IIR Winter 2014

innovation ireland review INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW

// issue 7 autumn/winter 2013 // SPRING/SUMMER // ISSUE 98 WINTER 2014 // 2014 //

COMPETING TO WIN Ireland jumps two places in 2014 IMD rankings

THE DATA CASE Getting into position for the growing big data analytics trend

COLLABORATION NATION Industry and researchers working together in pioneering Technology Centres Programme

At the summit europe’s premier technology conference continues to blaze a trail

INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM Driving start-up innovation through

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SCALING THE SUMMIT Dublin Web Summit grows in size and

Silicon Irish Style Docks scope

INFLUX OF SOME OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN TECHNOLOGY O’DONNELL + TUOMEY RECOGNISED FOR LIFETIME’S WORK IN ARCHITECTURE

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Front cover image: O’Donnell + Tuomey’s An Gaeláras Irish Language Arts and Cultural Centre in Derry Web cover Summit 2014Angela imagesHalpin [pages 40 to 47] and photos of Front image: Liam Casey, Lorraine Twohill and John Collison on pages 77 and 78, courtesy of Web Summit and Sportsfile

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Innovation, research, investment and development news from around Ireland

FREEZEFRAME 32 Images from the annual SFI Research Image competition

INDUSTRY FOCUS 10 Ireland’s pharma sector has been boosted by a stream of new investment

DIGITAL WORLD 40 Web Summit 2014 – bigger and broader than its predecessors

RESEARCH 14 How NIBRT is helping the biopharma sector meet its research and skills challenges

GATEWAY LOCATION Why Dundalk is a great place for potential investors

INVESTMENT LINKS Europe continues to be a hugely important source of foreign direct investment for Ireland

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COMPETITIVENESS 22 Three recent reports spell good news for Ireland’s competitiveness DESTINATION IRELAND 26 Ireland’s talent pool is benefiting from the country’s reputation as a great location for young, international workers

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A new hackathon series aims to foster collaboration BUILDING IRELAND 68 Architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey to receive lifetime honour GLOBAL CONNECTIONS A selection of Irish people who are making an impact internationally

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INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM 54 Innovation Showcase 2014 united startups with excellent scientific research and game-changing technologies How Bell Labs is seeking deeper engagement with the innovation community Dublin’s new start-up commissioner Niamh Bushnell will be seeking to maximise potential of the capital’s existing business environment

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Editor: Grainne Rothery. Innovation Ireland Review is published on behalf of IDA Ireland by Business & Leadership Ltd; Tel: +353 1 6251400; Email: IIR@businessandleadership.com; Address: Office 4, 6 Main St, Dundrum, Dublin 14 © Business & Leadership Ltd 2014. IDA Ireland editor: Caitriona O’Kennedy (Caitriona.OKennedy@idaireland.com). Address: IDA Ireland, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2

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STRYKER BUILDING 44,000 SQ FT INNOVATION CENTRE IN CORK The instruments division of US medical technology company Stryker is building a new 44,000 sq ft surgical innovation centre in Cork that will focus on research and development (R&D).

Having established its presence in Ireland in 1998, Stryker has built a significant R&D competency here ever since. The company currently employs over 2,200 people in Ireland at four sites between Cork and Limerick, including over 150 in R&D. The centre will combine all Irelandbased research and new product development activities and support functions within one purpose-built facility.

It will feature state-of-the-art R&D facilities for product design and process development and a customer experience laboratory that will allow engineers and surgeons to test and evaluate new ideas, technology and product designs in a simulated operating room and surgical environment.

“This state-of-the-art facility will drive innovation by giving us the ability to design, develop and test new products in conditions that mimic real life,” said Stryker Instruments president Jim Heath.

Construction of the facility has started and is due for completion in Q4 2015.

AIG SETTING UP EMEA TREASURY OPERATIONS CENTRE IN DUBLIN International insurance group AIG is setting up its EMEA treasury operations centre in Dublin, creating 20 new jobs.

The centre will form part of the already established Dublin investment centre that provides investment administration services to AIG globally.

Phase one of the establishment of the treasury operations centre is already underway with a number of services being provided from Dublin in the past few months.

“AIG is a true global leader with a long standing presence in Ireland [having operated here for 40 years].

The company has put important business lines and functions in Ireland backing this country with a strong vote of confidence,” said chief executive of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan.

“The decision to locate its important treasury management operations in Dublin strengthens this relationship further and I have no doubt AIG’s latest investment will bolster its global network.”

Martin Shanahan, chief executive officer, IDA; Minister of State Damien English; and Jud Hoff, Stryker global vice-president

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WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES SETTING UP MANUFACTURING OPERATION IN WATERFORD CITY US company West Pharmaceutical Services is to create at least 150 jobs in Waterford City through the establishment of a manufacturing operation.

The new facility will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other high value packaging components.

Future plans include additional manufacturing space for West’s proprietary injectable component product lines. The plant could eventually accommodate between 250 to 300 jobs and involve an investment in the range of €100m.

“With diabetes emerging as one of the fastest growing diseases globally, our pharmaceutical customers are expanding their production lines for injectable insulin,” said Donald E Morel Jr, West’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“To meet this growing demand, we are announcing an expansion today that will help us address this need and continue to serve this critical patient population.

“In the future, we intend for this site to be a centre of excellence for advanced packaging components to meet the needs of our customer base for a range of sophisticated injectable therapies.”

Construction is planned to begin in early 2015 on the 44-acre site at Knockhouse on Old Kilmeaden Road in Waterford.

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SOLARWINDS TO CREATE 100 NEW JOBS AT EMEA HQ IN CORK

Bart Kalsu, executive vice-president – finance, chief accounting officer of SolarWinds

IT management software company SolarWinds has announced that it expects to create 100 new jobs over the next two years at its Cork office, which is its EMEA headquarters.

The office in City Gate, Cork City opened in 2007 and the workforce there has increased by over 35pc in the past year to reach 140 employees while the office space has expanded with an additional 7,100 sq ft.

Operations in SolarWinds’ EMEA HQ include multilingual sales and technical support, international finance (outside of North America), HR, marketing and customer service.

“Our continued investment in our EMEA office is testament to our appreciation for the talent in the area,” said Bart Kalsu, executive vice-president and chief accounting officer, SolarWinds.

“Cork is a well respected technology hub and we’re proud to be expanding our roots here in City Gate. We’ve recently expanded our office and look forward to continuing to fill the space with a team of dedicated, technically skilled and creative individuals.”

GENWORTH OPENS €15M BUSINESS CENTRE IN SHANNON US insurance holding company Genworth has opened a new €15m business centre in Shannon, Co Clare, which employs 400 people representing 17 countries and 16 languages.

Based at a state-of-the-art facility in Westpark Business Campus, it comprises over 100,000 sq ft of office space.

Genworth established operations in Shannon in 1997 and its 400-strong workforce there is the largest concentration of Genworth staff outside the US. “The base in Shannon is crucial in supporting Genworth’s growing base of international clients across Europe and our growing presence in new markets in Latin America and China,” said Bob Brannock, president, international protection, Genworth.

“The development also gives us the capacity to meet growing business needs. It is the centre for our technology, product development, finance, compliance, operations and human resources teams.

“The fit out and design required a huge amount of planning and consideration in order to ensure we delivered a top class workplace to compete with anything across the country. It was vital to deliver a facility that fosters innovation, collaboration and integration.”

LINKEDIN TO INVEST IN INTERNATIONAL HQ IN DUBLIN LinkedIn has announced plans to invest in its international headquarters in Dublin after buying a 17,507 sq metre site at Wilton Place in Dublin 2.

The new site will give the company the capacity to double its current Irish workforce to 1,200 people.

Construction work on the new international headquarters will begin in May 2015 with building works expected to be completed at the beginning of 2017.

Since its arrival in Dublin in March 2010, LinkedIn has grown from an initial three people, to more than 600 employees today.

The company bases a variety of different functions including sales and marketing at its offices in Wilton Place.

“Dublin is now home to a very vibrant digital technology sector and with that comes an important ecosystem for companies like ours as well as the strong pool of talented digital professionals that we need access to in order to further grow our operations in the future,” said Sharon McCooey, senior director, LinkedIn Ireland.

Genworth’s new business centre

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BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB BUILDING US$900M BIOPHARMA PLANT IN DUBLIN Bristol-Myers Squibb is planning a new state-of-the-art, large scale biologics manufacturing facility in Dublin 15, which it said will significantly increase its biologics manufacturing capacity and play a central role in its global manufacturing network.

Around 350 to 400 scientists, engineers, bioprocess operators, quality specialists and other skilled professionals are expected to work at the facility, which is expected to be operational in 2019. The 30,000 sq metre plant will house six 15,000 litre bioreactors and a purification area as well as office and laboratory space.

The company said the investment is anticipated to be similar to the approximately US$900m spent on its biologics manufacturing facility in Devens, Massachusetts.

“Our investment in this new facility reflects the strength of our business and the increasingly important role that biologic medicines will play in Bristol-Myers Squibb’s future,” said Lamberto Andreotti, chief executive officer, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “For 50 years, Bristol-Myers Squibb has maintained a significant manufacturing presence in Ireland, and we look forward to building on that legacy through this significant expansion of our manufacturing capability.”

ALIENVAULT SETTING UP EMEA SALES AND TECHNICAL CENTRE IN CORK AlienVault, which provides unified security management solutions and crowd-sourced threat intelligence, has announced the establishment of its new EMEA sales and technical support centre in Cork and plans to create up to 40 highly skilled roles in the coming year.

AlienVault has recently hired its first 12 staff in Cork, consisting of sales, sales engineers, tech support and management personnel.

“We are extremely pleased to open our new EMEA sales and technical support centre in Cork to tap into the immense tech talent that Ireland has to offer,” said Barmak Meftah, president and CEO at AlienVault. “We have seen rapid growth in our customer and partner base in EMEA, and we are hiring key personnel to service and support them as we continue to build on our momentum in the region.”

GROUPON PLANS TO CREATE UP TO 100 JOBS IN DUBLIN ‘Born on the internet’ daily deals player Groupon plans to create up to 100 jobs over the next two years at its new engineering and marketing centre of excellence in Dublin.

The new offices in Connacht House, Dublin 2 will serve as a research and development hub, responsible for the development of technology platforms that will be used across Groupon’s more than 500 local markets worldwide.

The company, which already employs 100 people in Dublin, is seeking experienced tech professionals in the fields of software engineering, data analysis and digital marketing for its Dublin office.

This new team will be a key pillar of growth for the company in areas such as advanced customer analytics, marketing automation, content delivery and core systems architecture.

“Our international engineering and marketing centre will enable us to better support and grow the local businesses we work with, not just in Ireland but across the world,” said Sasha Berson, Groupon’s chief marketing officer for EMEA. “It will play an important part in our continuing transition from a daily deals site to a true online marketplace.”

Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland; Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton; and Sasha Berson, Groupon’s chief marketing officer for EMEA

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AVAYA EXPANDING R&D FUNCTION IN GALWAY Technology company Avaya is to create 75 new highly skilled roles at its customer engagement centre in Galway as it expands its R&D function there.

The expanded team will focus on developing business critical customer and team engagement technologies and next generation networking products.

Avaya currently employs over 400 people in Galway, 245 of whom are engaged in R&D activities.

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Martin Shanahan, CEO at IDA Ireland; Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton; Dr Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, Amazon.com; Taoiseach Enda Kenny; and Jeff Caselden, general manager at Amazon Data Services

AMAZON TO CREATE 300 NEW JOBS IN DUBLIN

Amazon is to create 300 new jobs at its expanded offices in Ballsbridge, Dublin over the next two years with the roles to be filled including data centre technicians, software engineers and customer support staff.

As part of this announcement Amazon has expanded its presence in the city by adding more capacity to existing office space bringing it to over 100,000 sq ft, with room to further grow the number of employees based there.

The company first established a presence in Ireland in September 2004 and since then has invested over €1.5bn in the local economy. Its current workforce here stands at 1,400, including 800 customer support staff at its Cork office.

“Amazon has been an active contributor to the Dublin technology community for a decade and during this time, we have been extremely impressed with the creativity and strong technical talent available in the country,” said Dr Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, Amazon.com.

“We recognise that some of the greatest technology minds in the world can be found in Europe and we are looking for some of these talented people to join our rapidly growing team.”

TELEFLEX CREATING 100 NEW JOBS AT ITS ATHLONE OFFICE Medical devices company Teleflex is to create more than 100 new, high skilled positions over the next three years at its Athlone office.

The Athlone site was established in 2007 and now employs more than 150 people who support the company’s growing business in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and India. It is involved in front office functions such as administration, customer service, finance, human resources, information technology, quality, operations and research and

development.

“In the past seven years, Teleflex has worked closely with IDA Ireland to develop a successful operation for our international business,” said Benson Smith, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Teleflex.

“Our continued investment demonstrates our confidence that we can recruit and develop the talented people we will need to support the long-term growth of our company.

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CITRIX TO BOOST DUBLIN WORKFORCE BY 50 THIS YEAR Mobile technology multinational Citrix is creating 50 new jobs in Dublin by the end of 2014, which will bring its total headcount in Ireland up to 265 people.

The open positions include roles in sales, IT shared services and technical support.

Citrix recently invested €540,000 in its East Point facilities in Dublin to ensure it has the capacity available for future growth.

Citrix Ireland country manager Grace O’Rourke Veitch said the company had been able to grow its business in Ireland and across EMEA because of the “fantastic” staff it has in Dublin.

Martin Shanahan, CEO at IDA Ireland, said the agency would use the example of Citrix’s success to attract other companies in the mobile technology sector into Ireland.

A number of Citrix business units operate in Ireland including sales, global IT operations, HR shared services and technical support teams.

In addition, the Dublin site has diversified to include software development activities, online content and customer self-help technology and product and programme activities.

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Grace O’Rourke Veitch, country manager at Citrix Ireland; Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton; and Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA

IBM OPENS €20M EUROPEAN DIGITAL SALES CENTRE IBM has opened its European digital sales centre at the IBM Technology Campus in Dublin.

The company said the €20m investment enables a new digital based system of engagement and transforms the way in which it engages with clients and business partners.

The centre is IBM’s largest multilanguage client engagement centre worldwide. It brings together a specialist IT salesforce working in 19 languages and will be a focal point for clients in 21 countries across Europe.

The centre is co-located with the IBM research and software development labs at IBM’s Technology Campus in Mulhuddart, allowing sales representatives to leverage expertise and specialist knowledge available locally.

“A strong Irish management team has helped transform what was once a manufacturing facility into a state of the art digital sales centre, which strengthens the importance of the Irish operations within IBM’s global business,” said IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan.

OPENTEXT EXPANDING GLOBAL CUSTOMER SUPPORT CENTRE IN CORK Canadian software company OpenText has announced plans to create 105 new highly skilled roles over the next two years as it expands its global customer support centre in Cork.

The company’s new operation will provide support for its flagship Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Customer Experience Management (CEM) products for both the EMEA region and global markets.

The Cork operation is one of OpenText’s three global customer support centres.

The company plans to recruit technical analysts with supporting language skills and senior management roles.

“Cork met all of our requirements for expanding our business in the region: a strong talent pool, a growing technology ecosystem and supportive public partnership,” said OpenText SVP of worldwide customer service, James McGourlay. “OpenText is committed to being a trusted partner to our customers, and having a local support centre in Cork will bring significant benefits to our European customers as they embrace a digital-first world.”

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DELL CREATING AT LEAST 50 JOBS AT NEW R&D CENTRE Dell has started recruiting for at least 50 technical and engineering roles for a new commerce services R&D centre it has decided to locate in Cherrywood in Dublin.

The team of software engineers that will be based at the centre will play a pivotal role in the evolution of Dell’s online offerings, according to the company.

“As an e-commerce pioneer and one of the world’s largest online retailers, Dell is uniquely positioned to understand the quickly evolving demands of this space and the customers it serves,” said Dell’s chief information officer Paul Walsh.

“We’re committed to rapid innovation that will ensure that Dell.com is a resource for customers and partners of all sizes for years to come.”

This investment follows the decision in September 2013 to locate the EMEA headquarters for Dell’s financial services business in Ireland.

Currently employing around 2,300 people in Ireland, Dell has operations in Cork, Limerick and Dublin.

Gerry Moan, SmartInvest; Jeremy Whyte, SWG Inc; Minister of State Damien English; Michael McLoughlin, Connect Ireland; Mike Hoprich, MDS Global Technology; and Jim Luciano, SWG Inc

CLEARSTREAM TECHNOLOGIES EXPANDS OPERATIONS IN CO WEXFORD Co Wexford-based medical devices manufacturer ClearStream Technologies has completed a 50,000 sq ft extension to its existing facility which could accommodate an additional 200 positions.

Established in 1996, ClearStream is a developer and manufacturer of minimally invasive medical devices such as catheters and stents that are used in interventional procedures such as angioplasty.

In 2011 the company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of US medical device manufacturer CR Bard Inc and is now part of the Bard Peripheral Vascular Division.

Since then, ClearStream has added 160 jobs to its workforce, bringing its current headcount to 410 people, with around 100 of these jobs being added in the past four months.

This expansion by ClearStream allows the company to add additional capacity in Enniscorthy to build on its current product portfolio and potentially add new products.

MDS AND SWG INC SET UP IN KELLS

American companies MDS Global Technologies and SWG Inc have opened international headquarters in Kells Enterprise Technology Centre, where they plan to create 50 new jobs.

The MDS operation in Kells will manufacture IP equipment, as well as heading up the global sales, technical support, administrative and financial divisions of the company.

SWG buys, sells and repairs wireless and network equipment. Its first operation outside the US, the Co Meath office will house an R&D team as well as repurposing equipment.

The companies were introduced to Ireland through ConnectIreland in association with IDA Ireland and SmartInvest, a transatlantic accelerator fund for high potential technology companies.

42 NEW JOBS FOR ASPEN IN CITYWEST Aspen Pharma has announced 42 new jobs at its Citywest European operations centre.

The new jobs will bring Aspen’s total workforce in Ireland to 100 within the next 12 months.

The company first established an operation in Ireland in 2010.

It also set up a global regulatory, pharmacovigilance, quality assurance and supply projects centre in Citywest in 2012.

Stephen Saad, the company’s group chief executive, said Ireland’s strong pharmaceutical sector provides a workforce with the specialised skills required by the company and a strong regulatory and business environment.

OPTEL VISION SETTING UP EMEA CENTRE IN LIMERICK Canadian manufacturing equipment company Optel Vision is setting up an EMEA manufacturing and operations centre in Limerick, at the former ON Semiconductor facility at Raheen Business Park.

The company, which was established in Quebec in 1989 and specialises in track and trace and vision inspection systems, said the new centre will create 140 new jobs over the next three years. The roles will be in engineering, design, assembly, testing, customer support, sales, HR, finance and administration activities.

This will be Optel Vision’s first operation and engineering service outside of North America as it moves to build up its presence in the European market.

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The pharma

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Ireland’s pharma sector has been boosted by a stream of new investment in recent years

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‘We’d be very positive that as a result of the new investments going in at the moment we’ll probably see an increase in exports taking place in the next couple of years’

Despite the very real impact of the patent cliff, the pharma industry in Ireland has been boosted by a stream of significant new investments in recent years, particularly in the biopharmaceutical space. According to Matt Moran, director of Ibec group PharmaChemical Ireland, which represents the industry in Ireland, an estimated €3bn in capital expenditure is currently going into the ground in the sector here.

The statistics around Ireland’s pharma sector are impressive: nine of the world’s top 10 pharma companies have operations here; Ireland is the eighth largest producer and the fifth largest exporter of pharmaceuticals globally; 120 pharmaceutical companies have bases in this country; and 33 pharma and biopharma plants are FDA approved.

Pharma-chemical products make up half the total goods exported from Ireland making the sector critical from an external trade perspective. In 2013, the value of exports was just over €50bn, down by 8pc or around €5bn from the previous year. This followed a fall of under 2pc in 2012 over 2011 as the impacts of the cliff started to take hold – Ireland manufactures in part or full six of the top ten blockbusters drugs that have or will come off patent between 2011 and 2016.

“There was definitely a fall in exports driven by the patent cliff and related issues,” says Moran. “Another impact of the cliff and general over capacity in the sector has been a number of high-profile mergers which have undoubtedly had impact in this country with a number of high profile plant closures.

“Balanced against this has been a more or less continuous stream of new investments over the past couple of years.

In the main these investments are in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, high end chemical synthesis or product and process development.”

And the fall in exports in the sector is starting to reverse, he says. “We’d be very positive that as a result of the new investments going in at the moment we’ll probably see an

increase in exports taking place in the next couple of years.”

The current series of investments is expected to result in the creation of more than 2,000 new direct jobs in the sector. At the moment, pharma in Ireland employs around 25,000 people directly and another 25,000 indirectly. And they’re high quality jobs. “Over 65pc of those employed in the industry have a third-level qualification, so it’s important place of work for those who have graduated, especially in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects,” says Moran.

The recent investments have come on the back of a strategic focus on the sector, particularly in the area of biopharmaceuticals. “We had been lobbying very hard for investment, especially in biotech. I think we’ve probably been more successful than we even thought we would be in attracting investment – the Bristol-Myers Squibb investment [of over €700m] is an example of that.

“We really are on the map now as being a location for biologics manufacturing and that was the objective. We had also been pushing fairly hard for more investment in process development and product development and that certainly is happening. That helps to anchor the companies in Ireland and also helps to attract the new molecules.”

The investments fall into two main categories – expansions of existing operations by companies that have operated successfully in Ireland for some time and brand new greenfield sites by companies entering the country for the first time.

“The expansions tend to fall into two further categories – product or process development and advanced for biopharmaceutical manufacture,” says Moran.

Advanced manufacture includes high potency synthesis with options for continuous or plug and play operations such as the new synthesis plant recently opened by Pfizer at its Ringaskiddy facility. “This is actually a retrofit of an older phased out plant,” says Moran. “It’s an excellent example of

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Leonard Bell, MD, Alexion Pharmaceuticals with An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton

a plant moving in tandem with cutting edge developments in the space at a global level.”

MSD at Ballydine, meanwhile, has recently established a state-of-the-art product development facility co-located with its chemical synthesis plant and involving a €100m investment. The facility is concentrating on drug development and chemical synthesis.

Elsewhere, Abbvie recently completed an €85m expansion at its pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in Sligo. The company said the investment builds capability for existing products and potential therapies in its pipeline.

And Mylan is in the process of investing €75m a year over a five-year period to 2016 developing its pharmaceutical capabilities in Dublin and Galway. This includes funding for expanded R&D capabilities.

Growing the biopharma manufacturing base is also hugely important for the future of the industry. “It is vital that Ireland is a major player in this arena. The recent explosion of investment in this field in this country has pushed Ireland to second place behind the USA as a centre for the manufacture and development of such products,” Moran says.

Top of the list of that explosion of investment was the

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announcement in November 2014 that Bristol-Myers Squibb is planning to build a new state-of-the-art, large-scale biologics manufacturing facility at its Cruiserath site in Co Dublin that will produce multiple therapies for the company’s growing biologics portfolio. The 30,000-sq metre project will house six 15,000-litre bioreactors and a purification area as well as office and laboratory space. The plant will be built on the grounds of the company’s existing bulk pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. Bristol-Myers Squibb says it expects the investment to be around US$900m (€734m).

Other high profile and high value investments in this space include Eli Lilly’s €330m spend on a second biomanufacturing facility at its Kinsale campus. ”What makes the Eli Lilly investment even more interesting is that fact that it is colocated with existing chemical manufacture, making this site unique in Ireland and Europe,” says Moran. “Eli Lilly continues to invest in product and process development at the Co Cork site, making it a living example of the development plus manufacturing strategy espoused in the PharmaChemical Ireland series of strategic plans.”

Allergan, meanwhile, is spending US$350m on a new biologics facility in Westport. The investment will enable the

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company to expand the manufacturing capacity for Botox and develop a manufacturing base for the next generation of biologic products currently in the Allergan pipeline.

Pfizer is investing €145m at its Grange Castle biotechnology manufacturing site in Dublin that will enable it to introduce two new processing suites and expand current production and product testing capabilities. Pfizer’s Grange Castle facility is one of the largest biotech manufacturing sites in the world and currently produces two of the company’s blockbuster medicines – Enbrel and Prevenar 13.

Elsewhere, MSD at Brinny , Genzyme-Sanofi in Waterford and Amgen in Dublin are all continuing to invest in their biotech operations.

NEW CONCEPTS Making up the rest of the capital being invested are a number of companies that are new to Ireland. These are generally emerging biotech companies tending to specialise in the rare or orphan disease space - similar to Genzyme, which established in Ireland a number of years ago, says Moran.

“These are very high value products aimed at diseases of unmet therapeutic need in the main,” he says. “The value of these products means that they can achieve blockbuster or close to blockbuster status relatively quickly and from a national perspective can replace revenues lost as a result of the patent cliff.”

A good example of these companies that are relatively new to Ireland is Alexion, which has embarked on a threephase investment here. Earlier this year, it revealed it was acquiring part of the part of the original Elan plant in Athlone to establish aseptic filling operations in the country. The company is also investing €75m in two locations in Dublin that will house its new global supply chain facility, as well as warehousing, laboratory and packaging operations. Alexion plans to employ 300 people in Ireland by 2016.

In Limerick, meanwhile, Regeneron is investing €240m in a state-of-the art, biopharmaceutical production facility within an 11.88 hectare site, previously owned by Dell in the Raheen Business Park, Limerick. The investment programme will involve the refurbishment of existing buildings on the site and the construction of a quality control laboratory to transform the site into a world-class biopharmaceutical campus. Up to 300 people are expected to be employed at the facility by the end of 2016.

Elsewhere, Biomarin has bought Pfizer’s biologics manufacturing facility in Shanbally, Co Cork. Californiabased Biomarin focuses on the treatment of rare diseases and has a number of new product candidates in late development. It’s the first time the company has placed internal biopharmaceutical production activities outside of the US. And Jazz Pharmaceuticals is currently in the process of

‘We really are on the map now as being a location for biologics manufacturing and that was the objective’ constructing a €50m, 5,100 sq metre manufacturing and development facility in Athlone. Particularly notable is the fact that it’s the company’s first ever construction of a manufacturing facility anywhere in the world.

Ireland’s pharma sector remains strong and the country continues to be a location of choice for the launch of new products, says Moran. “There has been a patent cliff impact but we’ve had a strategic response and that seems to be paying dividends at the moment.”

AbbVie CEO Rick Gonzalez with An Taoiseach Enda Kenny

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RESEARCH

Bio

active

As biotechnology becomes an increasingly important part of the pharma sector, the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training is helping to meet the related technical and skills challenges, explains CEO Dr Reg Shaw

National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training

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RESEARCH

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Biopharma – the use of genetic engineering techniques to produce, purify, formulate and package large molecules – is an emerging and hugely important part of the pharmaceutical sector and therapeutic drugs developed via bioprocessing techniques are already having a significant impact in the treatment of many types of disease.

Its growing importance is reflected in increasing investment in the sector – the global biotech R&D budget rose from US$10.5bn in 2001 to US$103bn in 2012. Product sales for biotech therapies, meanwhile, were up by 353pc to US$163bn in the same period. Between 2001 and 2012, the biotech pipeline increased by 155pc, from 355 to 907 treatments.

According to Dr Reg Shaw, CEO of the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), the vast majority of innovative medicines designed to meet serious illness are emerging from the bio-industry. And, in disease areas where there is a significant unmet need, biotech products are becoming ever more important.

‘Last year, around 2,000 people went through our training programmes and represented most of the blue chip companies that are here’ At the moment, over half of the medicines in the drug pipeline are biotech products and, by 2016, over half of the top 10 drugs in the world are expected to be produced through bioprocessing techniques.

The good news for Ireland is that, mirroring its standing in the traditional pharmaceutical sector, it is becoming a significant player in the global biopharma arena. Biotech manufacturing sites in Ireland have increased fivefold since 2003. And, recent large scale investments by companies including Allergan, Genzyme, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bristol Meyer Squibb have made Ireland one of the top countries in the world for the manufacture and development of biotech products.

Apart from the fact that Ireland has such a strong existing pharma base, its attractiveness as a destination for biopharma investment is boosted by the presence of NIBRT. The centre’s main roles include training and educating people to work in the bioprocessing industry; collaborating with industry on scientific research to drive innovation; providing a test bed for new technologies and processes; and working with the indigenous sector.

EARLY DAYS OF BIOTECH Shaw traces NIBRT’s roots right back to the early days of biotech in Ireland, specifically Wyeth’s US$2.2bn investment in its Grangecastle facility, which became operational in 2005 and produces rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel.

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“They could not find a facility to train the large numbers of people they required in quality control, analytical skills and operational skills,” says Shaw, who was then general manager at the facility. “At the time, we sent around 130 people to a facility in Basel run by Novartis for training. That was the genesis for the idea that Ireland needed a training facility in order to promote additional investment in this area.”

The institute used temporary facilities in UCD before the construction of its €57m purpose-built facility, which was supported by the State through IDA Ireland and opened its doors in 2011. The institute is partnered with the higher education institutions with an interest in biopharma, including

effective solutions.

“Last year, around 2,000 people went through our training programmes and represented most of the blue chip companies that are here,” says Shaw. “Most of the programmes are tailored to a company’s individual requirements.”

For example, last year the centre delivered corporate training for Amgen’s facilities in the US and Puerto Rico.

“They sent around 80 people through the year for training,” he explains.

“If you have an operating facility and are making product, it’s very difficult to train people. It’s much more useful if you can work on a scaled down facility where, if you make

‘Our mission going forward is to continue to work with industry to identify training and research requirements and to mobilise our infrastructure and expertise to continue to support the biopharma sector’ UCD, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University and the Institute of Technology, Sligo, which have been involved since the beginning. A key mandate is to work with academic partners to facilitate collaborations with industry.

Its training facility – which Shaw describes as the biopharma equivalent of a flight simulator – features a 6,500 sq metre state-of-the-art pilot scale manufacturing plant.

The institute’s training approach is based on a ‘5 Cs’ model – competency-based learning, customised courses, certified programmes, continuous professional development and cost

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mistakes and if you cause contamination, it has no impact on the commercial operations. Also, you can get more hands-on training on a scaled down piece of equipment.”

A mix of classroom and practical training is on offer. “I’m not aware of any other facility in a large scale like we have that’s a full replica of an operating facility. It gives people tremendous opportunity to actually practise what they’re going to implement in their own employment.”

NIBRT also offers research and infrastructure focused on addressing some of the key challenges in biopharma

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RESEARCH manufacturing. Its research teams are involved in collaborative work with industrial clients to develop practical solutions to biopharma manufacturing issues, as well as working with academic and industry partners to win funding from national and international agencies. They’re also involved in research commercialisation and contract analytic research.

NIBRT is unique in providing a worldclass research infrastructure along with state-of-the-art training facilities under one roof, says Shaw. “There are some countries catching up but there’s nothing substantial in place at this point in time.”

And the facility’s services are playing an important role in attracting further investment in biopharma in Ireland. Shaw and his colleagues meet with companies that already have a presence in Ireland and are looking to attract new projects and NIBRT is also part of the IDA itinerary when potential investors are visiting Ireland.

Following the recent announcement by Bristol-Myers Squibb that it is investing US$900m in a large scale biologics manufacturing facility in Dublin that will employ between 350 and 400 skilled professionals, IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan said NIBRT was a key part of Ireland’s offering.

Another recent large scale investment in the biotech sphere has been Regeneron’s US$300m manufacturing facility in Limerick on the site of the former Dell operation. The company is planning to create 300 jobs by 2016.

“When they learnt about the NIBRT facility, it was a very big attraction for them,” says Shaw. “They knew straight away that as they recruited people they had a custom-built facility to train them. We’re already in discussions about developing training programmes and these will start to be delivered early next year.”

NIBRT is also working to become more embedded with start-up companies and to upskill and support job creation

NIBRT launched an international master’s in biopharmaceutical science in association with IT Sligo in September 2014. The industry-led programme aims to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of the principal scientific and engineering challenges in the manufacture of biopharmaceutical products.

The MSc is delivered online, on a part-time basis with elective placements – cell culture processing lab; protein purification processing lab; and biopharmaceutical analytical techniques lab – in Nibrt.

NIBRT’s atrium

in the indigenous bioprocessing sector, Shaw says. “We’re in discussions with or are intending to have various collaboration arrangements with a number of companies.”

There’s a small, but growing coterie of indigenous startups in the biopharma space. “We’re working with Enterprise Ireland on a number of fronts in this area and trying to make the facility available, even if it’s only a simple thing like providing meeting rooms.

“We also host open days and other events. We had a careers day in June where we had around 16 companies participating and a couple of hundred applicants coming in and interacting with those entities.

“We would see ourselves as being as broad as possible in providing support, whether it’s upskilling people, helping people on the first rung of the ladder, introducing people to companies and introducing companies to vendors.

“Our mission going forward is to continue to work with industry to identify training and research requirements and to mobilise our infrastructure and expertise to continue to support the biopharma sector.”

While Shaw says there has been good uptake in the first year, he believes the programme will take a couple of years to grow.

It also presents opportunities for new international revenue streams.

“We’re in discussions with the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology for a similar programme over that side of the world, where they would do the practical side of the training and we would do the online component from here.

That will probably be launched next September.”

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INVESTMENT LINKS

Hidden

champions As a source of foreign direct investment, Europe continues to be a hugely important market for Ireland, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

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Europe is a very important market for Ireland in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) with 400 of the 1,150 overseas companies with operations here headquartered in EU member states.

By the end of December, over 2,000 jobs will have been announced by companies from European territories this year, with more than 40 investments approved, 16 of which are new projects, according to Andrew Vogelaar, acting head of European investment at IDA Ireland.

“In terms of market share of FDI the US is No 1 but Germany and the UK are in strong joint second positions, with 96 and 95 companies present here from these countries, respectively.

“The fourth most important market is France, with 48 companies, followed by the Netherlands with 33, while Italy and Switzerland each have 30.”

Further illustrating the importance of Europe to Ireland, Vogelaar notes that the US (21pc), Britain (14pc), Belgium (13pc) and Germany (8pc) were Ireland’s main export markets in 2013, accounting for 56pc of the value of goods exports, which amounted to a total of €86.9bn, according to the Central Statistics Office.

Sectors that have been performing strongly in recent years in terms of attracting investments from European countries include life sciences, information and communications technology (ICT) and financial services.

Vogelaar cites France’s Sanofi and Swiss giant Novartis as key investors in the life sciences sector. “Both companies have continued to invest in their Irish operations over the past few years – Sanofi is pumping €44m into Genzyme’s biotechnology campus in Waterford, having acquired Genzyme three years ago, while Novartis’s new centre in Dublin is handling all of its digital media business, which is a first for life sciences in Ireland.”

The new Dublin centre is the fourth Novartis Ireland location.

The company currently operates manufacturing and development facilities in Ringaskiddy and Model Farm Road in Co Cork and its commercial operations are in Clonskeagh, Dublin.

In the ICT sector where Ireland is fast becoming a global powerhouse, Vogelaar highlights recent announcements from SAP, Ericsson and SQS. In May of this year, German enterprise software provider SAP said it expected to create around 260 new jobs at its Dublin and Galway facilities, 60 of which are in research and development focused on predictive analytics. SAP has been in Ireland for 14 years and currently employs 1,200 people here.

Sweden’s Ericsson, which is the fifth largest software company in the world, is hiring 120 extra people in Dublin and Athlone to complement its existing workforce in those locations of more than 1,400.

And German software quality company SQS opened a new expanded 4,000 sq ft modern facility in Dublin’s docklands in September 2013, committing to creating 75 new jobs within three

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VALEO VISION SYSTEMS EXPANDING GALWAY WORKFORCE BY 140 French automotive supplier Valeo Vision Systems is expanding in Tuam, Co Galway with the creation of up to 140 jobs in research and development (R&D) and operations over the next year or so.

Bringing the total number employed at the facility to 750, the growth is to meet continued automotive customer demand and to further develop next generation vision systems for Valeo’s global market.

Martin Shanahan, CEO IDA Ireland, said Valeo Vision Systems was “an excellent example of a company that continues to undergo significant transformation in Ireland”. years in Ireland.

The company, which is headquartered in Cologne, currently employs 200 people in its Dublin and Belfast operations. Since setting up in Ireland in 2002, employment numbers have increased by an average of 20pc a year.

“A lot of European companies with Irish operations are hidden champions,” says Vogelaar. “While US companies tend to come here seeking to launch into Europe, European companies are more talent driven. With the availability of skills in certain sectors tightening, they are coming here to chase the talent they need.

Multilingual skills continue to be a key factor.

“The flexibility of Ireland’s workforce really appeals to European companies as well. A survey by Forbes magazine has ranked Ireland as having the most flexible workforce in Europe.

An interesting development recently is that European companies are supplying products and services to the US market from here rather than their home country – SAP, for example, is running a global support service around the clock from Ireland.”

Another trend Vogelaar has observed over the past couple of years is the arrival of emerging fast-growth European companies to our shores. For example, the world’s largest ticket marketplace Viagogo.com, run by nine-year old UK company Viagogo Group, announced last July that it is opening a purpose-built operations centre in Limerick, where it expects to employ hundreds of people.

Turning to financial services, we don’t tend to hear as much about this sector in terms of European FDI compared to ICT and life sciences, but according to Vogelaar, it is in fact performing very strongly.

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“The most significant announcement in the past few years was Deutsche Bank saying in 2013 it was going to take on 700 extra people in Ireland. Companies that continue to invest here include Allianz, Zurich, Credit Suisse and Banco Santander,” he says.

“Ireland is good at regulated financial services and the funds industry is quite strong. A high skill set is required for insurance which is a natural fit for Ireland.

“Looking ahead if we are to continue to attract European FDI generally it is important that we keep producing graduates who are at the forefront of technology. We are fortunate at the moment that we’re producing the skills that European companies require.

“If you look at Europe as a whole, Dublin is up there with Berlin and London as a place to do business as well as being an attractive place to relocate to.”

INTERNAL RESULTS SETTING UP CUSTOMER SUPPORT CENTRE IN PORTLAOISE Internal Results Ireland is to establish a customer support centre as part of its Portlaoise operation, creating an additional 20 full-time jobs over the next three years.

Internal Results Ireland is a subsidiary of UK-based Internal Results Holdings. The company provides lead generation services to some of the world’s leading technology and telecommunications companies including Cisco, McAfee, Cognizant, Verint, Cnet and 02.

The Irish subsidiary was set up in 2011 at the same time as the company was established in the UK. Fourteen people are currently employed full-time in Internal Results Ireland, along with 15 part-time staff.

Late last year the company moved to new high spec offices in the Technology Building on the IDA Business & Technology Park in Portlaoise.

“IDA funding was a key factor in Internal Results’ decision to expand our operations in Portlaoise,” said Internal Results director of delivery Noel Hooban.

“This will contribute to the future growth of the business and employment opportunities for the community.”

SIDETRADE OPENS DUBLIN OFFICE

French software provider Sidetrade has opened a new office in Dublin where it plans to create 90 skilled roles over the next two years.

Founded in 2000, Sidetrade offers companies the opportunity to digitise the management of their financial relationships with customers through cash and credit management services and debt collection software.

Sidetrade has set up the pan-European platform in Dublin to boost its capacity to service worldwide customers and to support its business operation in Europe.

“Our aim is to get closer to our clients in terms of culture and time zones while offering the convenience of multilingual support,” said Olivier Novasque, CEO at Sidetrade Group.

CEO of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan said the agency has been targeting European companies through its offices in London, Paris and Frankfurt.

“As a French company based in Paris and listed on NYSE, Sidetrade is a particularly welcome addition to the increasing number of fast growth companies basing their business services operations in Ireland.”

The 90 new positions in Dublin will be mostly accounting and financial professionals, marketing and lead generation teams and customer support roles in a number of languages to companies throughout the EMEA region.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton; IDA CEO Martin Shanahan; and Olivier Novasque, CEO at Sidetrade Group

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up

Moving on

Three major international ranking reports out this autumn – from the World Economic Forum, World Bank and IBM – spell generally good news for Ireland, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

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Ireland’s competitiveness on the global stage is rebounding and international rankings are reflecting this as well as emphasising the country’s plus points as a location for foreign direct investment.

Three reports that have out since the summer paint Ireland in a broadly positive light – the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index 2014-15, the World Bank ‘Doing Business 2015’ report and the IBM Global Location Trends report.

In the WEF index, Ireland has climbed three places to 25th – its highest placing in the index since 2009.

The annual survey by the WEF assesses the competitiveness landscape of 144 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity.

These 12 drivers – or pillars of competitiveness - include institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial

Drilling down into Ireland’s rankings for other specific categories, the WEF places it ninth for low levels of irregular payments and bribes, sixth for strength of investor protection and first for low annual inflation as well as for low business impact of rules on FDI. Another interesting finding in the context of the Irish Government’s FDI strategy is that the WEF index places Ireland in tenth position in terms of its capacity to attract talent.

Chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce of Ireland Mark Redmond notes that Ireland ranks highly in international benchmarks for talent generally.

“We currently rank No 1 in the world for the availability of skilled labour in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and sixth in terms of ability to develop, attract and retain talent for companies in the IMD’s talent report,” he says.

“Ireland needs talent. It is the driving force behind the success of American businesses in Ireland and it is the driving force behind Ireland’s economic recovery. The international

‘Ireland has traditionally been a strong performer in FDI, but what comes through clearly from IBM’s latest and influential report is that the quality of projects won is very high’ market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. A rank of 1-7 in each pillar is considered among the best in the world.

The WEF attributes Ireland’s improvement in the rankings to the country’s financial market recovery, while noting that its macro situation remains “difficult” at a low 130th place, characterised by a high budget deficit [although down from the historic highs of four years ago] and high government debt.

“Despite these economic woes, the country features strong foundations for its long-run competitiveness: the functioning of its goods and labour markets, ranked 10th and 18th respectively, is solid, and its business culture is highly sophisticated and innovative [ranked 20th for both]; this is buttressed by excellent technological adoption [12th],” the WEF says.

“In addition, equipped with its excellent health and primary education system [8th] and strong higher education and training [17th], the country can draw on a well educated workforce, although the high levels of emigration in recent years – particularly of its young population – suggests that fewer young people will be available in the future.”

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reputation of Ireland’s talent pool is what keeps us ahead of the game as an attractive location for FDI.” The chamber launched a report entitled ‘Ireland: A Global Centre for Talent’ on 4 December.

Like the WEF, the World Bank acknowledges the efforts Ireland has been making in the area of reform over the last year.

Measuring regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, the Doing Business 2015 listing puts Ireland in 13th position - four places higher than last year and ahead of investment competitors such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Israel.

The report also states that Ireland is one of only two of last year’s top 20 to improve their ranking. From an EU perspective Ireland is second in the eurozone and fifth in the EU overall behind Denmark, UK, Finland and Sweden.

Ireland is also among the top 10 countries in terms of the improvements achieved since last year – no other OECD or EU country made the best improvers list.

As a result, Ireland made significant improvement across a number of indicators including registering property, getting credit and enforcing contracts.

“In the World Bank report, we are reminded that the ‘nuts

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and bolts’ of an economy sometimes get much less attention than the overall fiscal and monetary picture,” says IDA Ireland chief executive Martin Shanahan.

“The World Bank is recognising the efforts that Ireland is making to improve the ease of doing business here. Ireland’s improving score for ease of doing business will be positively received by potential investors.”

FDI PROJECTS Also likely to appeal to potential investors is Ireland’s recurring top ranking for the quality of its FDI projects in the IBM Global Location Trends report.

IBM-Plant Location International has developed an FDI value indicator that assigns a value to each investment project, depending on the sector and type of business activity and assesses the added value and knowledge intensity of the jobs created by the investment project.

Using this measure, the report says Ireland continues to be the top performer in the world “resulting from the country’s

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success in attracting research and development activities in life sciences and ICT coupled with high value investment in financial services”.

“Ireland has traditionally been a strong performer in FDI, but what comes through clearly from IBM’s latest and influential report, is that the quality of projects won is very high,” says Shanahan.

“It is pleasing to see companies not just placing operational roles in Ireland, but also high value R&D projects in Ireland.

This is also happening across a number of sectors, which gives Ireland a welcome balance to its portfolio of overseas investments. The latest high ranking follows on from Forbes late last year describing Ireland as the best location in the world to do business.”

The IBM report also places Ireland fourth by estimated jobs per million inhabitants from FDI, behind Serbia, Singapore and Hungary. Meanwhile, Dublin is ranked ninth of destination cities for FDI based on projects won, up from 14th in last year’s report.

GDP FORECASTS HOVER AROUND 5PC FOR 2014 Wealth management and financial advisory firm Davy announced on 3 December that it would expect to revise its Irish GDP forecasts towards 5pc for 2015 and expects strong growth in 2015.

This reflects continued growth in exports and the first recovery in the hard hit domestic sector since 2008.

Davy also signalled that Ireland is now well positioned to secure ‘AAA’ credit status within four years and to reduce Irish debt/GDP to sub 80pc by 2020 (down from its peak of 123pc in 2013).

At an event called ‘Davy on 2015’ the conclusion was that Ireland’s ‘austerity age’ has ended, giving way to a more neutral and sustainable budgetary stance.

Davy noted that the measures contained in Budget 2015, net of water charges, will add to household incomes next year, supporting a continued recovery in the domestic economy in 2015.

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Attracting

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Ireland’s talent pool is benefiting from a diverse international workforce keen to live and work here, writes SORCHA CORCORAN

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Cork City

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An anecdote told by Donal Sullivan, general manager of Tyco Ireland, shows the lengths that some people are prepared to go to for their dream job in Ireland. One recent hire, he says, drove six days from Romania to attend an interview for an internal auditor position at its Cork base.

“He had picked up on the fact we were hiring online so decided to drive across the continent in an 11-year old car using GPS and take the ferry from the UK. We had no idea of his calibre before he arrived, but it turned out we really liked him and offered him a job on the spot.

“He went back to Romania to get his things and brought two of his friends with him when taking up the job a couple of weeks later. All three had similar backgrounds as qualified accountants and forensic auditors. We took them all on, they found a house together and now they really like it over here. This recruitment experience was a happy coincidence – we weren’t proactively seeking candidates from outside Ireland, they came to us.”

Multinational fire protection and security company Tyco announced last January that it was establishing a business services centre in Cork with the potential to create more than 500 jobs locally over three years.

“We opened the doors of our City Gate, Mahon office in Cork last April and have grown to 80 people already. The sod was turned on a new 170,000 sq ft office building in Albert Quay in November where we’ll be occupying 75,000 sq ft in spring of 2016.

This is the biggest building project Cork has seen in a long time,” Sullivan explains.

The Cork centre incorporates a number of functions, including IT, research and development, software development, global sourcing, human resources, financial shared services, and compliance. Tyco also has a sales branch in Dublin.

“So far about 80pc of our staff here are Irish, including quite a few who have returned from countries such as Singapore, the US and Australia. Our experience so far has been that when it comes to the international experience we were looking for, people have found us, liked what we had to offer and liked the thought of living in Cork. We now have employees from across Europe, including from Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic.”

Sullivan says a big community of Europeans has formed in Cork because of the presence of the big tech companies Apple and EMC as well as major pharmaceutical multinationals – all of which would generally require language skills requirements to be met by native speakers.

“I think more than anything people like the security of knowing when they accept a job in Cork that it’s not necessarily make or break – they know there are plenty of large companies here doing good things and they’re not taking a huge gamble by upping sticks to live here,” Sullivan observes.

The global nature of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector means it is inevitable that a certain percentage of positions within multinationals based in Ireland will

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PART OF A JOURNEY Vice-president for SMB EMEA at cloud computing company Salesforce Sanj Bhayro moved to Dublin from Manchester in the UK 12 years ago when he was aged 23, planning to only stay a couple of years.

“From a country point of view, the change has been incredible since I first came here. It has been amazing to watch it and amazing to be part of it. In 2001 a lot of US companies were putting manufacturing operations in here, which was the reason why I came over as I initially worked for a company selling enterprise resource planning solutions,” he says.

“I joined Salesforce as a sales guy in 2004 and very quickly saw the proliferation of international companies, predominantly from the tech sector, basing themselves here. The impact this had on the country was significant. Suddenly the economy was changing.

In the space of six years it was young, vibrant and multicultural.

“I have stayed with Saleforce in Dublin because I felt it had a great vision and that as an employee I was part of that. Once I got used to the culture of the company I saw it offered great opportunity. I never had any designs on being a manager or leader but have had seven or eight promotions and this path for growth has been a major attraction.”

Bhayro says he knows a lot of people similar to himself who thought they’d only work in Dublin for a couple of years but ended up staying.

Having arrived in Ireland in 2000 to set up a European hub, Salesforce now employs hundreds of people at its two offices in Dublin – in Central Park Leopardstown and in Sandyford. It employs 15,000 people around the world.

Sanj Bhayro, vice-president for SMB EMEA, Salesforce

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Google’s office in Dublin’s Barrow St

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have to be filled by people of other nationalities.

Head of the ICT division at IDA Ireland Leo Clancy points out that under the Government’s ICT Skills Action Plan launched last March a target was set that 74pc of roles in the technology sector would be filled by Irish graduates by 2018, meaning that 26pc will still need to come from other countries.

“At present around 60pc of skills demand in the sector is met by the local education system, which means 40pc come from overseas markets, mostly within the European economic area,” he says.

“The Government has taken measures to encourage talent migration, for example by improving the situation with visas. If we can attract the top tech talent to Ireland, this will have a multiplier effect in terms of higher quality jobs and more opportunities for the Irish workforce.”

Action 20 in the ICT Skills Action Plan is to ‘promote Ireland internationally as a destination for high level ICT skills’. To this end a single website portal is being developed with agency

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and industry involvement. This will extend to careers fairs being organised abroad in 2015, involving companies with open vacancies, to attract expatriate and international technical talent.

The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (AmCham) is singing from the same hymn sheet. Chief executive Mark Redmond says that for Ireland to fulfil its potential, we must create the conditions that retain talent, attract it from overseas and bring home the talent that left us in recent years.

“We have been struck by the number of people who have recently returned to Ireland and been so impressed with the opportunities arising here. This message needs to get out more overseas.

“To achieve that objective the chamber, with the support of IDA Ireland and our third-level institutions, will shortly be launching an overseas communications campaign to attract talent back home. We believe this campaign will help Ireland’s national economic recovery and many of our members will benefit from the collaboration.”

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Redmond says a consistent message from American companies with Irish operations is that Ireland is a top location for talent.

“Speaking at last month’s Web Summit in Dublin, founder of Dropbox Drew Houston said ‘hiring top talent isn’t easy. And we’ve been able to do it here’, while Adam Bain, president of global revenue at Twitter said its team in Ireland was ‘not only the best in Europe, it’s the best in the industry’.

“Thankfully this has supported sustained strong growth in employment from US companies in Ireland. This is now at a record high, exceeding 130,000 direct jobs with many more indirect jobs.”

Born on the internet giant Google, for example, started out with five people in Dublin’s docklands 10 years ago and now employs more than 2,500 people directly from 65 different countries with further expansion and recruitment on the cards for next year.

“As Dublin is our EMEA head office [and the largest Google office outside of the US], roughly two-thirds of our population is in sales and services, with the remaining third working in technical, engineering, admin, finance and human resources roles,” says director of people operations in Dublin Helen Tynan.

“About 70pc of our workforce in Dublin is international. Our offices on Barrow St are like a mini United Nations. Because we sell to all EMEA markets from Dublin we need people that come from those countries who have native language fluency and local economy knowledge.

“The majority of new hires into Google are early career people, usually coming from college into their first job. They tend to stay for three or four years and then move on to other global Google offices to broaden their experience. People reach out to us to work in Dublin. I don’t think we have a big selling job in terms of persuading people to relocate here.

“Dublin is seen as a player in the world with a cosmopolitan feel like London or Paris. It has also built up the reputation as being home to a lot of big international brands. This means when people decide to take up a job here they’re surrounded by like-minded people.”

From Google’s point of view, having such a diverse workforce in Dublin has “huge benefits” from the business and innovation perspectives, according to Tynan.

“The workforce is highly representative of our user base in EMEA, which helps us to understand our customers’ needs better. We can test our products and services on our employees making the process much more intuitive.

“From a cultural point of view the range of languages and cultures brings great energy. There is always something being celebrated, whether it’s Queen’s Day in the Netherlands or Thanksgiving in the US. The restaurants here [at Google] are good at catering for all nationalities and during a tournament such as the Fifa World Cup there was always a match being watched in the communal areas.”

FEELING AT HOME Sales executive at Qualtrics in Dublin Kaya Van Enkevort finished her masters in marketing in Sweden in 2013 and was back home in the Netherlands for a few months when she started seriously looking for a job.

“I always liked living abroad and wanted to stay within Europe and preferably in an English-speaking country. I got a call from a recruitment agency telling me there was a great opportunity in Dublin but didn’t tell me what it was. I spoke to a friend in Dublin who works for a tech company and she was very positive, saying there was a great buzz and international scene,” she recalls.

“I hadn’t heard of Qualtrics, but I did a bit of research and the company seemed solid and in the early stages of internationalisation which I saw as an exciting opportunity. The EMEA head of sales Dermot Costello flew me over and told me what he expected and this very much connected with what I wanted to do – it was a start-up environment with everyone involved in building the company.

“Two weeks later I was in Dublin. That was a year ago and I feel very much at home now. Everything Dermot told me he made true. There is a great atmosphere and everyone loves doing things together in work and outside.”

Software-as-a-service company Qualtrics opened its European headquarters in Dublin in September 2013 and has recruited over 60 people since, 50pc of whom are Irish.

Dermot Costello, EMEA head of sales at Qualtrics

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STARRY NIGHT This is a microscope image of butyl paraben crystals grown from acetonitrile solution. Butyl paraben crystals appear with different morphologies under different growth conditions; the crystals were obtained by quickly cooling down the saturated solution. The crystals floating on the solution were captured under polarized light. Dr Lijun Jia is an SSPC PDRA, funded by Science Foundation Ireland and industry, at the University of Limerick.

Name: Dr Lijun Jia Institute: SSPC, University of Limerick

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RESEARCH IN THE

frame The annual Science Foundation Ireland Research Image competition celebrates images captured

by SFI-funded researchers during the course of their research. The winner of the 2014 competition is Anthony Maher – a Pfizer employee, former researcher at the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC) in University of Limerick and member of Kerry’s Senior Football All Ireland winning team – for his picture, ‘Starship Enterprise’.

AZTEC BAT These are computerised tomography (CT) images of a lesser horseshoe bat head visualised from different planes with denser bone rendered in blue illustrating the enlarged cochlea that bats use for echolocation. These volume rendered CT images were taken in order to examine bone structure as part of a collaboration between the SFI-funded UCD Molecular Imaging Facility (led by Prof William Gallagher; www.cbtlab.ie) and the UCD Bat Research Centre (led by Prof Emma Teeling). Technical support was provided by Emer Conroy.

Name: Professor William Gallagher Institute: University College Dublin

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STARSHIP ENTERPRISE This is an optical micrograph of a metastable form II piracetam (rough dissolving crystal) undergoing a solution mediated polymorphic transformation to form III (smooth growing crystal) in methanol at 25°C. Name: Dr Anthony Maher Institute: SSPC, University of Limerick

» ROSE GARLANDS This image shows zinc oxide nanostructures. These materials are quite useful for a range of applications including photocatalysis and solar cells. The image was captured using a scanning electron microscope at the Crann Institute, Trinity College Dublin.

Name: Murugan Rajendiran Institute: Trinity College Dublin

» CELL BIOLOGY AT NUI GALWAY A pseudo-coloured SEM micrography of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cell adhered to the NUI Galway clock tower logo etched into an elemental silicon substrate.

The logo substrates are written by direct-write laser photolithography and etched via SF6/O2 plasma exposure. Stem cells extend filopodia extensions to explore the underlying topography and locate sites favourable for adhesion.

Name: Manus Biggs Institute: NUI Galway

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VISULISATION OF THE CO-AUTHOR GRAPH BASED ON UCD RESEARCH REPOSITORY PUBLICATIONS “Aficionado is a commercialisation project with the purpose of creating an academic expertise location system for the purposes of collaboration building. The project aims to automatically profile the expertise of academics based on their publication output. We start by gathering publications (>3,500) of academics from the UCD Research Repository. We then extract the authors and topic information and use this to build expert profiles. A major part of the expert profile of an academic is who they have co-authored publications with and the image presented here depicts a visualisation of the connections between academic staff in UCD based on their co-authorship across publications. The image was created using the Gephi graph visualisation tool.”

Name: Kevin McCarthy Institute: School of Computer Science & Informatics

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NANO CATASTROPHE In life and in nanoscience pushing too hard too fast can result in disaster. Such was the case when applying hundreds of volts to a single nanowire device. In what looks like a scene following an asteroid impact or volcanic eruption the massive over-voltage has blown a hole in the gold contact pad. Gold metal and silicon dioxide layers are blown away revealing the pure silicon substrate base which all appear frozen now after a molten state. Nanowires are being investigated for next generation memory technologies and neuromorphic networks.

Curtis O’Kelly works with Prof John Boland, Amber and School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin.

Name: Curtis O’Kelly Institute: Trinity College Dublin

BETA III TUBULIN IN MYENTERIC PLEXUS OF RAT COLON 2 Confocal imaging of pan-neuronal marker beta III tubulin reveals high resolution 3D structure of enteric nervous system in rat colon. Cell agglomerates on the crossroads of large nerve bundles, called myenteric ganglia, are interconnected via an extensive network of fine neuronal terminals.

Name: Anna Golubeva Institute: University College Cork

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COSMIC Photoresist is used to draw patterns on surfaces in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. This image shows a silicon sample that has been coated in resist. The colours in the image are due to light interacting with bubbles in the resist and have not been altered. The dark field image was captured with an optical microscope. Catherine Doyle is a postdoctoral researcher with Prof John Boland, Amber and School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin.

Name: Catherine Doyle Institute: Trinity College Dublin

CRYSTAL GALAXY This image shows different polymorphic forms of carbamazepine nano-to micron-sized crystals: needle-shaped particles correspond to polymorphic form I while block-shaped particles correspond to polymorphic form III. These crystals have been produced using a ‘green’ supercritical carbon dioxide process. An Olympus IX53 inverted microscope with polarised light was used to obtain this image.

Name: Luis Padrela Institute: University of Limerick

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AMETHYST Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) consists of a thin silicon film on a layer of silicon dioxide, and has many potential applications for next generation semiconductor devices. This image shows the formation of silicon nano-crystals on an SOI surface via a thermal treatment process. The image was captured using a scanning electron microscope, and has been coloured for artistic effect. Prabhava Barimar is a postgraduate student with Prof John Boland, Amber and School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin.

Name: Prabhava Barimar Institute: Trinity College Dublin

2D PINT The photo shows boron nitride exfoliated in iso-propyl alcohol layered on top of graphene in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone. This pint was prepared by shear mixing of graphite in liquid, producing flakes of few layers with no defects. The method has been demonstrated at volumes from a few litres up to hundreds of litres, for graphene and other 2D materials. Eswaraiah Varrla works with Prof Jonathan Coleman, Amber and School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin. Thomas Swan Ltd has worked with Prof Coleman’s research team for two years and in 2014 signed a licence agreement to scale up production and make this high quality graphene available to industry globally.

Name: Eswaraiah Varrla Institute: Trinity College Dublin

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Summit

of scope

Dublin’s annual tech festival has been doubling in size each year and Web Summit co-founder Paddy Cosgrave believes it can get bigger.

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Dropbox founder Drew Houston

‘I think the more magical people you can bring to Dublin from the more diverse industries, the more incredible it can become’

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Can Dublin’s Web Summit really get any bigger?

Paddy Cosgrave – the man behind Europe’s biggest tech conference – seems to think so, despite the fact that this year’s event more than doubled its attendance numbers from 2013’s 10,000 delegates to this year’s figure of 22,000. The three-day event also attracted 614 speakers, 2,160 start-ups and 700 investors.

The event has also scaled up in scope and now includes a range of vertical summits – marketing, music, sport and machine are just some of them – with their own campuses, main stages, workshops and networking events.

The expanded scope was reflected in the range of speakers who took to the various stages. Among the speakers you’d generally expect to find at a tech conference were Dropbox founder Drew Houston; Hailo co-founder Jay Bregman; Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels; Brendan Iribe of Oculus; Google’s vice-president of engineering, Anna Patterson; and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and one of the early investors in Facebook.

Also on the agenda, however, was a range of names from the music, acting and sports worlds, including U2 frontman Bono; actors Eva Longoria, Lily Cole and Adrian Grenier; Game of Thrones and The Social Network producer Dana Brunetti; former footballer Rio Ferdinand; and this year’s Ryder Cup winning captain Paul McGinley.

To provide extra capacity, the event’s Main Stage, together with the Enterprise Stage, were

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moved from the RDS Main Hall to neighbouring Simmonscourt for this year’s Web Summit.

Asked at a press conference on the final day if the event was getting too big, Cosgrave said he thought it wasn’t big enough. “I think it can become much bigger and as it becomes much bigger there’s a network effect.”

He stressed the impact technology is having on so many different industries. “Traditionally a technology conference was very narrow in its focus. Now technology is really disrupting sport and music and food, and vertical after vertical, faster and faster.

“As the scale of the impact and the number of industries touched by software and technology increases, I think we have an opportunity to bring all of those communities together and deliver an incredible experience.

“The Sport Stage now has its own summit. The Enterprise Stage now has its own summit. And a lot of the magic doesn’t just happen inside the individual campuses you have here. It happens in the cross pollination. It happens when incredible engineers meet incredible designers who are both considering what they’re going to do next.

“I think the more magical people you can bring to Dublin from the more diverse industries, the more incredible it can become. However, I do believe that infrastructurally, there is an upper limit to Dublin as a destination.”

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Photography: Conor McCabe Photography

Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder, Web Summit

‘Traditionally a technology conference was very narrow in its focus.

Now technology is really disrupting sport and music and food, and vertical after vertical, faster and faster’

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The Sport and Music Stage at the Web Summit

‘We’re probably more like Glastonbury for geeks. There are more than 100 people working full-time all through the year and the average age is about 27 or 28’ Cosgrave also spoke about the importance of providing a complete experience at the conference. “We’ve taken a different approach and focus on the social element as well as that’s really important too.”

He noted that The Wall Street Journal has previously described the Web Summit as ‘Davos for geeks’. “Having been to Davos I don’t think it’s anything like Davos. Most people are not wearing suits and being ushered around by bodyguards and we don’t have a vast security presence.

“We’re probably more like Glastonbury for geeks. There are more than 100 people working full-time all through the year and the average age is about 27 or 28. Their experience of events is that for the most part they’ve gone to music festivals. The conferences they have gone to, many of them have tended to be a bit staid, a little bit boring and a little bit slow moving. We’ve tried to inject a little bit of fun and improve the experience.

“And a conference isn’t just 9 to 5. We also have an obligation to attendees that we create an incredible experience from 5pm until – if you look at some of the tweets last night – 5am.”

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal

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SUMMIT PICKS

Tony Fadell, founder, Nest

Speaking on the first day, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston discussed his company’s partnership with Microsoft, which had been announced that day. “We’re helping our users do more to collaborate and work between the platforms,” he explained. “The office team said one of their top requests on iPad was for Dropbox integraton and this partnership is offering their customers choice too.”

Houston said the idea for Dropbox occurred to him one day when he forgot his thumb drive and thought to himself that the future must be about the stuff following you around and not about leaving it behind. He said Dropbox was about solving a problem for himself.

When the company came to the attention of Steve Jobs, taking a call from him and meeting him was a career highlight, Houston said. “He said we had a great product and should consider becoming part of Apple. But I always listened to advice from a friend who said, ‘if you don’t want to sell your company then don’t talk about selling your company’.”

Tony Fadell, founder of Nest and a designer of the iPod, spoke about his company’s products in the home, fears of data privacy and connectivity and on making a greater societal impact through Nest’s work with Google, which bought the company for US$3.2bn in January 2014.

“There should always be a dialogue about data collection and what’s happening to the data,” said Fadell. “We’re being invited into people’s homes like a guest. It’s about trust and earning that trust.”

Fadell said Nest will stay separate from Google with its own data privacy schemes. “The data will not flow over to Google and their ad machine,” he said. “We have different business models. It’s our job to show our customers that we’re keeping the products secure and safe and to do it home by home and country by country.”

Looking to the future, Fadell said he believes transport is ready for the next disruption in our society. “Transport is huge and evolving very fast. We’re seeing self-driving cars and assisted driving rapidly evolving.”

Dana Brunetti, the producer of House of Cards, spoke about how the Netflix produced drama had disrupted the traditional television space. “Netflix said they wanted to release all the episodes at once and there was speculation that you’d lose the watercooler talk week to week but people are more sophisticated,” he said. “Binge viewing has been around since DVD box-sets. Appointment viewing is dead and the same thing is going to happen to movies.”

John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, was at the Web Summit to talk about his book Moonshot and his work as an investor and entrepreneur. In answer to a question, he said he believes the next Steve Jobs will be an adaptive innovator, someone who has the “genius eye” and can adapt to the future technological landscape. He also said he believes a ‘women in tech’ boom is coming, and that the next Steve Jobs may well come from there.

Actress, businesswoman and philantropist Eva Longoria spoke to Jemima Khan about the importance of women in business. “Women start businesses at three times the average yet can’t get funding,” she said. “I want to challenge all the women here today to be mentors to younger women.”

Evernote CEO Phil Libin described his company as an ‘anti-social network’ and said people ‘should be able to say less and do more’. Seven years into its 100 year plan, Libin said Evernote rejects all indirect revenue and doesn’t datamine user information. ‘We make money when people tell us they love our product – people use us to make their lives work as good as possible. Our motto is ‘it’s more important that you stay than you pay’.”

In his talk towards the end of day three of the event, PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel talked about a pessimism that permeates continental Europe and is very demotivating. “If you think you won’t be able to do as well as your parents it becomes self-fulfilling and limits start-ups on the tech side of things,” he said. “I was born in Germany and moved to the States when I was young and I often think about the difference between the two places and how different my life would have been if I had remained in Germany.”

Thiel, who is CEO of the Founders Fund, also rejected the idea that there is currently a technology bubble. “It was there in the late 1990s but not now. Bubbles are caused only when the public are involved and they’re broadly not in tech.

There are fewer IPOs happening and they’re also occurring at a much later stage. The bubble today is in super low interest rates, in government bonds and stocks that behave like bonds – as a result I have 3/4 of my net worth in private Silicon Valley companies.”

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SUMMIT SPIN-OUTS

The newly introduced Marketing Summit

While a number of vertical sectors had their own stages in previous years, these have now been expanded to mini summits.

For example, marketing, which had its own stage in 2013, now has its own separate summit, with workshops and networking events as well as a separate stage. This year’s speakers included Unilever CMO Keith Weed; Joanne Bradford, VP partnerships at Pinterist; and Nike CTO, Chris Satchell.

The newly introduced Machine Summit – focusing on connected devices and internet of things related topics – included speakers like Amazon CTO Werner Vogels; Anna Patterson, VP of engineering at Google; Danae Ringelmann, founder of Indiegogo; and Stripe’s John Collison. Similar speakers presented at the Builders Summit, which aimed to showcase developers, coders, creators, companies and start-ups that are building the very latest technology.

At the Enterprise Summit, talks and discussions were focused on the challenges for the enterprise industry over

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the coming years and how new technology will be adapted into the sector. Speakers included Coca-Cola’s CTO, Guy Wollaert; Rachel Scutt, chief data scientist at Newscorp; JP Rangaswami, chief scientist at Salesforce; and Mikkel Svane, founder and CEO, Zendesk.

This year also saw the introduction of a one-day Music Summit. Included in the line-up were Jeff Jampol, founder of Jam Inc and manager of The Doors, Tupac Shakur and the Ramones, who spoke about making legacy acts relevant in the digital age, while Adele’s manager Jonathan Dickins talked about the evolving role of the manager.

The Sport Summit included speakers like David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene; Richard Arnold, group managing director of Manchester United; Leonard Armato, founder and CEO, Management Plus Enterprises; former England footballer Rio Ferdinand; and former professional skateboarder Tony Hawk.

Over in the Food Summit, meanwhile, 400 food producers and chefs from Ireland’s leading restaurants, hotels, pubs, cafés, food shops and cookery schools showcased the taste and flavour of their food. On the inaugural Food Tech Stage, there was a focus on how technology is changing the way food is prepared, cooked and even manufactured, as well as the ethics of food and food production.

Following the main event in Dublin, 200 entrepreneurs, investors and professional surfers, as well as Taoiseach Enda Kenny, travelled to Westport in Co Mayo for the invite-only Surf Summit, three days of surfing, kite-surfing, cycling, zip-lining, archery, eating and drinking, as well as a number of speaker sessions.

In Cork, meanwhile, 280 tech leaders gathered for the Founders dinner, held at Ballymaloe House.

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End of Bono’s session at the Web Summit

LOVE & ROBOTS WINS ESB SPARK OF GENIUS AWARD Following an intensive pitching round on the Builders Stage at the Web Summit in Dublin in November, Love & Robots was named the overall winner of this year’s ESB Spark of Genius Award.

The Dublin-based start-up, founded in June 2013 by sisters Emer, Kate and Aoibheann O’Daly, crowdsources new product ideas, such as jewellery, wall art and smartphone covers, through its online marketplace, enabling customers to personalise products and participate in the product creation process. By collaborating with a community of designers and by using 3D printing, they then create customisable, unique, 3D printed and locally made products for design lovers everywhere.

Currently raising its seed round of investment, Love & Robots has already closed €200,000 from a number of investors, including Frontline Ventures, Seedcamp and two Irish angel investors and plans to grow its team of employees from six to 12 in the near future in the areas of sales and marketing, design and software development.

The company’s prize included €25,000 in cash for the business and a range of services to assist in the start-up phase.

Along with TenderScout and Restored Hearing, Love & Robots had made it to the final stages of the competition after being among 30 shortlisted start-ups that pitched to a judging panel in the preliminary rounds in September.

The entrants were scored on the uniqueness of their idea, their level of development thus far, and their potential for future growth.

“We are delighted to have won the 2014 ESB Spark of Genius Award,” said Emer O’Daly, CEO and co-founder of Love & Robots. “To compete against so many other amazing companies and to be selected as the winner is an amazing feeling.”

Eva Longoria – the most tweeted speaker at the Web Summit

THE NUMBERS This year’s Web Summit attracted 22,000 attendees from 109 countries, with 86pc of attendees coming from overseas. In addition, 614 speakers, 2,160 start-ups exhibiting for 700 investors, 1,324 journalists and 2,200 staff took part over the course of three days at Dublin’s RDS.

SOCIAL MEDIA NUMBERS In all, 120,000 tweets were published during the course of the event, with tweets coming from over 40,000 unique Twitter accounts. Tweets per minute peaked between 11am and 2pm on Tuesday (coinciding with Eva Longoria’s Main Stage and Food Stage appearances). Longoria was the most mentioned speaker at the Summit – appearing in almost 3,000 tweets. Oculus Rift was the most talked about technology – with the terms ‘Oculus’ and ‘Oculus Rift’ appearing in over 3,500 tweets.

THE FOOD SUMMIT BY NUMBERS Some 50,500 people over three days got to taste and experience Irish food at the Food Summit. There were 432,000 tastings of Irish beef, lamb, pork, duck, chicken, fish, seafood, fruit and vegetables; 12,000 tastings of Irish ciders, craft beers and fruit juices; 480,000 grams of Irish dairy desserts used; 35,000 slices of cooked beef, ham and charcuterie eaten; 10,000 packets of Tayto given out; 50,000 Waterford blaas, Ulster soda farls and Irish traditional soda and sourdough breads provided; and 10,000 tubs of ice cream and sorbets handed out.

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Destination

Dundalk Strategically positioned on the east coast of Ireland, lying approximately halfway between the country’s two largest cities, Dundalk is an ideal location for investment

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Dundalk is strategically located approximately midway between the two largest cities in the island of Ireland – Belfast and Dublin. Dundalk and its environs, encompassing a 20km radius, has a population of over 110,000 while within a 60km radius the population rises to over 763,000. With three airports in close proximity, along with an extensive rail service and three deep seaports within an hour, the town has an ideal infrastructure, particularly to support multinational investment.

Dundalk is also Ireland’s first sustainable energy zone and the town’s unique gateway status is further complemented by quality labour availability and cost competitiveness.

As a primary centre of growth, Dundalk was famous for manufacturing industries such as brewing and textiles, but it has evolved into a hub for technology, electronics and engineering. With quality telecommunications and energy provisions, it is one of Ireland’s largest urban centres, is the administrative capital of the north-east region and the business and retail capital of Co Louth.

While having a vibrant cluster of indigenous companies, including Irish Life, Digiweb, Boyle Sports, Glen Dimplex, Kerry Group and Ovelle, it is also a thriving hub of activity with multinational companies. Last year online auction and retail giant eBay opened its new European operations centre in Dundalk. The Co Louth facility provides support for customers of its payment service subsidiary PayPal, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Meanwhile, Prometric, a provider of market-leading test development and delivery solutions, established its test development headquarters in Dundalk in 2011 and employs around 100 people.

Other multinationals with operations in the region include Xerox, Coca-Cola, Heinz, Becton Dickinson, National Pen, Daiwa Securities Global Asset Services, Diageo and Satir.

In terms of infrastructure and property, real estate prices in Dundalk are very competitive and there are available offices and industrial/warehousing facilities to meet all business requirements. The Dundalk Science and Technology Park – IDA’s 44-hectare strategic site – is in an excellent location off the M1 motorway. The Finnabair Business Park comprises 36 hectares and is located just south of Dundalk town centre, adjacent to the M1 motorway and 45 minutes from Dublin Airport.

EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

Carlingford Lough

There are six universities and five institutes of technology, with a student cohort of over 120,000 and circa 20,000 graduates per annum, within a 90-minute catchment of Dundalk. The Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) is a thriving third-level institution with over 5,000 students and offers programmes in business, engineering, science and technology. It has diversified into humanities, arts, music, social studies and health and is a hub for research and new business incubation. According to its mission statement

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Bull of Cooley sculpture overlooking the MI motorway (Credit: Tommy McDermott Photography)

it “is fully committed to its role in the economic, social and cultural development of the region”.

DkIT currently has four schools, each one consisting of a number of departments with a wide range of programmes on offer. Additionally, the Lifelong Learning Centre offers many part-time study options and there are also many apprenticeship

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE CELEBRATES 25 YEARS The Regional Development Centre (RDC) in Dundalk is celebrating 25 years in operation this year. Established in 1989 by DkIT, it has supported more than 1,160 entrepreneurs, incubated 130 knowledge-based start-up enterprises and conducted 238 applied research projects.

It was the first on-campus incubation centre in the institute of technology sector in Ireland. It acts as the institute’s innovation support and technology transfer organisation and as a commercially oriented interface between DkIT and the industrial, commercial and business life of the region, and makes available the expertise, facilities and resources of the institute for the wider benefit of the regional economy.

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options on offer through the school of engineering.

The Ion Channel Biotechnology Centre (ICBC) is the commercialisation arm of the Smooth Muscle Research Centre at DkIT. ICBC represents the largest group of researchers investigating the control of ion channel and smooth muscle function in Ireland and the UK. The Centre for Renewable

As a major driver of economic development in the area the RDC has secured €24.3m funding to date.

Success stories emerging include Digiweb, Big Mountain Productions and Mcor Technology.

The RDC serves Fingal, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth and it has also worked collaboratively with companies and educational institutes cross-border with highly successful outcomes.

Its work in supporting early-stage knowledge enterprises has led to the creation of thousands of high quality jobs in the region.

In an independent economic study, it is estimated that the activities of the RDC are worth €38.9m to the regional economy every single year.

“The achievements of the last 25 years have been made possible by the original vision of head of development Gerry Carroll and the backing and support of the Dundalk Institute of Technology governing body and successive presidents,” said Irene McCausland, manager of the RDC.

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Mullaharlin Park, IDA’s strategic site at Dundalk Science and Technology Park

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GATEWAY LOCATION

Boyne Bridge (Credit: Tommy McDermott Photography)

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GATEWAY LOCATION Energy’s (CREDIT) research interests include wind energy, energy storage, bio-energy and wave energy. It also works with the Irish Wind Energy Association to provide training.

CASALA (Centre for Affective Solutions for Ambient Living Awareness) is an applied research enhancement centre and collaborates with industry, service providers and citizens to deliver product innovation for the emerging ambient assisted living sector. Netwell is concerned with the development of new ideas that enhance the quality of life and well-being of older people – smarter living for an ageing population – while the Regulated Software Research Centre is focused on the development of an international software process improvement framework for the medical device industry as a key enabler of best practice for the sector.

With the Cooley Peninsula as a backdrop for the Co Louth town, Dundalk is known for offering a great quality of life. It is located near Carlingford Lough and the Cooley/Mourne Mountain range, which has excellent water-based, equestrian and other outdoor activities. Its coastal location surrounded by mountains makes it the ideal location to enjoy the outdoors and many activities, including sailing, water sports, hill walking, fishing, horse riding and golf.

Dundalk also has a rich heritage and passion for the arts,

PAYPAL CREATING 400 JOBS IN DUNDALK Earlier this year online payments firm announced that it was creating 400 jobs in Dundalk. This brings the total number of staff working at the Co Louth facility to around 1,900 within four years.

The new roles are in the areas of customer solutions, risk operations, merchant services, telesales and operational excellence.

At the time of the announcement Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the news.

“This investment will increase Dundalk’s importance in the company’s overall activities and by developing new functions and expanding Dundalk’s footprint as a key site within the global company it enhances the long-term status of the Dundalk operation,” he said.

“This is great news for Dundalk and the north-east region. Dundalk is a very important site in our global operations for supporting our customers,” said Louise Phelan, vice president of global operations of EMEA for PayPal. “We have been delighted to be able to make a very positive impact on the lives of so many people in the area, both through our community activities and by virtue of the jobs we create, which have taken so many unemployed people off the local live register. In addition, we know that almost 1,000 indirect spin-off jobs in other local businesses will be created as a result of PayPal’s investment in Dundalk.”

the region has many live venues and cultural centres and a variety of annual festivals and cultural experiences.

Dundalk Institute of Technology

BD CELEBRATES 50 YEARS IN NORTH-EAST Global medical technology company BD celebrated the 50th anniversary of its plant opening in Drogheda, Co Louth in May of this year with an announcement of a €16m in new equipment to expand its production of BD PosiFlush syringes and create up to 20 additional jobs.

Drogheda is located approximately 30km from Dundalk.

Since 1964 the company has continually invested in technology, innovation and training. Over the past five years BD has invested nearly €73m in its manufacturing plants in Drogheda and Dun Laoghaire.

BD produces BD PosiFlush syringes, safety components for insulin pen needles and lancet blood sampling devices in its Drogheda facility, and employs more than 450 people between its plants in Co Louth and Co Dublin.

“Our additional and ongoing investment in our Drogheda facility reflects BD’s commitment to our associates, the local community and advancing the manufacture of high-quality products that contribute to the health and well-being of patients worldwide,” said Jerry Hurwitz, senior-vice president, human resources, BD. “To be in operation for 50 years is a great testament to the workforce in Drogheda and I am extremely grateful for the contributions of the many associates who have worked with us since we opened our doors in Ireland.”

Vice-president and general manager, BD Medical – Medical Surgical Systems, Europe, Roland Goette added: “We are delighted to announce a new investment of €16m on a new production line in Drogheda. This investment will enable us to serve even more customers around the world, while creating additional job opportunities for the local community.”

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Show time

The first national Innovation Showcase provided small Irish companies and entrepreneurs with an overview of the research, funding, intellectual property and assistance available to them Just over 1,800 entrepreneurs, industry representatives, researchers and investors attended Ireland’s first national Innovation Showcase in The Convention Centre Dublin at the beginning of December. Organised by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation in co-operation with IDA Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland, the event was also the first gathering of all of Ireland’s 38 research and technology centres of scale.

A key objective of the event was to provide companies of all sizes the opportunity to meet representatives from relevant research centres across the country to discuss potential collaborations. In addition to learning about the expertise and resources offered by these centres, companies could access information about all State funding and supports for innovation, R&D, Horizon 2020 supports, accessing intellectual property and the resources available in institutes of technology.

The main feature of the event was exhibits from the 38 research centres, technology centres and national research institutes and facilities that are delivering solutions for industry in six key areas: energy, food, health and medical

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technologies, ICT, manufacturing and materials and services and business processes.

In a panel discussion at the event, Enterprise Ireland CEO Julie Sinnamon spoke about how the agency is helping companies to engage with the centres and its involvement in trying to commercialise what’s coming out of the centres.

“Annually we would have around 35 spin-out companies coming out of centres and around 120 pieces of technology which are transferred, licensed into companies,” she said.

“Last year, one of the things we did was set up Knowledge Transfer Ireland with the Irish Universities Association and that’s working to try to make sure that everyone around the country knows what’s happening in each of the centres.

“We have a team at Enterprise Ireland working with the universities and institutes of technology to try to make sure that the right knowledge is getting to companies and making those connections.

“There are around 1,000 collaborations happening around the country between companies and the various research centres.”

The centres are also hugely important from IDA Ireland’s

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‘We have a team at Enterprise Ireland working with the universities and institutes of technology to try to make sure that the right knowledge is getting to companies and making those connections’ point of view, said the agency’s CEO Martin Shanahan. “One of the things we try to do in terms of attracting foreign direct investment is to showcase what Ireland has to offer and innovation is a key part of that story. International companies are looking for innovation. They’re looking for solutions to issues that they have in their businesses. They’re looking for high level skills.

“A very tangible recent example of the power of this includes the announcement by Bristol-Myers Squibb that it’s going to invest US$900m in Cruiserath. NIBRT – the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training – played a key part of our offering in trying to attract that investment. Johnson & Johnson announced that its information technology services division is going to put 100 additional people into Limerick and Lero was a key part in the story of attracting that investment and UL and LIT working together.

“We encourage multinationals to engage with the centres.

We work closely with Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland in ensuring that the research that;s being undertaken is amenable to multinationals interacting with those centres.

Shanahan noted that 70pc of research investment from the private sector in Ireland comes from the private sector. “So they’re heavily engaged. Our job is to ensure they’re aware of what’s available.

“We also support multinationals directly through assisting in the funding of research and development. The more innovation and research and development that happens in companies here, the more likely they’re going to become embedded, the less likely that they’re going to move on.”

BIG IDEAS GET AN AIRING The event also provided a platform for Enterprise Ireland’s annual Big Ideas showcase. Investors – as well as the other start-ups and researchers in the audience – got to hear twominute elevator pitches from 13 spin-out companies from Ireland’s higher education institutes.

“The Big Ideas showcase illustrates the quality of research happening in universities and institutes of technology across the country,” said Sinnamon. “It demonstrates the success of Ireland’s national technology transfer system and exhibits the high standard of research that this country is producing.”

“At Enterprise Ireland, we know how hard it can be to get from the ‘big idea’ to ‘big income’. We commend the founders behind the spin-out companies at this Big Ideas event, for taking the important step of converting their idea into a

living, breathing business.”

Dr Eric Risser, chief technical officer of Artomatix, pitched his company’s animation creation technology, which uses artificial intelligence to mimic aspects of human creativity.

According to the Risser, this takes the heavy lifting and repetitive work out of digital art creation.

Founded in early 2014, Artomatix is based at the National Digital Research Centre as a team in the VentureLab. It is currently validating the technology with artists and is in discussions with several potential customers and partners. It is seeking investment to complete validation and to scale and grow so Artomatix “becomes the new industry standard in animation creation”.

AventaMed has developed a hand-held medical device for grommet insertion into the eardrum quickly and easily in the doctor’s surgery, thereby reducing operating times and potentially eliminating the need for general anaesthetic.

Grommet surgery is the most common surgery in children and around two million placements are carried out each year in the US and Europe. Co-founders, CEO Olive O’Driscoll and CTO John Vaughn are based in the Medical Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (MEDIC) in Cork Institute of Technology. The device is patent-protected and licensed from CIT. At the moment, the company is raising funds to take the device into pre-clinical trials and onto the market.

CrewFactors has developed a team communications training technology for crew workers working in mission critical environments. Dr Brian Vaughan, co-founder of the company, pointed out that communication is one of the three pillars of aviation, along with aviate and navigate. “It’s so important that by law, pilots are assessed and trained in their communication effectiveness once every six months,” he said. Crew resource management (CRM) skills are currently assessed subjectively by instructors, he said. Crewfactors’ software, on the other hand, carries out the analysis of the critical CRM skills, thereby providing an objective measurement. The Trinity College Dublin company believes the market for its products in air transport alone is worth more than €400m a year.

In the food sector, Dairy Concepts is developing a new category of all natural dairy snacks for the global market using a patent pending ‘novel dairy technology platform’ developed by researchers at Teagasc Food Research Centre in Moorepark. According to the company, the first product Fruchee is an all-natural, hand-held dairy snack that combines the texture and goodness of cheese with the fruity Issue 9 Winter 2014 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW

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Elizabeth Fingleton, CEO, Obeo

taste of fromage frais and the engagement of confectionery.

The technology platform facilitates the manufacture of milk powder that can be combined with other ingredients to form dairy-based gel structures. “We are applying the product development, manufacturing and marketing approach of the confectionery industry to the dairy industry,” said CEO Tom Brennan. The company’s aim is to capture 10pc of the children’s dairy snack market in Ireland and the UK, which would be worth €50m in retail sales.

GlyocoSeLect has developed a way to develop bacterial lectins, which can be used to isolate and purify glycoproteins, an important class of compounds for the biopharmaceutical, food and cosmetics industries. The company was spun out from Dublin City University after the licensed technology, recombinant prokaryotic lectins (RPL), was developed there.

“We’ve already established a number of very significant strategic partnerships with specialist multinational companies across the life sciences sectors,” said chief science officer, Dr Paul Clarke, adding that the company is seeking investment to support further product development, its current interactions with strategic partners and also to expand its customer base.

Kinesis has developed a suite of technologies that measure

mobility in older people. The company’s first product is QTUG (Quantitative Timed Up and Go) a falls risk assessment technology that, according to the company’s CEO, Seamus Small, has demonstrated itself to be significantly more accurate at identifying falls risk in older people than traditional clinical measures. QTUG is a registered medical device across North America and Europe. The company, which is a spin-out from University College Dublin and the Technology for Research into Independent Living (TRIL) Centre, has signed a commercialisation agreement with IntelGE Care Innovations to sell and distribute the product.

MDevSpice is an innovative and cost-effective solution to assist medical device manufacturers in addressing their complex market requirements. Developed in the Regulated Software Research Centre at Dundalk Institute of Technology, MDevSpice is a framework and one-stop-shop for all of the software related standards when developing a medical device. It allows companies to quickly self assess online what software standards they need for best practice. It’s designed to save companies time and money when getting their medical devices to market, and to help protect against product recall once there.

Obeo is a compostable counter-top box for convenient recycling of food waste made from wet strength materials.

“The great thing about Obeo is it’s really strong and doesn’t tear or leak like our competitors’ bio plastic liners, but most importantly, it doesn’t smell” said Elizabeth Fingleton, cofounder and business development, Obeo. “We’ve an EU design registration and trademark. We’re first to market and focused on building a strong brand and releasing an innovative range of products.” The product is already on sale in over 120 supermarkets in Ireland and online. The company is seeking investment to help fund its international expansion.

OroPress is a rehabilitation tool that has been developed for people with swallowing difficulties (dysphagia), which affects an estimated 14pc of people over 60 to some degree.

Its developers describe it as a simple, wearable technology that measures tongue pressure during swallowing and allows patients carry out tongue and swallow exercise therapies and track progress. Dr Vincent Casey of the University of Limerick developed the underlying technology while working with Abatis Medical Technologies. Collaboration with Prof Alison Perry of UL and Dr Richard Conway has led to the development of new intellectual property. The target date for

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production is April 2015.

ShowGuider is a digital event platform that allows visitors to large trade shows and exhibitions to easily navigate to where they want to go using a three-dimensional model and waypoints to guide them. The system uses ShowGuider’s own indoor positioning technology, which can be used with a wide variety of signal inputs. “It’s all our own IP and our business model is also very different from the competition,” said CEO Tom Kavanagh. With 20 years’ experience working with international trade shows, Kavanagh began collaborating with Cork Institute of Technology’s Nimbus Centre for Embedded Systems Research in 2011 to design and build a system that processes radio and sensor signals to locate the user’s mobile device in real time.

Spark Surgical has developed Thorave, a patented keyhole surgical probe that delivers short bursts of electric energy directly to tumour tissue in lung cancer patients. “The treatment makes the tumour cells leaky, which allows for much greater absorption of drugs into the tissue,” explained Dr Declan Soden, CEO of Spark Surgical. “As a result, less drug is required and the patient doesn’t suffer from typical chemotherapy side effects. What is of even greater significance perhaps is the immune response sparked by the delivery of the electrical pulses. In the days following our procedure, we see a very strong immune cell infiltration, directly into the tumour.” Spark Surgical has its origins in research carried out at the Cork Cancer Research Centre in University College Cork. Soden said the Thorave device is ready for clinical trial. “We are incredibly excited about the

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potential for this technology to make a difference, not just for lung cancer patients, but also for other cancer patients.

Trinsights is a software tool that works out return on investment from training programmes and tells organisations how to transfer that training more effectively into the workplace. Trinsights arose from the work principal researcher Dr Paul Donovan did for his PhD at Maynooth University, where he is now a senior lecturer. He developed the data capture and statistical analysis to identify factors in training transfer that affect return on investment. He then worked with 12 companies to develop and validate the approach. The company is currently working with several large beta clients, including Facebook, Kerry Group and Ernst and Young.

WCMS is a custom-designed smart valve to monitor and control water flow to homes, businesses and regions. “WCMS is a patented, revolutionary innovation in smart water technology which is designed to address a host of current and predicted future unmet water control and management needs,” said Dr Austin Coffey, principal investigator at Waterford Institute of Technology and on the WCMS project.

“This is a world patented technology that is wholly disruptive to multiple markets in water control and management sectors.

We expect the WCMS to have widespread market appeal and we are targeting both consumers and service providers.”

Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation Damien English; Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland; Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland; Prof Mark Ferguson, director general, SFI; and Paul Cunningham, event MC

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Mark Castleman, entrepreneur in residence at Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent

Making an impact Bell Labs is aiming for deeper engagement with the innovation ecosystem with its new Impact@BellLabs initiative, which is getting its global launch in Ireland. GRAINNE ROTHERY reports Bell Labs – Alcatel-Lucent’s research and development subsidiary – recently announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at driving innovation by sharing the organisation’s own technology and research capabilities and engaging and collaborating with individuals, start-ups and entrepreneurs.

“What we would like to do is participate more in what’s going on, as opposed to us being in our little research silos,” explains Mark Castleman, who was appointed entrepreneur in residence

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at Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent in May 2014. “We want to create a way that we can have an impact and that the community around us can have an impact back on us.”

It’s October and Austin-based Castleman is in Dublin to announce details of the new programme – Impact@BellLabs – and the fact that Ireland has been chosen as the location for its global launch. Together with Alan Leddy, research programme manager for Bell Labs in Ireland, he has spent the last couple of

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hours outlining the initiative to a 20-strong group comprising members of the local innovation ecosystem. The response so far, he says, has been very positive.

The initiative itself has three main strands – tech talks, panels and mentoring; IP mash-ups; and Bell Labs Studio.

The first is intended to be a two-part event of around two hours in duration that will start off with an in-depth and very technical talk from a research party and be followed by a separate panel discussion with Q&A focusing on a start-up related topic like selling a company, raising capital, hiring staff, managing a company, and so on.

It’s a portable concept that could be brought to different venues around Dublin and Ireland, Castleman says. “One of the aims of this element is to build relationships so that those attending now feel that they know someone in Bell Labs. That’s very important because we want to relate into the community.”

The second element is the IP mash-up. “What we’re good at is IP so we want to bring the universities and the start-ups together and have them pitch their needs and their capabilities. We’re

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the first time in Dublin towards the last week in January. The first IP mash-up, meanwhile, is being scheduled to coincide with an event being held in March to mark 10 years of Bell Labs in Ireland. Finally, the Bell Labs Studio is expected to take place at the end of April/beginning of May. FINDING THE RIGHT FIT “Bell Labs as a company has produced enormous impact in technology and research,” Castleman says. “When we looked at the kind of programme we could put together, it wasn’t something like a hackathon or an incubator, but something more where we could engage where it suits who we are.

“Bell Labs kind of siloed over the last 15 or 20 years. This is an effort to break out of that, to cast a wider net in terms of how we relate to marketplace and the ecosystems that have innovators.

“It felt like these are very tangible ways that suit who we are but also fit within the Irish community. From the conversations with people I’ve talked to, they see Ireland as a place where IP can be formed and it can be exported to the world. It’s kind of a

‘Bell Labs as a company has produced enormous impact in technology and research’ going to match start-ups that have a need with universities and research that have a capability and at the end of 24/36 hours they develop intellectual property. That’s our output, something that is tangible and has value. This has potential for the long term.”

Finally, the Bell Labs Studio is a deeper engagement that will see the organisation itself bringing a problem and inviting a group of innovators to help solve it as a project over a longer period of time. “We’ll say: we see problem, we have technical capability, technical resources and maybe IP. We would like five or six start-up teams or teams of various kinds that want to solve this problem with us. It’s a challenge – they work on this for two or three weeks in our space, solve this problem, present it and maybe with their solution, we can go to market.

“I think it will be a great experience for external teams. And it’s great for us to get problems solved in novel ways. And, as we have the opportunity to see some of these solutions emerge, maybe we’ll grab onto one of these teams and ask them to continue it further or introduce them to a business unit or whatever.

“At a minimum it will be a great opportunity for these teams to work on a problem and create a solution as a sort of mini Bell Labs guest team.”

The tech talk, panel and mentoring element will take place for

unique property of Ireland.

“There’s a great start-up community and environment and lots of Government and municipal support and so we thought, let’s do it.”

When he first joined Bell Labs, Castleman says he visited as many of its offices around the world as he could very quickly in order “to figure out how far along they were with the thinking about engaging with the community or pressing their research into the marketplace and building solutions around them”.

The Ireland office was by far the furthest along in this regard, he says. “And they were furthest along on some of the things they were working on as well as their thoughts around how we engage with the community we’re in. To me it made perfect sense that this is where we’re going to launch this.”

The tech talks will probably be rolled out in three or four markets in 2015, Castleman says. “The mash-up, probably two other markets could pull that off, and maybe only one. We might only see that in one other market, maybe at the tail end of 2015.

With the studio I think we’ll only do one in 2015. That’s a deep engagement.”

Castleman says he knows of no other organisations that are involved in initiatives such as the IP mash-up. “We intentionally built it to be novel,” he says. “And it’s definitely a different approach and people are very excited about it.”

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Marcus Weldon, president, Bell Labs with Jonathan Coleman, professor of physics and principal investigator, Crann, TCD

Unlocking innovation Strengthening co-operation with third parties is one of the key remits for Bell Labs’ recently appointed president Marcus Weldon Appointed president of Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm Bell Labs in November 2013, Marcus Weldon was charged with overseeing the acceleration and unlocking of innovation in the company. “In this role he will strengthen co-operation with third parties and speed up the pace of R&D to ensure AlcatelLucent can respond to its customers’ challenges with agility,” said Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes at the announcement of the appointment.

Speaking a year to the day later, Weldon, who is in Dublin to present at the Web Summit, describes Bell Labs as probably the most renowned industrial research vehicle in the world. “That

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continues to be so. We’re internally innovating with 700 really smart people and we continue to hire people. But it’s sort of a closed ecosystem of innovators with our university partners.

“What we’ve done recently is realise there’s a growing set of innovators, beyond universities, beyond the traditional other companies we might collaborate with.”

To engage more effectively with innovation communities, the company has embarked on a number of new programmes.

The first has been to open new sites this year in Silicon Valley, Cambridge and Tel Aviv to increase its access to innovation populations.

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Second up was the launch in May of the Bell Labs Prize, a competition with a US$100,000 top prize that was open to external researchers and inventors and involved collaboration with Bell Labs researchers.

The third is the new Impact@BellLabs initiative started by entrepreneur in residence Mark Castleman. “The idea is that we use our expertise to help innovators find each other,” explains Weldon, who is also Alcatel-Lucent’s chief technology officer, a role he has held for the last five years.

“We have a wealth of technology expertise and perspective on the market – partly because we are an operating company and partly because we have so many innovators at Bell Labs who can guide other innovators as to where the pitfalls are likely to be in the technology or implementation.

“Really we see ourselves as advisors on the innovation process because historically, we’ve been very good at innovation – we’ve won eight Nobel prizes, a Grammy, two Emmys, an Oscar, etc.

But what we’ve never done before is share our perspective externally with how to innovate.

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appearing in the early rounds.

“So we don’t see a lot of new energy, new start-ups doing radically different things in the Valley. They recognise the funding model and talk about themselves as being the next Uber, or the next Airbnb. They talk in a very funnelled way about their ideas.

“What we’ve been looking for is a place where that’s not the case, where you’ve got a much broader set of innovation not all chasing after being the big guy but actually a more linear funnel, where the ideas gradually get pulled down.

“We find Dublin is such a place. Tel Aviv has its merits for silicon component innovation and security and video processing innovation. But Dublin seems to be like Silicon Valley used to be, a hotbed of innovation, broad innovation, a diverse mix of people with different perspective. And it’s really interesting to us for that reason.

“And we want to connect with that more, because it is something we’d like to be regularly transferring information to and from Bell Labs.

‘But Dublin seems to be like Silicon Valley used to be, a hotbed of innovation, broad innovation, a diverse mix of people with different perspective’ “Start-ups in isolation have to learn from scratch how to innovate. We can provide that perspective that says, look this is how innovation should work.”

Weldon says Ireland was chosen as the location for the launch of the initiative because it has an “incredibly innovative culture”.

Part of the reason for this is its diversity, he says.

“If you look at the Bell Labs we have in Dublin, I guess 30 or 40pc are non-Irish – EU generally, but not Irish. That crossfertilisation is very much part of the Bell Labs mindset. We used to import everyone into New Jersey [the organisation’s headquarters in Murray Hill] from around the world and they’d all work together in one location. New Jersey Bell Labs is probably 70pc non-American.

“Now, we don’t have to put everyone into one location because there such cross-fertilisation going on and Dublin is really part of that. It’s a hotbed of tech innovation. And there are a lot of young innovators that go with that.

“We find it’s an incredibly vibrant, interesting ‘not-Silicon Valley’ place. Silicon Valley has its pros but it has a lot of cons in that the big guys dominate the culture there. There’s less and less room for the small guys in Silicon Valley because the model of investment there is that they’re focusing more on late stage investment to make big winners. There’s lots of money piled up at the end, in the B and C rounds, but not a lot of money

“There’s strong sense of national culture and identity here.

There’s a pride in innovating here and not just all migrating to the West Coast. And I think there’s the right mix of national interest in this and support for the ecosystem from the Taoiseach and others.

According to Weldon, the initiative is altruistic, but with feedback.

“We may get nothing out of it other than facilitating innovation, some part of which may at some point become something more interesting.

“And at the end, if there are any really great innovators out there, we might try to recruit them. It’s a nice by-product of what otherwise is a process to help innovators find each other.

“And it keeps us current, it keeps us fresh and knowing what’s going on outside Bell Labs.”

The intention is not to turn it into something commercial, he says. “Some of the collaborators could be us, but it’s certainly not the intent that this will be the case. It’s really about teaching how to innovate from the Bell Labs perspective.

“We’re full of innovation but we were being perceived as if we were a legacy research institute. We’re aware that in order to recruit the talent we want, to have the ability to influence the industry in the way we think we should be, we needed to improve our visibility.”

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Dublin’s River Liffey

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Start-up

scene As Dublin start-up commissioner, Niamh Bushnell’s role will be to maximise the potential of Dublin’s existing business ecosystem, writes SORCHA CORCORAN One of Niamh Bushnell’s main objectives in her new role as Dublin start-up commissioner is to identify what she describes as “category changing and behaviour changing companies” based in the capital.

Bushnell officially took on the position on 1 October with the overarching mission to “develop a singular voice, image and platform for Dublin as a global technology hub”.

Funded privately through DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurs, the role was created on the recommendation of the Activating Dublin initiative led by Dublin Chamber of Commerce and Dublin City Council (DCC).

For two years she will work together with DCC and Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices to maximise the potential of Dublin’s existing business ecosystem.

“We need to establish which companies are really going to evolve the way human beings attack different problems in education, health, business, farming and aviation – those that are solving a real issue that is global in nature,” she says.

“There is a lot of needless complexity across institutions.

Companies that simplify complex experiences to their essence and make them more accessible and less expensive for people are the ones that need to be nurtured.”

Bushnell is the ideal candidate to recognise such companies with her extensive experience of the technology sector and the start-up scene both here and in the US. She started out at Dublin-based multinational Frame Technology, which was then acquired by Adobe Systems, and set up her first company – Pan Research – in Dublin in 1996.

Two years later, she joined Enterprise Ireland’s New York office as vice-president of software where her focus was on assisting Irish technology companies gain entry and expand their businesses in the US market.

In 2004, she moved back into the private sector, joining Orbiscom, a Dublin-based payments technology company that was acquired by MasterCard International in 2009. Most recently, she has co-founded and run two US-based start-ups, TechResources and Idirus.

Having moved back from New York in September 2014,

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DUBLIN DATA INITIATIVE On 8 December, Dublin commissioner for start-ups Niamh Bushnell launched the Dublin Data Initiative, which aims to map Dublin’s technology ecosystem.

It will be undertaken in conjunction with start-up Genome, a global non-profit that maps start-up ecosystems around the world and will be run in partnership with PCH, the Irish company founded

by Liam Casey, which designs custom manufacturing solutions for the world’s best brands.

Starting in January, the Dublin Data Initiative will collect and map data on an ongoing basis from start-ups and stakeholder organisations across the city providing key insights into, for example, the number of start-ups in Dublin, their operations, areas of focus and stage of development.

The first such mapping exercise of Dublin’s tech related start-up sector to be carried out, the Dublin Data Initiative will be a collaborative effort involving a broad range of public and private organisations around the city.

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‘In Dublin, we have a great product and an even greater product to get to – great companies with potential, a very engaged ecosystem’ Bushnell says one of the first things to strike her in her new capacity was that Dublin already had so many good companies – a view that was reinforced at the Web Summit in the RDS in November.

“I expected there to be good companies but couldn’t believe there were tens of them. Some that I saw pitch at the Web Summit I was super impressed with as they know who they are and where they’re going.”

One such company for Bushnell is Drop, which has created an iPad-connected kitchen scale that interacts with a recipe platform. It was founded by Ben Harris, Jonny McCauley and Jack Phelan. “They were at the PCH International stand at the Web Summit giving great demos. It is a clean, crisp product, so beautifully designed and so much fun. There were a lot of people at the Web Summit with products less easy to demonstrate but with equally as much potential, including Love & Robots, Tenderscout, Restored Hearing and Bizimply – I feel bad though for singling out a handful of companies because there are so many.”

A key part of Bushnell’s remit as start-up commissioner is to instil in such companies a sense that they can be leaders in a global context – that being Dublin-bred gets them places and gives them access to markets and international credibility. “This will prompt the generations coming after them to be globally ambitious themselves,” she explains.

“In Dublin, we have a great product and an even greater product to get to – great companies with potential, a very engaged ecosystem. All of this can be significantly advanced if we tell the story of now and the future. We need to prompt our entrepreneurs and start-ups to be comfortable about telling that story.”

With this in mind, DCC will pilot a public relations programme in January aimed at ensuring start-ups get international media coverage if they’re ready for it.

“As start-up commissioner I will be instigating a number of initiatives such as this, assessing whether they’re of value and should be extended. I want to also look at a programme around scaling companies. There are a lot of companies ready to grow globally and I want to figure out how to fuel that.”

Bushnell believes the story of Dublin can’t be told properly until the city itself as a start-up hub is truly connected – geographically, strategically and philosophically.

“One of the things I love about Dublin as a start-up location is how small it is, which should make it easier to shine a light on things in a more international way and bring on the next wave of

companies. We don’t want Dublin to be like Silicon Valley. While New York is on a much bigger scale, it has more similarities with Dublin.

“The density is parallel as there are hundreds of start-ups in a small area in both places and everything you need is a stone’s throw away. You can have lots of meetings in one day within walking distance or by jumping on a Luas, Dart or bus. The vibe and energy of New York and Dublin are similar.”

DIGITAL DUBLIN Bushnell sees ‘Digital Dublin’ as being 13 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, going down the canal from the Guinness brewery to the Silicon Docks area and out as far as Ranelagh on the south side.

“Conceptually that’s a very interesting footprint with a lot of history. Even talking about this footprint is a good way of bringing things together more cohesively. We need to connect clusters and physical locations to make Dublin much bigger than the sum of our parts,” she argues.

“The Activate Dublin report showed that everything is siloed and we need to create more unity through proactive initiatives.

“This could mean for example training programmes delivered by the various accelerator programmes being viewed more as an evolution so that people continue to learn and we engage discussion around things we’re learning in the start-up community.

“We are also exploring the idea of a community fund which would allow start-ups to access small amounts of funding for events, for instance, in a straightforward way, taking away inefficiency and time wasting. The more we do of that, the better.”

Regarding the bigger picture in relation to funding for startups, Bushnell notes that not all successful start-ups need funding, such as Teamwork.com led by Peter Coppinger and telephone company Ding founded by EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 Mark Roden.

“Normally start-ups do need funding to scale in order not to miss a window of opportunity. However, I feel it’s equally important for Irish start-ups to get international advice from venture capitalists before potential funders. Irish start-ups don’t connect with foreign markets early enough I think.

“I want to create awareness of how they can do that and how accessible international feedback is. It’s about knowing who you are and what your product is; where the expertise lies across the world – creating almost a town hall around you and your product.

“Irish start-ups may be thinking globally at the moment, but

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INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

Collaboration

nation A new hackathon series aims to encourage collaboration between product designers and hardware innovators

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‘DCU has exciting plans in the IoT and maker movement space and the hackathon is a perfect precurser to the arrival of Techshop Dublin on the Innovation Campus next year’

A new initiative from product development company PCH and Dublin City University (DCU) has so far seen two hardware hackathons take place with entrepreneurs, product designers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, developers and makers coming together over a single weekend to conceive and prototype a range of innovative hardware solutions and devices from scratch.

The aim of the DCU Innovation Campus and PCH Hardware Hackathon Series is to encourage collaboration among industrial designers and the next generation of connected device and ‘internet of things’ (IoT) innovators.

The first event, held in DCU’s brand new Innovation Campus in September, focused on connected devices. Over 120 hardware enthusiasts, as well as multiple prototyping equipment providers, formed into teams for the weekend to collaborate from concept stage to final product and ultimately develop a range of innovative hardware solutions.

The teams spent 46 hours designing and creating their products before giving a final presentation to a panel of judges that included representatives from DCU, PCH, AIB, Cisco, Tyndall Institute, Design Partners and Frontline Ventures.

The winning team was Pharmalytics, which developed and prototyped a connected pharmacy fridge with sensors to monitor temperature and medicines in the fridge. The device sends alerts to pharmacies ensuring medicines are kept at correct temperatures and do not have to be checked manually.

The team was awarded a €1,500 fund to continue to develop the product and an individually tailored start your own business course. It will also receive a number of electronic engineering consultations with PCH’s in-house team and a variety of equipment to assist in bringing the product to market.

Second prize was awarded to Homebox, which created a smart package delivery box that allows delivery companies to securely deliver a package when nobody is at home. Third prize went to Eco-pulse, which developed a product for monitoring water quality in residential areas not connected to main water sources.

Among the other prototypes developed at the event were an intelligent visor system, a connected way-finding helmet, a room temperature optimisation system, a sensored safety helmet, smart vending machines, a radar collision prevention system for cyclists, a tracking device for valuable objects, wearable devices for livestock to help in their management

and smart sensors for fire safety.

“We were genuinely amazed and excited by the level of creativity, passion and drive we saw from participants over the weekend,” said Liam Casey, CEO and founder of PCH. “From experienced tech enthusiasts to emerging talent, we watched as innovative ideas became a reality. It’s clear evidence of the fantastic potential that lies in the Irish IoT, hardware and ‘maker’ community generally.”

“DCU has exciting plans in the IoT and maker movement space and the hackathon is a perfect precursor to the arrival of Techshop Dublin on the Innovation Campus next year,” said DCU president, Brian MacCraith.

SECOND HACKATHON The second hackathon, which took place at the beginning of November, was held in partnership with the National College of Art and Design and the Web Summit and adopted more of an industrial design focus. This time, over 100 industrial designers, hardware enthusiasts and multiple prototyping equipment providers came together for a 36-hour multidisciplinary hackathon.

Following the final pitch, the Cash Up team, which developed and prototyped a connected cash register, emerged as the overall winner. The team received a €1,500 fund for the continuing development of the product and consulting from Each&Other to perfect the design.

Second prize was awarded to City+, which developed a bicycle-powered connected sensor. Third prize went to PillPal, developer of a smart pill box to tackle medical noncompliance. Other prototypes developed at the weekend included a control and monitoring system for urban allotments; a sensor to monitor the shelf life of products and a wearable sensor to monitor air quality.

“We are very excited to involve industrial design for the first time, and to see such creativity and passion for product innovation,” said Casey. “As we all know, design is the key to great products and great brands. When engineers and designers collaborate, you get the greatest innovation, and greatest value for consumers.”

“There is so much opportunity to develop the next generation of connected products, and we want our engineering and design community to join forces so that Ireland can play a leading role in this space,” said Prof MacCraith.

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s t c e

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r A

s s e c c u of s

The Glucksman Gallery in Cork

They set up their own practice in 1988 and husband and wife team Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey have been described by Riba as a “tour de force in Irish architecture”.

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John Tuomey and Sheila O’Donnell

Announced recently by Riba (the Royal Institute of British Architecture) as recipients of the prestigious Royal Gold Medal for 2015, Dublin-based Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey will next March join an illustrious group that includes Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Sir George Gilbert Scott, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto.

Approved personally by Queen Elizabeth II, the medal is given in recognition of a lifetime’s work and to a person or a group of people who have had a significant influence either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture.

Described by Riba as a “tour de force in Irish architecture”, the husband and wife team have been selected for more than 80 national and international awards and commendations since setting up their own practice in 1988, including being shortlisted as finalists for Riba’s Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture a record five times.

“O’Donnell + Tuomey’s work is always inventive – striking yet so well considered, particular to its place and brief, beautifully crafted – and ever developing,” said Riba president Stephen Hodder, announcing the award. “It is an absolute joy and inspiration to hear them describe their work, and always a delight to experience one of their buildings. Sheila and John are at the vanguard of contemporary Irish architecture and I am delighted they are to receive this lifetime honour.”

Being chosen as Royal Gold Medal recipients was an “unexpected honour”, says O’Donnell. “It’s probably an award that we’ve been aware of throughout our whole career, right back from when we were students, because the sort of heroes

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we would have had from all stages of the 20th century and even before had all won a Royal Gold Medal. So it was in our minds as a very high accolade and not one that we ever would have considered ourselves to be in line for.

“We like to think that it’s something that’ll give us a spring in our step and it’s something that we have to live up to in a way as well.”

The pair set up the practice after working for a couple of years in London in the late seventies/early eighties followed by a period back in Dublin when O’Donnell practised in her own name and Tuomey worked for the Office of Public Works.

Their first project together in the new practice was the Irish Film Centre (later renamed the Irish Film Institute) on Eustace St in Dublin 2. “It was the sort of project we always had in those days: we tended to work with cultural or educational institutions which didn’t really have much money but really interesting ideas and really interesting projects,” says O’Donnell.

“It was a good one to cut our teeth on because it was quite difficult – there were nine different existing buildings and we had to measure and assess them all.James We often look back and Whelton say it was probably quite an important way of founding the practice because it gave us a way of thinking about building in complex urban contexts. We found that even when there aren’t existing buildings on the site that we apply similar analysis and scrutiny of urban conditions to think about the history and past uses and past buildings.”

While still working on the project, they became involved

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‘I think Irish architects are very interested in place and in context and in the relationship between the past and the present’ with the Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School, which would become their first Stirling Prize shortlisted building in 1999. “Both those projects had a slow gestation and were very important to our career and are significant projects in terms of the life of the practice. In both cases, we have gone back subsequently and done additions. And that’s always a nice feeling to have a continuing relationship with the client.”

They were also part of Group 91 Architects, 13 architects from eight practices who won the Temple Bar Framework Plan competition and were awarded the commission of making new public spaces and surrounding buildings as proposed in their entry.

“Temple Bar was an amazing project for our generation,” says O’Donnell. “Between us we made three new spaces and a set of cultural and some residential buildings.

“Although obviously there have been issues at various times about control of pub licences and drinking in the streets, I think it’s still looked on through Europe as being a significant

urban design project in relation to cultural buildings in the city and public space.”

Other notable projects in the educational and cultural space over the years have included Letterfrack Furniture College, Cherry Orchard Primary School and the practice’s other four Stirling Prize nominated works: the Glucksman Gallery in Cork (2005), An Gaeláras Irish Language Arts and Cultural Centre in Derry (2011), the Lyric Theatre in Belfast (2012) and the London School of Economics Saw Swee Hock Student Centre (2014).

Of the Glucksman Gallery, O’Donnell says: “The president of the university said he wanted a building where the students would feel like citizens and the citizens could feel like students. He saw it as a crossover between town and gown or somewhere where the city and the university would interact.

And it’s worked out very much like that.”

Describing the gallery, the Stirling Prize judges said: “This building belongs to the canon of modern buildings. Miles Davis once said that what most artists do is to make simple things

COLLABORATIVE PROCESS Both O’Donnell and Tuomey are very involved in all of the practice’s projects. “Particularly in the early stages, we bounce things between us a lot,” says O’Donnell. “And we work through sketches and through discussion. We use words a lot to try to characterise and define what the real meaning of something might be, or what something should be.

“In the last 10 years, I’ve used watercolour more as a way of exploring at the very beginning a response to site or to an initial mood. So I might be making almost abstract studies about form or material or texture while John might be making sketches which would be perhaps sometimes very strategic, although we both very interested in strategy.

“We tend to pass the drawings backwards and forwards and exchange things. It’s something that we would feel is important to us and how we work.

“We’re both involved in everything so everything passes through both of our hands. At a certain point in the project, maybe after planning, one of us would tend to lead the team on it although we would both keep a certain involvement.

“John might tend to get more deeply involved in the technical side of things while I do a lot of analysis of brief and use and strategy and thinking about connections between things. That’s probably something we have more recently noted, maybe as we’re busier.”

Eva Green in Penny Dreadful

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complex, but what great artists (and of course that included him) do is to make complex things appear simple. This is one of those rare buildings that fits that definition of greatness.”

O’Donnell believes the student centre for the LSE, on which construction was completed at the beginning of 2014, is one of the reasons for the Gold Medal award at this time. “Together with the Photographers Gallery in Soho in London, which was also finished in the last few years, we have quite a profile or a presence in the UK, so people would know our work really well,” she says.

Another area where the practice hopes to have an increasing

extend the threshold and give a sense of sociability and the idea that people might stand around chatting outside.”

Next up was the 47-dwelling Timberyard social housing project for Dublin City Council, which ended up being shortlisted for the Lubetkin Prize in 2010.

“We were trying to make what we call a typical piece of Dublin architecture,” says O’Donnell. “We were looking at the scale of Georgian architecture, because this was a similar scale, and also at the local streets in the Liberties, and thinking, how do you make a contemporary architecture using materials and social influences that feel familiar and

‘Housing and schools really feel like you’re building society.

And the idea of building society appeals to us’ involvement is public housing. Its first social housing project was an 11-house village extension in Galbally, Co Limerick, designed in 2000 and constructed in 2002.

“We were trying to make something that continued the form and the language of the village by making very simple rendered, painted plaster, pitched roof houses that would grow out of the town,” says O’Donnell. “We were very interested in the idea of threshold and entrance and making a wide pavement outside the houses and creating a wall to protect it from the road. Each house has a bench at the front door and a planter and a place where you can put hanging baskets to

Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School

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yet that it feels contemporary. It was quite complex, because the space standards for housing are very fixed. We were still trying to make a building that turns the corner and builds the street and makes the social space in the middle.”

Unusually, each apartment has a two-story high recessed terrace rather than a projecting balcony. “We see a lot of apartments with little projecting balconies that no one goes out on to because they feel too exposed, especially if it’s a busy road. So, we made big openings in the brick and the terraces are in there. In order for them not to be dark, we decided each terrace had to be two storeys high so the light would come in, but the flats are one storey high.

“We were trying to have a conversation with Georgian Dublin through these big openings but still to accommodate the right number of windows for the more complex contemporary apartments that people live in.”

They’re now keen to do more housing projects. “Housing and schools really feel like you’re building society. And the idea of building society appeals to us.

“Dublin is about to have a programme of new housing, so we’re hoping we’ll get to make more of a contribution to the residential architecture of the city because I think that architects really have a role there, particularly in things like the sense of shared space, how you make the buildings make people feel they’re part of the community, how you deal with threshold where lots of units are together, how you deal with shared open space.”

For lots of reasons they’d also like to do an increasing amount of work overseas. In addition to a number of projects in the UK over the years, they are currently on site in the Central European University in Budapest. “We’re also very interested now in potentially working in America. I suppose because we’ve been involved for so many years teaching in Harvard and Princeton and other places it would be nice to

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follow that up with building.”

The world market is also important as an opportunity to have the international conversation in a different way and at a different scale, she says. “It’s not that we want to grow particularly big, but we’d just like to feel that we were in that world conversation, which I think we are to an extent.”

Teaching role Both O’Donnell and Tuomey have taught regularly throughout their careers and continue to do so. Tuomey is professor of architectural design in UCD and O’Donnell has been a lecturer there since 1981.

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“Sometimes it’s hard to fit it in, but we think it’s part of our role in society and in the society of architects to keep teaching and talking to people and to keep the discussion going. It keeps a conversation going with students, so you’re always talking to younger people. Having to set projects, having to discuss and respond to work keeps you on your toes.”

This ongoing involvement was another factor in Riba’s decision to award the pair the Gold Medal award, she believes.

“It was very much for the role John and I had played for our work and also for our role in teaching and writing and involvement with the culture of architecture in a general way.”

AN IRISH STYLE

London School of Economics Saw Swee Hock Student Centre

When they arrived back from London in 1981, O’Donnell and Tuomey set out their intention to determine the essence of Irish architecture and make an architecture specific to Ireland.

“So, we spent a lot of time travelling around and looking at traditional, historic and vernacular buildings in the landscape and classical houses and trying to see what was particularly Irish about them,” says O’Donnell.

“At that time we had the idea that there was an Irish way of engaging with landscape that was very direct – even the Palladian houses are all very strongly set in landscape; maybe English architecture of the same period is more manicured and more complex and softer.

“With colleagues and through our teaching we’ve developed the idea that understanding place in every way – physical, but also cultural and historical aspects – places the site in context. And I think that’s a little bit different to how a lot of people approach work.

“We thought for a while that was something to do with Irish place and Irish culture, but now we realise that you can bring the same method of analysis and of understanding and investigation to any site.

“I think Irish architects are very interested in place and in context and in the relationship between the past and the present. And maybe it has come about through people of our generation teaching in the schools here and that being a point of much discussion and considered of great value.”

What’s exciting now, she says, is the fact that they’ve managed to bring this successfully to London. “In fact one of the critics writing about the LSE said she thought it was a very ‘Londony’ building.

“With the Budapest work it’s a very different urban landscape to ours and very different expression of buildings and we’ve worked really hard to understand that, work within that and respond to it.

“The Irishness might be somehow an attitude to place and context and the use and how all those things come together and the importance of analysis and investigation. We’re interested in the physicality of architecture but also how it might affect people’s mood. There’s almost a psychological role in architecture.

“We feel there are a lot of aspects to architecture beyond the technical and satisfying the spatial and other requirements; there are things about mood and character.

We use the word character a lot in describing and discussing work and atmosphere.

“There does happen to be a number of Irish architects who are working in a similar way.”

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GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

Success Stories

In the first of an occasional series, we take a look at just some of the Irish people who are making their mark in the international business world

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GLOBAL CONNECTIONS » GORDON CAMPBELL, CEO, SPAR INTERNATIONAL A self-confessed Spar ‘lifer’, having worked for the retail giant for over 30 years, Dr Gordon Campbell is responsible for its worldwide development as CEO of Spar International.

He is acclaimed for driving Spar’s expansion into many new countries particularly China, India and Russia.

Launched in the Netherlands in 1932, the Spar franchise now encompasses around 12,500 stores in 35 countries worldwide and has annual revenues of in the region of €31bn.

Prior to his career at Spar, Campbell was sales and marketing director of BWG Foods, Ireland, and director of Spar Ireland. With a PhD in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin, he was also business development manager and chief chemist with Ranks Ireland.

the Institute of Chartered Management Accountants.

JOHN FITZPATRICK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, FITZPATRICK HOTEL GROUP

ALAN JOYCE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, QANTAS

IRIAL FINAN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE COCA-COLA COMPANY AND PRESIDENT OF BOTTLING INVESTMENTS AND SUPPLY CHAIN In his role as president of bottling investments and supply chain at The Coca-Cola Company, Co Roscommon native Irial Finan is responsible for managing a multi-billion dollar internal bottling business with operations on four continents (South America, Europe, Africa and Asia). It has annual revenues of over US$8bm and employs more than 60,000 people.

Finan has over 29 years’ experience in the Coca-Cola system, serving as chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Hellenic from 2001 to 2003 during which time he managed the merger of Coca-Cola Beverages plc and Hellenic Bottling SA. He joined The Coca-Cola Company in 2004 as president, bottling investments and was named executive vice-president of the company in October of that year.

From 1995 to 1999, Finan was managing director of Molino Beverages, with responsibility for expanding markets including the Republic of Ireland, Russia and Nigeria. Prior to that, he worked in several markets across Europe in management roles and was finance director of Coca-Cola Bottlers Ireland, based in Dublin, from 1987 to 1990.

Finan holds a bachelor of commerce from NUI Galway and is an associate of

doors in December 1991 and very quickly became ‘the’ Irish hotel in New York.

Albert Reynolds, who was then taoiseach, stayed there as well as former president Mary Robinson. Soon it became de rigueur for visiting Irish heads of State and celebrities to choose Fitzpatrick’s.

Seven years later, Fitzpatrick opened his second New York hotel, Fitzpatrick’s Grand Central on 44th St.

John Fitzpatrick

Entrepreneur and philanthropist John Fitzpatrick is a central figure in the Irish American community running the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group in New York. He is a former Irish American of the Year and has also received an OBE for his work in engendering reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

He has been a member of the American Ireland Fund board since 2002 and took over as chairman in January 2014.

At the end of 2013, meanwhile, he became the first Irishman and one of very few New Yorkers to take over as chair of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, which represents 54,000 hotels and 3.4 million hotel rooms.

Raised in the hotel business, Fitzpatrick is a son of Paddy and Eithne Fitzpatrick who owned Killiney Castle Hotel in Co Dublin, Silver Spring Cork and Fitzpatrick’s Shamrock Hotel in Bunratty, Co Clare.

Fitzpatrick’s Manhattan opened its

Born and raised in Tallaght in Dublin, Alan Joyce has been chief executive officer and managing director of Australian airline Qantas since November 2008.

This period has seen Qantas and Jetstar continue to lead the Australian domestic market; a major transformation programme for Qantas International; the rapid development of Jetstar’s pan-Asian strategy; and the sustained growth of the Qantas Frequent Flyer programme.

Joyce served as founding chief executive officer of Jetstar for five years from October 2003, a period that saw the airline establish its operations in Australia and across Asia.

Prior to his appointment at Jetstar, he spent over 15 years in key positions at Qantas, Ansett and Aer Lingus.

He was chairman of the International Air Transport Association between July 2012 and June 2013.

A fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Joyce holds a bachelor of science in applied science (physics and mathematics) (honours) and a master of science in management science.

AEDHMAR HYNES, CEO, TEXT 100 Aedhmar Hynes has been chief executive officer of Text 100 Global Public Relations, an independent subsidiary of Next Fifteen Communications, since 2000.

She oversees a staff of over 500 at 24 offices spanning North America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Based in New York City, she works with many of the company’s key accounts such as BlackBerry, American Express, IBM, Cisco, Xerox, MTV and British Airways.

Hynes has worked in the public relations industry for more than 27 years, 23 of

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which have been with Text100.

She is a Henry Crown fellow at The Aspen Institute, a member of the board of trustees of the Arthur W Page Society, a board director of Technoserve, a board member of the Business Leadership Council, and sits on the foundation board of her alma mater, NUI Galway.

Born in Galway, she is the sister of Garry Hynes, founder of the Druid Theatre Company and the late Jerome Hynes, former CEO of Wexford Opera Festival.

PAUL ADAMS, HEAD OF PRODUCT DESIGN AT INTERCOM Having grown up in Swords, Co Dublin, head of product design at Intercom Paul Adams previously worked as global head of brand design at Facebook. Prior to joining Facebook had led social research at Google, playing a major role in building Google+.

Adams’ other past experiences include working as a user experience consultant at Flow, leading research and design projects for clients including the BBC, The Guardian, Vodafone and the UK government. Before Flow, he worked as an industrial designer at Dyson, and also worked designing car interiors at Faurecia.

In 2011, Fortune magazine described Adams as ‘one of Silicon Valley’s most wanted’ and his presentation on the next evolution of social networks ‘The Real Life Social Network’ is one of the most viewed and downloaded presentations ever published on the web.

Adams holds a master’s of science degree in interactive media and a bachelor of design in industrial design from the University of Limerick.

KIERAN CLAFFEY, PARTNER, PWC, LLP Based in New York and hailing originally from Dublin, Kieran Claffey is a partner at PwC, LLP and has over 30 years of diversified experience serving multinational clients and dealing with litigation and regulatory related issues.

In 2013 he was elected to the global board of PwC’s business trust where he serves as chairman. He also represents PwC on the technical standards committee of the American Institute of CPAs. A founding member and director of

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the Ireland Chamber of Commerce in the US and a director of the EuropeanAmerican Chamber of Commerce, Claffey is the national treasurer, executive committee member and board member of the Ireland-US Council for Commerce & Industry.

He is chairman of the finance committee, member of the executive committee and on the board of trustees of The Gateway Schools, and was a director of Legal Information for Families Today.

A University College Dublin (UCD) graduate and fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, Claffey has also won several all Ireland dancing medals.

CLARE GILMARTIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THETRAINLINE.COM UCD commerce graduate Clare Gilmartin was appointed chief executive officer of UK online train ticket retailer Thetrainline.com last June after 10 years at eBay. Since it was established in 1997, Thetrainline.com has developed a robust and scalable platform with a strong focus on customer-driven innovation. The company’s consumer website and mobile apps received on average over 18 million visits per month in 2014, and the mobile apps had had over 6.5 million downloads to date.

Gilmartin’s most recent role at eBay was as vice-president of UK and greater Europe, where she led the transition from web to mobile and driving growth across Europe.

She was responsible for a team of 250, which supported eBay Europe’s 50 million European buyers and 500,000 registered businesses.

Prior to joining eBay, Gilmartin held numerous roles at Boston Consulting Group and Unilever.

LIAM CASEY, FOUNDER AND CEO, PCH INTERNATIONAL Liam Casey founded PCH in his native Co Cork in 1996 and went on to grow the business to over US$400m in revenue and 1,200 employees in China, Ireland, the UK, the US and South Africa.

Now dividing his time between San Francisco, Shenzhen and Cork, he describes the company as follows: “PCH creates, develops and delivers the world’s

best technology products for the world’s best brands.”

PCH’s major clients include three of the top five personal computer companies, three of the top five telecom and networking companies, and three of the top five consumer electronics companies worldwide.

Winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007, Casey is widely recognised as a thought leader on international trade and business in China.

Casey started his career in fashion retail with Tricot Marine, moving to the US to work for a trading company, before finally landing in Shenzhen, China.

PCH was named after the Pacific Coast Highway, in memory of his time living in California.

DR PEARSE LYONS, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, ALLTECH Born and raised in Dundalk, Co Louth, Dr Pearse Lyons founded Kentuckybased animal health company Alltech in 1980 and is now widely recognised as an innovative industry leader.

His scientific expertise, combined with an acute business sense, helped revolutionise the animal feed industry through the introduction of natural ingredients to feed.

Alltech has grown to a company that employs more than 3,500 people conducting business in 128 countries and with annual sales in the region of US$1bn.

A graduate of UCD and University of Birmingham, Lyons worked as a biochemist for Irish Distillers before founding Alltech. Since then, he has authored more than 20 books and numerous research papers in scientific journals and been named among Irish America’s Business 100 more than once.

Lyons was acknowledged as leading one of the top 100 fastest growing hi-tech companies by World Trade magazine as well as being awarded with honorary doctorates from various universities in the UK and the US. UCD awarded Lyons an honorary doctorate on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.

WILLIE WALSH, CEO, INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES GROUP Dubliner Willie Walsh became chief executive of International Airlines Group

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THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY CORPORATE TECHNOLOGY GROUP

Liam Casey

(IAG) in January 2011, having overseen the merger of BA, where he was chief executive from October 2005, and Iberia to create IAG. He started out in the aviation sector in 1979 as a pilot at Aer Lingus, got a master’s degree in management and business administration from Trinity College Dublin and advanced to become Boeing 737 captain.

After holding various management positions at Aer Lingus, he was promoted from chief operating officer to CEO in 2001 when the carrier was in financial difficulty. He cut 2,000 jobs and transformed it into a low cost airline and withdrew from various services until profits rebounded.

After the Irish Government rejected his management team’s suggestion of a stock market float in 2005, Walsh left Aer Lingus along with other executives.

Africa.

With over 20 years’ experience in marketing and a degree in international marketing and languages from Dublin City University, Twohill built and led the marketing team for Opodo, the European travel portal created by nine of Europe’s airlines. She led the launch of the company across Europe, bringing it to a top three position in all launch markets within two years.

She also worked for Bord Fáilte for four years as general manager Italy and then general manager Northern Europe.

Having joined the Walt Disney Company in 2008, Dundalk, Co Louth born Una Fox now has a specific focus on online marketing technologies, brand management and customer business intelligence.

Prior to joining Disney, Fox was a director of partner services at Yahoo Inc, with her responsibilities including revenue management for many of Yahoo’s strategic publishing partners.

Before that, Fox held several leadership roles at BearingPoint. She was instrumental in incubating a global consulting team focused on enterprise search and was one of the first major system integrators to work with Google Enterprise.

She also managed the global Siebel alliance team for BearingPoint and prior to joining the Strategic Alliances organisation spent several years as a senior manager in KPMG Consulting’s global customer management practice.

With a bachelor’s degree in French literature from University College Cork, Fox began her career in technology at Cisco Systems in Europe.

CORA CREED, DIGITAL OPERATIONS VP, SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT Kerrywoman Cora Creed is digital operations vice-president of industry

LORRAINE TWOHILL, VICE-PRESIDENT FOR GLOBAL MARKETING, GOOGLE Co Carlow native Lorraine Twohill joined Google in 2003 and is now responsible for the company’s marketing efforts globally.

Her team’s marketing programmes focus on the go to market strategy and adoption of all of Google’s products and brands, from consumer offerings to business services, across the globe.

Previously, she built and led all of Google’s regional marketing teams and activities in Europe, the Middle East and

UNA FOX, VICE-PRESIDENT IN

Lorraine Twohill

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GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

‘big four’ Sony Music Entertainment, which has featured artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson. She splits her time between New York and Salzburg, Austria, working on strategic operational initiatives in the digital arena.

Originally from Listowel, Creed moved to the US in 1991. She received a Donnelly green card and intended to stay for no longer than a year.

Creed taught computer classes at the Aisling Irish Center in Yonkers 10 years ago. She played and was a committee member of the Bronx Irish Soccer league for a few years, and also played and was a committee member for the Ladies Darts League.

She is one of the founding members of Swazi Legacy Inc, a not-for-profit organisation created to continue the life long work of Fr Pat Ahern (late of Ballylongford, Co Kerry), by raising monies to help educate children orphaned due to the Aids epidemic in Swaziland.

John Collison’s Silicon Valley-based e-payments start-up Stripe is now valued at around US$3.5bn. Stripe was founded by the Limerick brothers in 2010 and its investors to date include Sequoia Capital, Andreeson Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Elon Musk.

The brothers, who were recently listed in the Forbes top 30 under 30 people in tech, formed their first start-up Shuppa in 2007, when John was still in transition year. Renamed Auctomatic, it was sold in 2008 to Vancouver-based technology company Live Current Media for US$5m when Patrick was 19 and John was 17.

Patrick won the BT Young Scientist of the Year in 2005 for his ‘Croma: A new dialect of lisp’ project. He went on to win second place at the EU Young Scientists Exhibition. He studied maths at MIT. John, meanwhile, studied science at Harvard, having scored eight A1s and two A2s in his Leaving Certificate.

AENGUS KELLY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AERCAP

Tech entrepreneur Dylan Collins is CEO of advertising platform SuperAwesome, which reaches over 200 million kids and teenagers every month in the US, UK,

Aengus Kelly has been chief executive of aircraft leasing and aviation finance company AerCap since May 2011.

At the end 2013, he led the company’s US$5bn acquisition of International Lease Finance Corporation from AIG. The deal was closed earlier this year and AerCap now has total assets of US$44bn, a fleet of over 1,300 aircraft and an order book of 400 aircraft.

Kelly, who lives in Amsterdam, was previously chief executive of AerCap’s US operations from January 2008 and, before that, its group treasurer.

He began his career in the aviation leasing and financing business with Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) in 1998 and continued working with its successors AerFi in Ireland and debis AirFinance and AerCap in Amsterdam.

Before joining GPA he spent three years with KPMG in Dublin.

Kelly is a chartered accountant and has a BComm and a master’s degree in accounting from UCD.

DYLAN COLLINS, CEO, SUPERAWESOME; SERIAL TECH ENTREPRENEUR

Europe and Australia across online, mobile and physical channels. SuperAwesome also works with a range kids’ entertainment brands including Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros and Activision.

Collins is an active investor and advisor across media and technology companies. He’s a venture partner with Hoxton Ventures, chair of UK marketing technology agency Potato and a nonexecutive director of Irish animation studio, Brown Bag Films.

His first venture was mobile software company Phorest, which he set up in 2000 when he was studying at Trinity College Dublin. In 2003 he set up online games company DemonWare, which he sold on four years later to Activision Blizzard for US$15m.

He then founded Jolt Online Gaming, which was acquired by GameStop in 2009 for an undisclosed amount.

Based in London, Collins is also currently an international start-up ambassador for Enterprise Ireland’s €10m international start-up investment fund, which is focused on global founders who want to locate their start-up in Ireland.

PATRICK AND JOHN COLLISON, FOUNDERS, STRIPE Having recently raised US$70m in an investment round, Patrick and

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IDA Ireland’s new Landscape App It’s the perfect tool for researching and investigating Ireland’s business landscape. Full of information about companies and examples of why Ireland is the right location for your business.

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The App is free and simple to use and is in three handy sections.

Companies: This section contains information on companies that are succeeding worldwide that have based themselves in Ireland. This area allows you to match the DNA of your company with similar companies that successfully operate from Ireland.

Places: This section allows you to locate great places for business and pleasure. It’s an easily navigable look at the cultural and business landscape of Ireland.

Notes: A place to make notes, record information or take photos of places or companies of interest.

Please note that this prototype version of IDA Landscape is focused on Dublin and the technology sector.

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