropic sources, and potential industry partners, while academic avenues are also being explored. The university has also commissioned a documentary film about Boole to raise his profile internationally. This will be launched in November and will include contributions from David Puttnam and Jeremy Irons.

Included in the Lewis Glucksman Gallery exhibition running until 8 November are: (top left) Mel Bochner, Study for Axion of Associations, 1973, ink, graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 7.875 x 5.875 inches; (top right) Tatsuo Miyajima, Life (Corps sans Organes) No. 19, 2013, LED, IC, microcomputer by Ikegami program, steel, plastic cover, passive sensor, electric wire, courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery, London; and (above) John Gerrard, Exercise (Dunhuang), 2014, Simulation, three-screen installation view

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GATEWAY LOCATION

Âť

Southern

STAR

A booming economic, industrial, research and business development hub, Cork also has a vibrant cultural scene and is home to some of the most beautiful landscape in Ireland

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GATEWAY LOCATION

Located on the south-west coast of Ireland and surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery in the country, Cork is a thriving hub of information and communications technology, life sciences and business service operations and is renowned for its welcoming and outward-focused approach. Its many attractions have resulted in more than 140 overseas and multinational companies choosing to base operations in and around the city; the roll call of global names includes Apple, Amazon, EMC, Eli Lilly, Bank of New York Mellon, Boston Scientific, GlaxoSmithKline, MSD, Pfizer, Novartis, DePuy Synthes, Gilead and Intel Security. Cork city – known to many of its residents as ‘the real capital’ – is home to 120,000 people, which increases to half a million within the county. It’s a dynamic university city with a strong research bias and a third-level student population of more than 35,000. It is also increasingly cosmopolitan with a growing population from different countries and cultures attracted to Cork for its study and employment opportunities.

NURTURING TALENT

Carlingford Lough

Cork’s biggest third-level institute is University College Cork (UCC), which was founded in 1845, and is a globally-focused, research-led institution that aims to create and support world-leading clusters of researchers and to develop the research activity undertaken within its departments and schools. It is one of the best-funded universities in Ireland, with investment in research reaching almost €84m in 2013/2014. Offering 120 degree and professional programmes, it has over 19,000 full-time students, including 14,000 undergraduates and 4,000 masters and PhD students. Of the 12 research centres established by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) since 2012, UCC leads four (Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre – APC; Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research – Infant; Irish Photonic Integration Centre – Ipic; and MaREI – Marine Renewable Energy Ireland), co-leads one (Insight), and is a partner in five of the other six (Connect; Centre for Research in Medical Devices – Cúram; Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geoscience – iCrag; Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre; and SSPC – the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre). In 2013/2014, 30pc of UCC’s research income was generated from non-Exchequer sources, primarily the European Commission and industry. Indeed, research funding from these sources has increased by 118pc and 84pc, respectively over the last five years. In May, UCC was ranked 16th in Europe and 52nd globally in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2015 for its scientific research. Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), meanwhile, is located on four campuses across the city and has 6,000 full-time

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Tyndall National Institute is one of Cork’s world-class research centres (Jim McCarthy Photography)

Cork is a hotspot for festivals, including the Glow Christmas Celebration

and a further 6,000 part-time students. CIT has a number of areas of expertise that are directly relevant to industries in the region. Its main institute research activity is organised around three strategic research clusters – Bio-Explore, Nimbus and Photonics – designed to support internal and external collaboration, multidisciplinary research and postgraduate education and research-teaching integration. The Bio-Explore cluster incorporates research in the area of bio-analysis and bio-control and comprises a number of research groups. Nimbus is involved in research, delivering learning and enabling knowledge transfer in the area of embedded systems. Finally, the Photonics cluster is focused on the science of generating and harnessing light and includes the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Process Analysis, the Astronomy and Instrumentation Group and the Photonics Dynamics Group.

WORLD-CLASS RESEARCH Cork also has a number of world-class research centres, including the Tyndall National Institute, which focuses on photonics, electronics, materials, nanotechnologies and ICT and is the largest facility of its type in Ireland. Tyndall was set up in 2004 as a successor to the National Microelectronics

Kinsale, one of Cork’s many picturesque towns

Research Centre (NMRC) at UCC. The institute now hosts over 460 researchers, engineers and support staff, including a full-time cohort of 135 postgraduate students, and generates over 200 peer-reviewed publications each year. It has a network of 200 industry partners and customers worldwide and generates an income of around €30m a year, 85pc of it from competitively won contracts in Ireland and internationally. Hosting the only full CMOS, micro-electronicmechanical systems (MEMS) and III-V wafer semiconductor fabrication facilities and services in Ireland, Tyndall is capable of prototyping new product opportunities for its target industries – electronics, medical devices, energy and communications. The marine sector, meanwhile, has been earmarked as a new focus area for the city and Cork Harbour has been chosen as the location for a dedicated marine cluster. Cork also benefits from excellent transport links. Its airport is Ireland’s second busiest, with an average 2.4 million passengers each year, routes to over 50 destinations across Europe, and eight flights each day to London. The city is also well connected to Shannon Airport (125km away) and Dublin Airport (265km by motorway), both of which serve long-haul destinations.

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GATEWAY LOCATION The Port of Cork, meanwhile, handles lift-on lift-off, rollon roll-off, bulk liquid, solid and general cargoes. Since 2000, the port has invested €72m in improving infrastructure and facilities and it recently received planning permission for a further redevelopment that will involve a €100m investment to enable it to accommodate larger vessels.

ATTRACTIVE LIFESTYLE Apart from all of its business attractions, Cork is a great place to live. The area provides the perfect work-life balance: its friendly atmosphere, good lifestyle and ample employment opportunities not only help to attract, but also retain highly qualified and strongly motivated employees. It’s a vibrant, bustling city with excellent shopping, dining

and nightlife as well as being set in spectacular countryside dotted with numerous picturesque towns and villages. Cork also has a strong sporting tradition, particularly in the areas of hurling, football, camogie, rugby and soccer. There are numerous golf courses in the area and, with its long coastline of rugged inlets and sandy beaches, a range of water sports are also close at hand. The city has always been an artistic centre and this has become even more evident since its designation as European Capital of Culture in 2005. Each year, Cork hosts more than 20 major festivals as well as hundreds of smaller events. Some of the bigger ones include the International Choral Festival, Midsummer Festival, Folk Festival, Cork International Film Festival and Cork Jazz Festival.

DEPUY OPENS €53.2M FACILITY IN RINGASKIDDY Orthapaedic and neurological solutions provider DePuy Synthes recently opened its expanded Ringaskiddy, Co Cork manufacturing site following a €53.2m investment. DePuy Synthes, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson, established a manufacturing facility at the site in 1997 and currently employs 800 people there. Measuring 320,000 sq ft, this is now the largest single manufacturing plant for the DePuy Synthes joint reconstruction portfolio, which includes more than 200 products manufactured at multiple sites around the world. The new facility in Cork will also feature a medical device test methods centre of excellence laboratory to advance quality testing methods across the Johnson & Johnson family of medical device companies while also creating potential expansion opportunities for other Johnson & Johnson companies. Paul Dwyer, operator, DePuy Synthes; Alex Gorsky, chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson; and Tom O’Connor, operator, DePuy Synthes

Mizen Head in Co Cork

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Interior shot of UCC (Janice O’Connell, F22 Photography)

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CANADIAN CYBERSECURITY COMPANY ESENTIRE TO BASE EUROPEAN HQ IN CORK Ontario-based cybersecurity company eSentire Inc is to locate its new European HQ and security operations centre in Ballincollig, Co Cork, where it plans to create nearly 100 jobs over the next five years. The company provides solutions and services – including 24 hour monitoring by security analysts – against advanced and brand new cyber threats. According to its chief technology officer, Mark McArdle, the company looked at several European locations for its EU base. “We were extremely impressed with the technical talent in Cork and the ecosystem the Government has helped to develop to fill the skills gap, specifically in the demanding and competitive field of cybersecurity,” he said.

UCC’S NEW €15M MARINE RESEARCH CENTRE OPENED The new €15m home of the headquarters of the MaREI Centre (Marine Renewable Energy Ireland) and the LIR National Ocean Test Facility was officially opened in Cork in July. The UCC Beaufort building in Ringaskiddy is a 4,700 sq m, five-storey facility with state-of-the-art wave simulators, test tanks, workshops and offices that provides Ireland with world-class infrastructure for renewable energy and maritime research to power the ‘blue economy’. Led by Prof Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, director of MaREI, the centre will cater for 135 researchers, industry partners and support staff. The multi-disciplinary centre has already secured €30m in funding through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and contracts with multinational and SME industry partners. The wave tanks in the Beaufort building are capable of producing actual waves of up to 1.2 metres high, which are equivalent to the 30m+ waves experienced in extreme conditions off the west coast of Ireland and in the Atlantic. “For decades, UCC has been a global leader in marine energy research,” said the university’s president, Dr Michael Murphy. “The Beaufort building now provides the world class infrastructure necessary to exploit that science to deliver technologies for society.”

MALWAREBYTES PICKS CORK FOR EMEA HQ US security software company Malwarebytes is setting up its EMEA headquarters in Cork, where it will create 50 new jobs over the next three years. Malwarebytes was founded in 2008 by Marcin Kleczynski to tackle advanced online threats. The company has its global headquarters in Silicon Valley and has been nominated as one of Forbes Magazine’s ‘America’s Most Promising Companies’ this year. “Cork has a deserved reputation as a leading location for technology companies, with a talented workforce and established tech ecosystem, it gives Malwarebytes the opportunity to build a world-class team,” said Kleczynski. “We are experiencing remarkable business growth and Cork will play a central role in our European expansion.” “Cork was a natural choice for the company and we look forward to using it as our base of operations moving forward,” said VP of sales, EMEA, Anthony O’Mara.

NEW INTERNATIONAL TELECOMS ACCESS POINT FROM CORK Cork is to have direct access to North America and the UK later this year via Hibernia Networks’ high performance undersea Express cable, which is due to be operational by September 2015. The cable will deliver the lowest latency between Ireland, the US and the EU. It is seen as offering an economic opportunity for Cork and its environs and all areas along the Atlantic Corridor. Hibernia owns and operates four cable landings and six different routes connecting Ireland to North America and Europe. The company originally announced its intention to construct a transatlantic submarine fibre optic cable network from New York to London offering the fastest route from North America to Europe at sub 60m back in September 2010 under Project Express. The addition of a spur to connect to Cork was driven by demand from IDA client companies. “The extension of Express to Cork has significant international business implications and will make Ireland that much more attractive to both established players and tech start-ups alike,” said Minister for Agriculture, Food, the Marine and Defence, Simon Coveney. “This high capacity, direct transatlantic connection will grant Irish companies the opportunity to expand their global footprint. The new link will provide direct connectivity to both the UK and North America.”

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Rewarding Ideas

The inaugural US Ireland Research Innovation Awards celebrated some of the best research and ideas to originate in Ireland and to be supported by US foreign direct investment 52

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he Irish-based teams behind a probiotic that’s helping millions of people with irritable bowel syndrome, a new microchip to enable next generation high-end electronic equipment, and research that’s being used to advance effective treatments for movement disorders were revealed as the winners of the 2015 US Ireland Research Innovation Awards at the American Chamber of Commerce annual dinner in Dublin in May. Jointly presented by the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland and Royal Irish Academy and introduced for the first time in 2015, the all-island awards seek to recognise excellence in research innovation that has taken place on the island of Ireland as a result of US foreign direct investment. A key objective is to celebrate exemplary ideas, originating in Ireland, that have made a social and economic impact through research innovation in meeting market needs. Speaking at the event, American Chamber president Eamonn Sinnott, who is also Intel Ireland’s general manager and a VP of Intel Corporation, described Ireland as a country that fosters and celebrates innovation. “Today, many of the innovations that emanate from the island of Ireland, and have an impact on a global scale, come from the community of US FDI here,” he said. “Linked, of course, to our partners both in Irish business and the Irish research community. “This impact is being seen across the full spectrum of industry with countless innovations being seen in areas such as ICT where Irish designed computer chips and software programmes are powering systems worldwide. In life sciences, Irish treatments and devices are improving and saving lives worldwide.” Sinnott added that ‘Created in Ireland’ is now synonymous with quality innovation in emerging sectors like online media, data, clean technology and fintech. The awards recognise innovation in the three categories of small and medium sized enterprise (SME), higher education

institute (HEI) and multinational corporation (MNC). From a shortlist that included Aerogen, Kinesis, NVMdurance and ResMed, Alimentary Health was the winner in the SME category. The company, a spin-out from University College Cork in 1999, developed B infantis 35624, a patented precision biotic supplement that is now the No 1 gastroenterologist recommended probiotic strain in the US, where it is licensed to Procter & Gamble. Dublin City University won the HEI category for pioneering research by the director of its International Centre for Neurotherapeutics (ICNT), Prof Oliver Dolly, into how nerves control muscle activity by discovering how botulinum toxin reduces neuronal signalling. Based on this work, Prof Dolly created a platform for medical versions of the toxin and helped convince Allergan to develop products in this area. The shortlist in this category also included UCD, NIBRT, UCC and Maynooth University. Finally, in a field that included Boston Scientific, IBM, Intel and Microsoft, Xilinx won the MNC award for designing a new class of microchip. A special lifetime achievement award, meanwhile, was presented to Martin Naughton, founder and chairman of Glen Dimplex. Sinnott described him as “an engineer, an innovator and a visionary who built one of the most successful Irish companies operating on the global stage”. Each of the winning companies received a specially commissioned trophy designed by Shane Holland and inspired by William Rowan Hamilton, a one-time president of the Royal Irish Academy (1837-46) and the mathematician who came up with quaternion algebra.

Eamonn Sinnott

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US MULTINATIONAL

Kevin Cooney, managing director, Xilinx EMEA and Xilinx CEO, Moshe Gavrielov

THE WINNER: XILINX Awarded for developing a new class of programmable microchip Xilinx established operations in Dublin in 1995 and currently employs 300 people at its EMEA headquarters in the capital where it operates a research, development, engineering and IT centre, along with centralised supply, finance, quality, legal and HR functions. Xilinx also has operations in Cork and Belfast. The company is a leading provider of FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), SoCs (system on chip devices) and

3D ICs (integrated circuits). These devices are coupled with a next-generation design environment and IP to serve a broad range of electronics system and customer needs. Its award-winning innovation involved the Irish-based engineering team using the most advanced semiconductor technologies to design a new class of programmable microchip that will enable breakthrough power reduction and increased

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computational performance. Initial applications are expected to include next generation mobile communications equipment and portable ultrasound devices for advanced medical diagnostics. The concept of integrating FPGA with analogue data converters was patented by the Xilinx Ireland team. It combines leading edge 3D manufacturing technology with high-end analogue circuit design expertise. The architecture enables a high degree of configurability to meet the technical requirements of multiple end markets, including medical imaging, wireless backhaul and radio access. According to Xilinx, the innovation provides an order of magnitude reduction in interface power and results in much lower equipment form factor and volume. It reduces the complexity of the electronic system design and results in a significant bill of materials (BOM) reduction. The technology also enables Xilinx to extend its addressable market by integrating some of the analogue system value into the FPGA. According to the company, the innovation has received some of the highest accolades in the industry globally, including presentation at International Solid State Circuits Conference and publication in the Journal of Solid State Circuits. In addition, a number of invention disclosures have been filed and patents granted to members of the Xilinx Ireland team as a direct result of this R&D project.

‘High quality research and innovation are essential pillars underpinning our technology leadership and market position’ “High quality research and innovation are essential pillars underpinning our technology leadership and market position,” says Xilinx Inc CEO, Moshe Gavrielov. “Our operations in Ireland are contributing strongly to our ambitions and achievements on a global basis. I’m very pleased that Xilinx Ireland won the inaugural US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards as one of Ireland’s top multinational innovators.” “Ireland is an important strategic base for our company where we carry out some of our corporation’s most important engineering and development work,” says Kevin Cooney, managing director of Xilinx EMEA. “This award is a great tribute to the skills and achievements of our team here in Ireland and is an affirmation of the innovative and research driven approach that we have fostered throughout our organisation.”

THE RUNNERS-UP BOSTON SCIENTIFIC

The aim of Boston Scientific’s Encore Automation Project was to design and build an end-to-end production line that manufactures a medical device every three seconds. It involved automating a manual operation assembly using bespoke robotic handling and self-test product functionality and verification. A number of significant technical challenges had to be overcome to obtain the high speed, including the development of a novel and innovative air plasma cleaning system, Cognex visual detection system, and bespoke robotic assembly.

IBM

Big data analytics for urban transport uses digital traces in cities to provide transport authorities with insight into current and future conditions of the multi-modal network, and to help them best accommodate the mobility demand at the city and travellers level. IBM Research-Ireland has contributed to all aspects of data analytics in this space, innovating in the fields of data fusion, prediction and optimisation, as demonstrated in projects developed with cities in different parts of the world.

INTEL

With the internet of things at a tipping point, Intel Ireland has connected research, design, silicon, software, solutions, manufacturing, customers and partnerships. It has become an established IoT innovator and leader in Intel and beyond.

MICROSOFT

MSN.com from Microsoft is an online hub containing premium content from the world’s leading media outlets, and personal productivity tools. The new online sports experience, a key component of this hub, was developed by Microsoft Ireland. This online sports experience with a creative and intuitive design, provides personalised and customisable experiences, and spans key sports and interactive content such as competitions to millions of consumers in 54 countries.

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SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISE

The award-winning Alimentary Health team

THE WINNER: ALIMENTARY HEALTH Recognised for work in the development and commercialisation of precision probiotics for digestive disorders Formed in 1999, Alimentary Health (AH) is a global pioneer in the discovery, development and commercialisation of proprietary bacterial and pharmabiotic treatments for gastrointestinal disorders. The company – which is located in Cork, has 15 employees and is currently in expansion mode – is the foundation industry partner of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre based at University College Cork. Alimentary Health’s stated mission is “to develop clinically supported microbiome-based healthcare and nutritional products that health professionals can believe in”. It focuses on the isolation, characterisation, clinical evaluation and formulation of unique bacterial strains and their actives for inflammatory and infectious conditions, reflecting its particular

expertise in gastrointestinal medicine, the brain-gut axis, metabolic health and nutrition. The company has more than 100 peer review scientific publications and over 90 patents in eight families in multiple territories. The innovation that resulted in this award is a precision biotic supplement that treats IBS, a chronic and unpredictable gastrointestinal disorder estimated to affect 10-15pc of the general population. In January 2000, using its extensively developed culture collection and know-how around screening for probiotic candidates, the company’s scientific team developed a unique approach and targeted selection (in vitro, genetic and in vivo

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screening) to identify the 35624 precision biotic culture, part of the B Infantis family of strains. The research programme, which was carried out in Cork, screened over 1,500 isolates for interesting immune and probiotic properties of which 10 candidates were selected for assessment in animal studies. The top two candidates were then evaluated in clinical studies with IBS subjects. The first human study was conducted in 2001, also in Cork. The resulting publication was the most cited paper in the journal Gastroenterology in 2005. That same year, Alimentary Health licensed the probiotic strain to Procter & Gamble (P&G), which launched the daily dietary supplement Align onto the US market in 2009 and the Canadian market in 2012. Align quickly became the No 1 gastroenterologist recommended product in the US.

‘Scientific research is at the very heart of our company and the key driver in our capacity to develop ground breaking healthcare products’ Alimentary Health, meanwhile, launched its own PrecisionBiotic 35624 product in Ireland under the brand name Alflorex in February 2014. According to the company, it has seen exponential growth in sales, exceeding its ambitious targets in 2014. It is now focused on launching Alflorex in the UK and will be expanding into other EU territories in the coming months. Alimentary Health continues to work with P&G on new product concepts and new strains and together the companies have built a suite of patents to support 35624 and related technologies for next generation products. The company also has a patent portfolio with granted patents on other scientifically-supported strains and more applications ongoing. “Scientific research is at the very heart of our company and the key driver in our capacity to develop ground breaking healthcare products,” says CEO of Alimentary Health, Dr Barry Kiely. “Our continuous commitment to research and innovation has enabled Alimentary Health to create a rich pipeline of exciting new products which we plan to bring to a global market over the next three years.”

THE RUNNERS-UP AEROGEN Irish medical device company Aerogen and San Francisco biotech start-up Dance Biopharm have developed a next generation inhaled insulin product that could well end the current daily insulin injection routine for people with diabetes. The partnership combines Aerogen’s high performance aerosol drug delivery technology with Dance Biopharm’s liquid insulin to create a sophisticated electronic inhaler device that the companies say will change the way diabetes is managed and greatly improve the lives of millions of people.

KINESIS HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES

An estimated 30pc of adults over 65 years of age fall each year. Developed over seven years of research in Ireland, Kinesis QTUG is a mobility and falls risk assessment technology. The product is patent protected and is a registered medical device in Europe and North America.

NVMDURANCE Solid state disks (SSDs), the latest generation of computer storage, are faster, quieter and require less power than traditional spinning disks, but their key component – flash memory – wears out relatively quickly. As a result, their costs have remained relatively high. This could be about to change with the recent introduction by Limerickbased NVMdurance of an autonomic machine learning technology that has been shown to increase the life of flash by a factor of 25.

RESMED SENSOR TECHNOLOGIES ResMed Sensor Technologies (RST) developed an innovative radio frequency technology for non-contact respiration monitoring during sleep. So far, it has developed the FDA-approved SleepMinder, a monitoring device for use in connected health and chronic disease management; S+ by ResMed, a consumer device providing personalised sleep advice; and global B2B applications. Headquartered at NexusUCD, RST was established following the acquisition in 2011 of BiancaMed, a successful UCD spin–out, by ResMed Inc, a global leader in the treatment of respiratory disorders.

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HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTE

Prof Oliver Dolly

THE WINNER: DCU Honoured for pioneering research now being used to develop treatment for movement disorders DCU received the award for pioneering research carried out by Prof Oliver Dolly into how nerves control muscular activity by understanding the impact of botulinum toxin – aka Botox – in reducing neuronal signalling, and, based on this work, created with Allergan a platform for medical versions of the toxin that benefit sufferers of range of movement disorders, including dystonias, cerebral palsy and overactive bladder. The molecular neurobiologist leads a team of over 12 scientists at the International Centre for Neurotherapeutics, which he founded at DCU. Through Allergan-funded research, he and his team have contributed significant scientific insights into the basic science of toxins and neurotherapeutics, as well as pioneering the development of therapeutics for neuropathic and inflammatory pain, which have been patented and are now the

basis of applied translational research at DCU. The most promising candidates are being prepared in a form suitable for human use in a state-of-the-art GMP facility. With a substantial grant from Enterprise Ireland, these drugs will be progressed to a state of readiness for clinical trials. Prof Dolly started his research into how nerve endings regulate the chemical messengers they release to affect the activity of their target organs in 1986. He decided to use a naturally-occurring protein, botulinum toxin, as a chemical probe to dissect the responsible complex biochemical machinery within nerve endings. Botulinum toxins are produced in several forms from the soil bacteria Clostridium botulinum, and are recognised as the most toxic substances in the world. He managed to purify the nerve-active component of the

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mixed protein complex produced by the micro-organism. By making available the pure botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), he discovered how it binds exclusively to nerve endings, gains access to the inside of the nerve, and then acts as an enzyme to break down specialised proteins critical for the release of signalling chemicals. In 1989, Allergan acquired the rights to commercialise Oculinum, which was later renamed as Botox. Allergan was interested in supporting research that would further understanding into how Botox could treat human disease and approached Prof Dolly. While Allergan initially entered into a five-year research agreement with Prof Dolly, this has been extended repeatedly making it, DCU believes, the biggest and longest-funded research interaction between a company and an Irish university. The work has resulted in a large number of patents for Allergan with Prof Dolly named as the inventor. According to Prof Mitchell F Brin, senior vice president of development at Allergan (California), Prof Dolly is “an outstanding individual who has overachieved in defining the science of botulinum toxin”.

‘He and his team have contributed significant scientific insights into the basic science of toxins and neurotherapeutics’

THE RUNNERS-UP UCD

Analysis of billions of log data, stored in different event logs, formats, and physical locations is required to understand how and why enterprise-level computer applications work. In response to this critical issue, UCD’s performance engineering laboratory, together with IBM, has developed a real-time correlation engine for automatic data collection, normalisation, run-time data analysis, and error identification. The engine is being rolled out within IBM, and through Logentries, which analyses 100 billion log events per day for global customers.

NIBRT

Up to 75pc of new medicines, including monoclonal antibodies for treating cancer and autoimmune disease, are generated using molecular biology technologies. During production of these glycoprotein drugs the addition of specific sugars is critical for their safety and efficacy. Determining the structures and roles of these sugars in patients poses significant scientific challenges. NIBRT’s GlycoScience team, working with Waters Corporation, has opened up this rapidly expanding field by developing and commercialising novel automated analytical technologies.

UCC

A partnership between the Maguire team in UCC and Lilly (Kinsale/Indianapolis) focused on enhancing pharmaceutical process development capability at the academic-industry interface. This has resulted in collaborative research publications increasing Ireland’s visibility as a leading location for pharmaceutical process R&D. It has also raised awareness within Lilly of the capacity of Irish university PhD graduates to undertake cutting edge process development. The researchers involved have gained valuable career experience in the pharma sector.

IVI

The Innovation Value Institute (IVI) has driven international research and delivered a multi-disciplinary body of knowledge - the ‘IT capability maturity framework’ (IT CMF) - to transform how public and private organisations can get better business value and innovation from their investment in technology. IVI’s research uses an open-innovation approach with over 500 organisations contributing, using, and realising increased business value. Intel and Maynooth University co-founded IVI in 2006.

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THE IRISH MIND

Cultural

ICON

As Ireland and the world celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of WB Yeats, KIERAN O’DALY considers the poet’s legacy and relevance in 2015 William Butler Yeats is a giant of world literature and widely revered as one of the finest poets and dramatists ever to put pen to paper. In Ireland, he has attained an almost mythical status and continues to cast a long shadow over the cultural landscape, not just for his literary works but also, in some part, for his flamboyant appearance, his erstwhile romantic association with Irish nationalist Maud Gonne and his outspoken views on matters artistic, political, cultural, religious and more. But, despite the larger-than-life legend that has, at times, threatened to overshadow a vast canon of work that includes almost 400 poems and 26 plays, there is no doubt he has left a remarkable legacy, both literary and otherwise, that continues to resonate to this day. Yeats was born in Sandymount, Dublin on 13 June 1865. His father John B Yeats was a lawyer by profession, but was also quite well-known as a portrait painter. His mother Susan Mary Pollexfen came from a wealthy Sligo merchant family with extensive milling and shipping interests. William was the eldest of four children, two boys and two girls. The Yeats offspring were exposed to the arts from an early age and all went on to pursue careers in this area. His brother Jack B became one of Ireland’s most famous painters, while his sisters Elizabeth and Susan Mary were closely involved in the arts and crafts movement through the Dublin-based Dun Emer Guild and later ran their own publishing business, Cuala Press, which championed new Irish writing. He was educated in London, where the family lived between 1867 and 1880, and Dublin where he attended the Erasmus Smith High School in Rathgar. The family lived initially in Harold’s Cross later moving to Balscadden Cottage in Howth. He spent his summers in Sligo where the family retained a house. After leaving school, he attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Kildare St (later NCAD) as his father felt that

everyone should be educated in art no matter what their future profession might be. Growing up, Yeats was greatly influenced by Celtic myths and legends and by the great romantic poets of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This was evident in his earliest published works, including such poems as ‘The Song of the Happy Shepherd’ and ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, both of which were written before he turned 20 and leaned heavily on Blake and Shelley, and ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’, which drew on Celtic folklore. His first collections of poems ‘Crossways’ was published in 1889, followed by ‘The Rose’ in 1893.

CELTIC REVIVAL The latter years of the nineteenth century were a time of great upheaval in Ireland as the country, looking towards home rule and final independence, sought to forge a clear cultural identity for itself. Yeats, who would remain greatly engaged with this issue for the rest of his life, became one of the leading figures in the so-called Irish Literary Revival. He founded the National Literary Society in 1892 and, along with Lady Gregory and others, co-founded the Irish National Theatre in 1899. The formation of the Irish National Theatre Society followed and led to the opening of Ireland’s first national theatre, the Abbey, in 1904. Taking ancient Celtic myth and folklore as his inspiration, Yeats wrote a number of plays that were performed at the Abbey in its early years. At the same time, his poetry began to develop a modernist style as, influenced in part by his friendship with American poet Ezra Pound, his style became more colloquial and immediate. He also began to comment directly on what he saw going on around him, most notably in works such as ‘September 1913’, first published in the collection ‘Responsibilities’ in 1914,

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THE IRISH MIND

Portrait of WB Yeats courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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THE IRISH MIND

Ben Bulben, Co Sligo

‘Despite the larger-than-life legend that has, at times, threatened to overshadow a vast canon of work that includes almost 400 poems and 26 plays, there is no doubt he has left a remarkable legacy, both literary and otherwise, that continues to resonate to this day’ which offered an unflinching rebuke of what he viewed as the shallow moral and social values of the day. In another work, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’, which was written in the aftermath of World War One, Yeats struggles to come to terms with the scale of the carnage and ponders the futility of conflict, saying “Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love”. As he continued to grapple with this and other major issues of the time, he finally achieved some happiness in his personal life. He married Georgie Hyde-Lees, who was 27 years his junior, in 1917 and they had two children together – Anne and Michael. Shortly afterwards he moved to Thoor Ballylee, an old Norman keep near Gort, Co Galway, where the family remained for the next 12 years.

FOSTERING THE ARTS He served two terms in the Senate from 1922 to 1928 where his primary goal was to encourage artistic growth and cultural vitality within the fledgling Irish Free State. He was an active participant in debates on a wide range of subjects and chaired a committee to select designs for the new country’s first

coinage. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, becoming the first Irishman to claim the honour. Yeats continued to write prolifically in his later years, producing much of what many critics regard as his finest poetry. More reflective in style than much of his earlier work, he laments the ageing process and the loss of inspiration, most famously in ‘The Circus Animals Desertion’, written just a year before his death. Yeats died in the Hotel Ideal Sejour in Menton in the south of France on 28 January 1939 at the age of 73. He was initially buried in nearby Roquebrune-Cap-Martin cemetery, but was re-interred “under Ben Bulben” in Drumcliffe, Co Sligo following the end of the Second World War.

ONGOING RESONANCE So much of Yeats’ work still resonates today more than 75 years after his death and more than a century after much of his poetry was written. Indeed, ‘September 1913’ could almost be a comment on the excesses of the Celtic Tiger years. It speaks of the death of the poet’s romanticised version of Ireland as reality sets in and greedy fingers “fumble in the greasy till” to

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THE IRISH MIND “add the halfpence to the pence” in pursuit of worldly goods and financial gain. “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,” he writes, “It’s with O’Leary in the grave”. Another well-known work, ‘The Second Coming’, deals with chaos, the breakdown of order and the dangers of worshipping false idols. Written in the aftermath of the First World War, it was a prophetic warning of things to come. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The poem ends with a stark, startling image: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

LEGACY So, in 2015, as Ireland and the world celebrate Yeats 150 years after his birth, many will ask what his legacy is and how it relates to our times. First and foremost, there is the work, which has cemented his reputation as a literary great for any age. He lived in a time of immense change as a new independent Ireland was emerging and this upheaval is clearly reflected in his poetry and drama. Later, his disillusionment with political, artistic and spiritual values, both in Ireland and further afield, and the onset of old age and poor health caused him to turn his attention inward to more personal concerns. But Yeats’ legacy goes beyond his achievements in the world of literature. He also left a very practical legacy that, according to Dr Tom Walker from the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, is equally important and should not be overlooked. “While it important to continue to study and enjoy his literary works, his practical legacy should be celebrated as well,” says Walker, who has written extensively on Yeats and other Irish poets. This practical legacy includes the foundation of the Abbey Theatre and the Hugh Lane Gallery and, later, his involvement in the design of the coinage for the new Irish Free State. “Yeats was very committed to the establishment of a separate cultural identity for Ireland from quite a young age and this continued after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922,” he says. “He promoted cultural and artistic vitality as an integral and necessary part of the nation’s development and lobbied very skilfully and successfully for State patronage of the arts.” Ireland in 2015 has a thriving artistic community and a rich cultural life that is the envy of the world. As we celebrate Yeats 150, we should also remember the important role Yeats played in helping to create it.

YEATS 2015 EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats Exhibition Multimedia exhibition open each day. Public tours will take place on the first Thursday of each month until October 2015. The exhibition can also be viewed at www.nli.ie/yeats. National Library of Ireland, Kildare St, Dublin 2 Beautiful Lofty Things: An Evening with WB Yeats Written and hosted by historian and Yeats biographer Roy Foster, Beautiful Lofty Things will look at various aspects of the poet’s life and work through poetry and music. 12 September 2015 National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2 Yeats Room @ St Brendan’s Cathedral Exhibition of art and artefacts belonging to the Yeats family with guided tours each day. Works from the Dun Emer Guild also included. Runs until 1 September St Brendan’s Cathedral, Loughrea, Co Galway Yeats 2015 This exhibition charts Yeats’ life and work, including early and mid-life literature, his interest in mysticism, theatre and performing arts, politics and latter years. Runs until 30 September Galway City Museum, Spanish Parade, Galway Yeats and the West A major exhibition celebrating the many connections Yeats had with the west of Ireland. Rare artworks, books, original documents and exclusive film clips are included in the interactive exhibition. Original watercolour sketches and oils by Jack B Yeats also feature. Runs until 20 December 2015 NUI Galway, University Road, Galway Yeats International Summer School The 2015 Yeats International Summer School will be one of the highlights of the national year of celebration. A full schedule of events, including seminars and poetry and drama workshops, can be viewed at www.yeatssociety.com. 26 July to 7 August 2015 Douglas Hyde Bridge, Sligo Town Centre A Writer Young and Old: Yeats at 150 The first conference of the International Yeats Society will gather scholars, critics and artists to engage with Yeats as a figure of world literature. 15 to 18 October 2015 School of Culture and Communication, University of Limerick This is just a flavour of the events taking place this year. A full list can be found on Yeats2015.com.

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COLLECTED POEMS OF WB YEATS Crossways (1889) The Rose (1893) The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) In the Seven Woods (1904) The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) Responsibilities (1914) The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921) The Tower (1928) The Winding Stairs and Other Poems (1933) Parnell’s Funeral and Other Poems (1935) New Poems (1938) Last Poems (1938-1939)

Thoor Ballylee, Co Galway

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SMART IRELAND TALENT

Skills

CAPITAL Ireland has emerged as one of the top performers globally in a recently published index of human capital Ireland has been ranked twelfth in an index of human capital published in May by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It’s good news for Ireland, which has climbed eight places from its 20th position in the last index in 2013. The Human Capital Index in 2015, which covers 124 countries and 46 indicators, takes a “life-course approach” to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment available to people in five age groups, starting from under 15 years and concluding with the over 65 age group. Some of the areas where Ireland scored particularly well include an overall second place for the under 15 age group; first for youth literacy and fifth for quality of education system in the 15 to 24 demographic; fifth for ease of finding skilled employees and sixth for thirdlevel education attainment in the 25 to 54 group; first for healthy life expectancy at birth for the 55 to 64 group; and 16th for healthy life beyond the age of 65 for those in that age group. As regards business perceptions, Ireland scores above 5.0 (with 1 being lowest and 7 being highest) for quality of maths/ science education, quality of business schools, specialised training services and capacity to attract talent. According to the WEF, the aim of the index is to assess the outcome of past and present investments in human capital and to offer insight into how a country’s talent base will look in the future. Globally, Finland tops the rankings, scoring 86pc, followed by Norway (2), Switzerland (3), Canada (4) and Japan (5). Just

14 countries scored 80pc or more. As well as the top five, they are: Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Australia and France. Of the large advanced economies, the US is in 17th position, scoring just under 80pc; the UK makes 19th and Germany is placed 22nd. “Talent, not capital, will be the key factor linking innovation, competitiveness and growth in the 21st century,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF. “To make any of the changes necessary to unlock the world’s latent talent – and hence its growth potential – we must look beyond campaign cycles and quarterly reports. Dialogue, collaboration and partnerships between all sectors are crucial for the adaptation of educational institutions, governments and businesses.” The index is part of the Human Capital Report, which provides latest available information on the numbers of current and recent graduates in major fields of study in each country and detailed information on the population’s workforce activity as well as levels of education. “Our goal is to support business leaders, policy-makers, civil society and the public in taking the informed, datadriven decisions that are needed to unlock human potential,” said Saadia Zahidi, head of the Employment, Skills and Human Capital Initiative and co-author of the report. “The index shows that all countries – both rich and poor – have yet to optimise their human capital and calls for a new peoplecentric model of growth.”

‘Talent, not capital, will be the key factor linking innovation, competitiveness and growth in the 21st century’

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DIVERSITY

DIVERSE

DIGITAL Held in Dublin in June, InspireFest 2015 was a sci-tech event with a difference, focusing as it did on increasing diversity in the tech sector. GRAINNE ROTHERY spoke to its founder, Ann O’Dea 66

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Cindy Gallop, founder, Make Love not Porn; Nina Ansary, author of Jewels of Allah; Lauren Boyle, EU Digital Girl of the Year 2014; Ann O’Dea, Silicon Republic; Shelly Porges, former advisor to Hillary Clinton; and Steve Neff, enterprise technology officer at Fidelity Investments

iven that most science and technology conferences struggle to include more than a handful of women speakers in their lineups, the inaugural InspireFest in Dublin in June was an event with a difference. With the central aspiration of showcasing diversity and leadership in science, technology and maths, the festival walked the walk, with 75pc of the more than 50 speakers who took to the stage over the two conference days being women. And they were far from just token females: included on the schedule were Bethany Mayer, CEO of Fortune 500 company Ixia; Margaret Burgraff, one of the most senior VPs in Intel worldwide; Belfast-born astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the first four pulsars; Irish space technology entrepreneur Susan McKenna Lawlor; and Spacehack.org founder Ariel Waldman. Other high profile speakers who took to the main stage in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre included Cindy Gallop of Make Love not Porn; Giant Spacekat’s Brianna Wu, who received numerous death threats during the Gamergate controversy last year; and Kara Swisher, whose tech news site Re/Code business was acquired by Vox Media in May. The driving force behind the event, which will now be an annual fixture, is Ann O’Dea, CEO and editor-in-chief of

technology news resource Silicon Republic. O’Dea has long been concerned about the lack of diversity in the technology sector and co-ordinates the Women Invent campaign, which champions the role of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). One of the stated aims of the first InspireFest was to challenge the status quo in STEM by featuring a line-up of speakers dominated by high achieving women. “We travelled the world and found numerous tech events where speakers on stage were 90pc white, middle class and male, and we also attended conferences for women, which we found to be too focused on women and not enough on the amazing work they do,” explains O’Dea. “We were determined to create a large annual sci-tech event where women would be made feel welcome and represented, as would men.” The fact that 30pc of the more than 1,300 people who attended the event were men and that they provided “superb” feedback was very encouraging, she adds. “There is no point in women sitting in rooms talking only to other women if we are to tackle the ridiculous gender gap that exists in today’s tech industry. “I was very pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the many men in attendance. They too are clearly tired of a homogenous white, male, straight tech environment, like that

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‘Quite simply most events in our industry are run by white, middle class men, who are used to networking with other white, middle class men. So when they go to their network, they end up virtually looking in the mirror’ depicted in HBO’s Silicon Valley. “When Brianna Wu detailed her struggle to ensure women software developers could access and thrive in the games industry, she elicited a standing ovation. The first people to their feet were young men. It makes me very hopeful indeed.” The event’s focus on diversity was broader than gender. “We had high profile LGBT figures on stage, as well as speakers from Africa, the Middle East, the US, UK and Europe.” O’Dea hopes the event will present Ireland something of a test-bed for diversity. “Silicon Valley has a well-documented diversity challenge, and indeed a significant problem with misogyny in the tech sector,” she says. “We believe Ireland has not yet emulated that to the full extent. We want to show the industry that there is another way, and we would like Ireland to be the case study for this. “Hosting the only event of its kind in the world, which embraces both world class speakers and diversity, can put Ireland on the map when it comes to the future of the industry. We believe that future must embrace diversity of thought, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, you name it. Otherwise we are missing out on a whole other level of innovation.” Conference and event organisers often put their male dominated line-ups down to the challenge of finding good female speakers. O’Dea says she hopes Inspirefest has “given the lie to this ridiculous excuse”. “We had to turn remarkable women away as we could not squeeze any more into the line-up. Quite simply most events in our industry are run by white, middle class men, who are used to networking with other white, middle class men. So

Singer Loah at the Fringe in Merrion Square

INSPIREFEST 2015 IN NUMBERS

The event attracted more than 1,300 attendees over the three days of the festival. In addition to the speakers on the main stage in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, over 30 speakers and panellists took part in the Fringe festival in Merrion Square on the Thursday and Friday evenings. The evenings also included a showcase of Irish indie music, with Katie Kim, Loah, Wyvern Lingo and Little Green Cars all taking part. And screenings of four Irish film premieres took place. More than 350 parents, kids and mentors attended the Family Fringe on the Saturday morning, which included Coderdojos, Coding Grace workshops for adults, a Girls Hack Ireland, a Dublin Maker fair and exhibitions and hacks from the likes of the Trinity Walton Club.

when they go to their network, they end up virtually looking in the mirror. They need to widen their horizons.” She is confident about attracting a similar calibre line-up of speakers next year. “We have a few aces up our sleeves already. The word has gone out of the success of this first year. So we’re already being approached by remarkable speakers interested in being part of 2016.” She believes the event will grow in size next year but insists that it won’t do so at the expense of the inclusive model that was such an important feature this year. “Probably the quality of speakers was only matched by the quality of connections that were made this year,” she says. “I think there is such a thing as ‘too big’ for an event, where the speakers and VIPs become divorced from the wonderful people in the audience, and are whisked away and miss the real fun.” Most of the visiting speakers at the inaugural event have signed up to be on the InspireFest’s advisory board and plans are in place for a get-together in the US in the near future, she says. “We’re a little in awe of the feedback from the likes of Brianna Wu, Sharon Vosmek and Cindy Gallop, who all say it is the best event they have ever attended. That kind of bowled us over. Maybe we really can change the world with this! “We’ve big plans for the nature of the content on stage again next year. We want it to be unmissable for anyone in sci-tech – whatever your gender.” The next InspireFest will take place from 23 to 25 June 2016 (www.inspirefest2016.com).

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INSPIREFEST PICKS With more than 50 speakers addressing the inaugural InspireFest across the two conference days, the following is a flavour of proceedings discussion on ‘imposter syndrome’. In a panel focused on the concept of a 21st-century workforce, Fionnuala Meehan, director of SMB sales EMEA for Google, spoke about the critical need for social encouragement and the importance of self-perception in encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM. Closing the morning sessions was Fidelity Investments CTO Steve Neff, who warned of the worsening diversity problem in STEM in the US. Neff closed by stating that while innovation in STEM needs diversity, diversity in STEM needs innovation.

Brianna Wu

In essence, Inspirefest kicked off not in the grand surrounds of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre but in the nearby offices of Accenture Ireland, where research in conjunction with Silicon Republic’s Women Invent campaign was launched at a breakfast event. While Inspirefest attendees were filing in for registration, Accenture’s report highlighted the very reasoning behind the event, noting the lack of high-profile female role models in STEM as an issue impacting young women’s early career and education choices. Back at the conference, the keynotes had begun, starting with the Lessons from History session where Kathy Kleiman, historian and co-producer of The Computers highlighted the amazing – but often untold – history of women in technology. From past to present, historical keynotes were followed up with a panel discussion on Lessons in Leadership, offering advice from leading women in science and technology. One of the audience favourites was Bethany Mayer, president and CEO of Ixia. Despite a long-running career that has included working on radar-absorbing materials on aircraft, early mobile computers (AKA laptops), work at Apple and “building the internet” with Cisco, Mayer still had to think long and hard before taking on the top job at the network-monitoring specialist. “It was a very hard decision for me personally,” she said, amid a frank

MOTIVATION FROM THE NEXT GENERATION The afternoon sessions on the first day included speakers aged from 10 to 80. Attendees arrived back into the auditorium to hear about new businesses being launched by EU Digital Girl of the Year 2014 Lauren Boyle and teen Google Science Fair 2014 winners Émer Hickey and Ciara Judge (who joined remotely from MIT). The biggest surprise of the first day came during the panel discussion involving space-tech experts Ariel Waldman, Dr Lucy Rogers, Leo Enright and Prof Susan McKenna-Lawlor. As founder and MD of Space Technology Ireland, McKennaLawlor impressed the crowd with her keynote on the missioncritical technology her company supplied for the European Space Agency’s pioneering Rosetta mission. McKenna-Lawlor also announced her intention to launch an Irish spacecraft to

Cindy Gallop

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Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell

an enthusiastic and supportive audience. Borrowed from historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “wellbehaved women rarely make history” were the closing words of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s headline keynote and there is no doubt that this pioneering astrophysicist has secured her place in the annals of science history. Generations to come will be hearing about Dame Bell Burnell, who took on – and excelled at – a career in astrophysics, fighting prejudice at every turn. Taoiseach Enda Kenny received his first lesson in code from a 10-year-old girl and, in his opening address on the second day of Inspirefest, he said that fostering a passion for STEM in young women is essential to future success. One of the highlights of the morning session was a panel discussion that brought together four women who have all taken steps to address the lack of diversity in the technology industry: Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code; Robin Hauser Reynolds, director of the film Code: Debugging the Gender Gap; Northern Ireland native Sheree Atcheson, expansion director of Women Who Code UK; and Mary Moloney, CEO of the CoderDojo Foundation. Bryant acknowledged that lack of diversity is not just a gender issue – it’s also an issue that affects those in the LGBT community, as well as African-Americans — but she said it was in the area of gender diversity that she felt she could have most impact. “I resonate with this issue because I am a woman… I really relate to the path these young women are going to take in the future so, when it comes to us and our organisation, we feel we can make the most impact there.” All of those on the panel felt that events like Inspirefest — and their own initiatives — are making a difference in the industry, but they also acknowledged that significant change will take time to achieve. “I think it’s going to take a long time and I think it’s going to take a concerted effort,” said Hauser Reynolds. “It’s not just a

gender issue… or an ethnicity issue… it’s interesting how many people look up from their iPhones when you start talking about money. [Diversity] is a huge economic issue.” Moloney said it is the generation coming up that gives her hope. “There’s an incredible, joined-up set of leadership people, around the world, both male and female, who appreciate the difference and impact it can make to the bottom line of their business by fostering an inclusive, diverse workplace, and that’s going to create change, and the next generation, they take it for granted [that workplaces will be diverse].” The afternoon session kicked off with a keynote from Brianna Wu, head of development at Spacekat Games, who spoke of her daily experience of sexism in the gaming industry, and how the tide is turning against it. “When I’m not creating games, I have opinions on how women are erased, bullied, belittled and not taken seriously in the video games industry,” she told the audience. “For speaking up about this, I’ve had 106 death threats in the past 10 months.” This stemmed from her involvement in ‘Gamergate’, which grew from an individual online argument into a raging debate that challenged the very core of the entire gaming industry and the inherent sexism it was displaying towards women within it. Things have started to change since people like Wu, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian have spoken against sexism in the industry. “The truth is we are winning and we are making changes in the game industry,” Wu said. “We are changing the industry because we were willing to speak up, we didn’t stay silent. We’ve introduced consequences into this equation.” SEPARATE BUSINESS NETWORKS In her keynote session, Astia CEO Sharon Vosmek told the audience that less than 5pc of funding in Silicon Valley goes to female founders. “As you watch women-led companies grow, those businesses that have inclusive teams will generate higher revenues,” she said. “We as investors are seeking out the next innovation and this requires the best team performance. We look for group

The Code Debugging Diversity panel: Kimberly Bryant, Robin Hauser Reynolds, Mary Moloney and Sheree Atcheson

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The Investors panel: chair Kara Swisher with Sharon Vosmek, Adam Quinton, Nnamdi Okike and Julie Sinnamon

intelligence where team performance leads to innovation.” Vosmek said this approach belies the broader approach to venture investment in Silicon Valley, where male investors will tend to favour investing in males who are “a reflection of themselves, their experiences and their values”. She warned that a hidden bias exists in Silicon Valley. “Men and women in society are in separate business networks. In order for us to change the dynamics, we need to get more women into executive suites. We must do business with the opposite gender.” Vosmek then took part in ‘The Investors’ panel alongside Adam Quinton of Lucas Point Ventures, Nnamdi Okike of 645 Ventures and Julie Sinnamon of Enterprise Ireland. Chaired by Re/Code’s Kara Swisher, the panel focused on gender bias in venture capital investment. Quinton summed up the bias: “The fundamental problem, especially in Silicon Valley, is that it loves to think it’s a meritocracy, which is bull. It’s not. It’s a mirror-ocracy.” Swisher spoke about the lies those in the industry tell themselves to explain away the lack of diversity in their boardrooms. And Vosmek highlighted the fact that attractive men find it easier to get funded for research at MIT than attractive women do. All agreed with Sinnamon, who said that funding women is important, not just for equality’s sake, but because more good businesses are needed. Giving the closing address, Cindy Gallop, founder of If We Ran the World and Make Love Not Porn, said she wants to see women making huge exits from start-ups and “up there in the rarified tech billionaire ranks with Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] and Evan [Spiegel] and Travis [Kalanick]”.

On the subject of the ongoing gender bias in the technology industry she said: “All those barriers will fall away from all of us when we can prove that women can make a s**t ton of money.” Ultimately, Gallop said the future belongs to women, especially if women and men work together. “Women will influence men more than men will influence other men,” she said. “The business of the future is female informed because there is a huge amount of money to be made out of taking women seriously.” This round-up is based on articles that originally appeared on SiliconRepublic.com, written by Elaine Burke, John Kennedy, Luke Maxwell and Brigid O’Gorman.

The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

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nyone arriving into Dublin Airport this year will be greeted by a series of 300 photographs by Peter Rowen capturing 24 designers at work in their studios all over Ireland. This ‘Design Island’ photographic exhibition sums up the Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) initiative - presenting evocative images of each designer’s location, the raw materials and tools of their trade, the design process and completed product, along with the designer’s portrait. The notion that there should be a year dedicated to Irish

design was first mooted in a report published in 1962 called ‘Design in Ireland: Report of the Scandinavian Design Group in Ireland’ – the so-called Scandinavian Report. It may have taken 53 years to come to pass but half way through, the Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) initiative is clearly delivering on many levels with the potential to have a lasting effect on the Irish economy. The objective of ID2015 is to promote and celebrate all forms of Irish design throughout Ireland and internationally in order to drive job creation, grow exports and increase competitiveness.

Carvel chair by Déanta at Maison et Objet

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d e n g

i s e t D las o t

Irish Design 2015 has collaboration at its heart and is capturing the imagination of people from all walks of life at home and abroad, writes SORCHA CORCORAN Issue 10 Summer 2015 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW

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Perch and Thomas Montgomery’s Float at Liminal – Irish design at the threshold

Specifically, ID2015 aims to: create 1,800 jobs over three years through sales of design-led products and services; generate an additional €10m in design-based exports; generate 200 new design-led business start-ups; facilitate more than 300 companies in international trade missions and design based trade events and engage with an audience of over 3 million at home and abroad. ID2015 estimates that there are currently around 60,000

in Ireland,” says Karen Hennessy, chief executive of ID2015. “Ireland ranks 25th in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report and design and innovation are key components in its ranking. We have seen other countries such as Singapore move significantly up in terms of competitiveness rankings having invested in design and innovation over a fiveyear period. Because Ireland is a small country, if we get all the necessary supports and investment lined up, we can make

‘The objective of Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) is to promote and celebrate all forms of Irish design throughout Ireland’ people working in the design sector with the animation, graphic design and craft industries each worth about €500m to the Irish economy. On top of this 15 of the top 20 med-tech companies in the world are based in Ireland, which is worth €7.3bn in annual exports. The Irish Government got behind ID2015 from an early stage further to it being put forward as an idea during the Global Irish Economic Forum in 2013. It is being convened by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, in collaboration with partner organisations, on behalf of the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Enterprise Ireland. “Hong Kong had a year of design in 2012 and Denmark and the Netherlands have run initiatives to promote their design - it’s not that it hasn’t been done before internationally but when you look at other models, ours is wider. Because we are being as representative as possible, most people are going to gain whether they’re directly involved or not. ID2015 is going to lift the tide in terms of international appreciation of design

a significant change to Ireland’s competitiveness and change the ways companies do business. “There are examples of this happening already right across the country in companies that you might not think of, such as Glanbia, which is bringing design principles in right across the organisation led by its chief science and technology officer Dr Patrick O’Riordan, and Glen Dimplex where design is the cornerstone of what they do.”

THE PROGRAMME Hennessy describes the ID2015 programme as “very comprehensive and ambitious” and involving collaboration from all quarters both at home and abroad as a central component. It encompasses 300 different events across Ireland and 50 international events. In Ireland, just over 200 different projects have been approved under the dedicated €1.5m Design Innovation Fund, including new design networks, exhibitions, conferences, talks, publications, short films and

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Architect John Tuomey of O’Donnell & Tuomey at Design Island, Dublin Airport [all Design Island photos by Peter Rowen]

Fashion and textile designer Helen Steele at Design Island, Dublin Airport

Milliner Martha Lynn at Design Island, Dublin Airport

Brown Bag Films at Design Island, Dublin Airport

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residencies – all of which is sparking innovation, conversation and design thinking at ground level, according to Hennessy. “The core programme in Ireland is really around talks, workshops, conferences and exhibitions. We’ve had huge buyin from public and private partnerships -the Office of Public Works has given us The Coach House in Dublin Castle for a year and we also have the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny and the Doyle Collection gave us gallery space in Westbury Mall in Dublin. “The highest footfall so far [15,000] was for the ‘In the Making’ exhibition, which looked at the process of manufacture from a design perspective and was brought to the Coach House in partnership with the Design Museum in London.” Another key exhibition has been Fresh Talent, which was first shown at the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny in February and is now in The Coach House until 20 September, notes Hennessy. This includes a mix of award winning graduate projects from Ireland’s major universities and from Irish students abroad, combined with the latest work from a selection of designers and practitioners who are at the early stages of establishing their businesses. Reflecting the breadth of the ID2015 initiative, the exhibition draws from a range of fields, incorporating a selection of

DEDICATED FUND FOR DESIGN START-UPS Enterprise Ireland is to deliver a new €250,000 fund to support the creation of design-based start-ups as part of the Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) programme. The Competitive Start Fund – Design will provide up to €50,000 in equity support to individual companies in manufacturing or internationally traded services that are design-led or utilise design as a strategic competitive advantage. With the call for applications having started on 15 July, the fund will provide new companies with early stage funding to ensure delivery of their design-based product or service. Examples of design-centred high potential start-ups in Ireland highlighted by Karen Hennessy, chief executive of ID2015, include Gazel and Obeo. Founded in 2014 by Ronan Murphy and Kevin Doherty while they were studying at the National College of Art & Design (NCAD) in Dublin, Gazel designs everyday objects “focusing on details to produce beautiful solutions for clever living”. For example, the company has designed clothes hangers specifically for people with arthritis. Another NCAD spin-out, Obeo is a packaging company founded by Kate Cronin and Elizabeth Fingleton who invented a compostable food waste box to separate food waste at home with no smells or mess in the kitchen. The product was launched in June 2014. design disciplines including craft, architecture, set design, visual communication, product design, fashion and design engineering.

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

Nine Lives by Emmett Scanlon - part of New Horizon architecture from Ireland at London Festival of Architecture 2015

The international programme for the year includes presenting the work of Irish designers at high profile events in design capitals including London, Paris, Eindhoven, Milan, New York, Chicago and Hong Kong/Shenzhen. The events include design weeks, fashion weeks, international trade events and architectural biennales. In most cases it is the first time there has been a grouped Irish representation at these events. Hennessy provides a flavour of how the international efforts have gone so far: “We brought 22 designers to the Maison et Objet in Paris in January and within two weeks Monocle magazine had included a nine-page feature on Irish design. This was essentially a commercial trade event and sales figures and commercial opportunities are still coming through for those that took part.” She also highlights the ‘Liminal – Irish design at the threshold’ exhibition, which features 30 designers, companies and studios involved in collaborations across disciplines.

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‘Because Ireland is a small country, if we get all the necessary supports and investment lined up, we can make a significant change to Ireland’s competitiveness and change the ways companies do business’

The Red Pavilion, developed by TAKA, Clancy Moore Architects and Steve Larkin Architects, part of New Horizon at London Festival of Architecture

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From left: Wilde Cage Light by Shane Holland Design; basket by Joe Hogan Baskets and chair by Nest Design at Maison et Objet

They were presented for the first time at design weeks in Milan in April and New York in May, and later in the year will be presented in Eindhoven and Dublin. “After Milan, Liminal was featured on the Design Milk blog and in Dezeen magazine and the New York Times included it in its top 17 things to see during New York Design Week. The collaborations continue to evolve as the year goes on and we add more products to the exhibition.” Bray, Co Wicklow-based manufacturer of office furniture Thomas Montgomery was one of the companies brought to Milan and New York having been paired with design house Perch. Together they have come up with a new range called Float for use in a creative office space. “Float achieved significant traction and feedback across major European furniture companies. If you’re pairing designers with traditional companies new product development is a significant benefit,” says Hennessy. “New product development is one of the key deliverables of ID2015 and we are already seeing a significant amount of innovations coming through. We are estimating there will be 250 new product developments by the end of the year.” Collaboration along with goodwill and massive exposure are very evident when it comes to the architectural biennale programme New Horizon. In the UK, the London Festival of Architecture selected Ireland as its first ‘focus country’ this year, which meant that for the month of June four Irish architectural practices were represented at two pavilions built in Kings Cross. An exhibition called ‘Nine Lives’ profiling the work of nine Irish architects was also held at The Tank outside the Design Museum for the month of June. “Being selected as the focus country at the London Festival of Architecture was a really significant intervention for Irish architects to have in London and it would not have been possible without sponsorship. There were 40 different companies needed to make this happen including seven corporate partners. Sisk built both installations at Kings Cross for free, the paint was supplied by Colour Trend; Coillte Panel Products and the Wood Marketing Foundation gave all the wood. Everything right down to the nails was supplied. This is because people are really proud of what is coming out of

Ireland. “The point is there is a lot of good work going on in terms of Irish design already and as a country we’ve got to showcase and strengthen it from the education through to the enterprise elements to underpin and link what is already happening. “The key thing that will come out of ID2015 is a design policy driven by a major piece of research led by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. That will be the legacy.”

DESIGN ISLAND APP DEVELOPED WITH IBM A new app called Design Island was launched in July with the aim of helping tourists as well as Irish people to discover and experience the best of Irish design. Produced by Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) in collaboration with its official technology partner IBM, it features curated recommendations from design experts and enthusiasts on things to do and places to visit. Contributors to the app include fashion journalist Deirdre McQuillan, president of the Institute of Designers in Ireland Marc O’Riain, Westport-based design studio Superfolk, Jonathan Legge of Makers & Brothers and broadcaster Dylan Haskins. It is divided into five categories for ease of navigation: Stay, Eat and Drink, See, Shop, and Events. For example, under the ‘See’ category, Superfolk nominated Kilcullen’s Seaweed Baths in Enniscrone, Co Sligo which are housed in an Edwardian bath house and have been in operation over 100 years. Haskins nominated Ard Bia at Nimmos in Galway under ‘Eat and Drink’ as it places a strong emphasis on fresh local produce and is known as a hub for local creative types. Available for download from the App Store and Google Play, the Design Island app was designed and developed by IBM Studios|Dublin working in conjunction with Irish Design 2015 and Dublin design studios Atelier David Smith and Conor & David.

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