Barry Downes

October 23, 2007

I am speaking at an Enterprise Ireland (EI) seminar on the 1st of November in Dublin

I am speaking at an Enterprise Ireland (EI) seminar on the 1st of November in Dublin that is aimed at highlighting the EI mechanisms to engage in R&D for the Institutes of Technology.

AGENDA
Applied Research Enhancement Programme (ARE) EI Support Mechanisms to Institutes of Technology to engage in R&D Research Commercialisation / Technology Transfer

Thursday 1st November 2007 - Venue: Crown Plaza Hotel, Santry, Dublin

Details
09.00 Registration and Coffee
09.20 Welcome and Opening Remarks - Deirdre Brougham, ARE Programme Manager Enterprise Ireland
09.30 “Strategic Management of Technology Transfer” Author, James Cunningham Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management NUIG
10.00 Patenting and Exploitation of Research, Patent Funding - Michael Sharp Head, Intellectual Property Unit Enterprise Ireland
10.30 Commercialisation of Research - Gerard Lande Commercialisation Specialist Department of Informatics /ICT Enterprise Ireland
11.30 Technology Transfer - Mary Gillick Manager, Technology Transfer Unit Enterprise Ireland
12.00 Campus Incubation - Nickie O’Connor Manager, Incubation Centres Enterprise Ireland
12.30 Spin Ins and Spin Outs Case Study - Barry Downes 3CS ARE Centre Manager Waterford Institute of Technology
13.00 Concluding Remarks - Martin Lyes Divisional Manager Innovation, Research and Commercialisation Enterprise Ireland

Download Full Agenda (word doc)

I would recommend this event to any researcher that is interested in commercialising their research. It is also of interest to Technology Transfer Offices and companies that want to find out more about how to exploit researched technologies.

Posted by bdownes at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

Call for Nominations- Annual Innovation Awards 2007

Engineers Ireland is currently accepting nominations for the following prestigious awards:

- Innovation Company of the Year Award
- Innovation Engineer of the Year Award

Deltails below:

Download pdf Overview

Applicants are required to submit a one page summary addressing the following criteria:

- Originality of the idea
- Continuous improvement of the innovation. Benefits of the innovation and the potential to enhance people's lives or bring about social change
- Development and implementation of the innovation and its market potential. Degree of successful commercialisation of the innovation.

Applications by email only to sectorsupport@engineersireland.ie

Submission Deadline: October 26th at 5pm

For further information, please contact:

Sector Support, Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
T: +353 (01) 668 4341
E: sectorsupport@engineersireland.ie
W: www.engineersireland.ie

Posted by bdownes at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2007

"Open Innovaton" - Dublin - Oct 24th

On 24th October, Enterprise Ireland's Innovation and Technology Transfer
Unit will present a conference "Innovating the Business Model" at the
Stillorgan Park Hotel. The keynote address will be given by Prof. Henry
Chesbrough, adjunct professor at the Haas School of Business at the
University of California, Berkeley, author and researcher on Open
Innovation and Open Business Models. Speakers from Irish and overseas
companies including Multis Group, Nortel Networks and Arvetica
(Switzerland) will present their innovative business models and methods
- full details at http://www.openinnovation.ie

Posted by bdownes at 1:57 PM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2006

Nubiq Board Meeting

Chaired the Nubiq (www.nubiq.com) board meeting on Friday. I must say I am thrilled at the progress the company has made on its initial service Zinadoo (www.Zinadoo.com) since launch. Helene and her team have done a great job. I'm really looking forward to the next release of the service late December and I am tremendously excited about the new services planned. Nubiq/Zinadoo if flying!!

Posted by at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2006

NESTA

Joined a lunch with the CEO of NESTA on Monday, Jonathan Kestenbaum. NESTA is a UK based Trust of STG 600 m that supports Innovation in the UK. Jonathan was in Ireland to look at what we are doing and understand what lessons can be learned for the UK. Really interesting group at the lunch including Brian Cogan from Forfas, Dermot O’Doherty from Intertrade Ireland, Niall Carroll from ACT Venture Capital (VC), Neil Leyden from the Digital Media Forum, Dermot Berkery from Delta Partners (VC) and Tanya McGill from NESTA.

There was a lot of discussion around what is working and not working in Innovation in Ireland, how the UK is different and what it could learn. Some key things that I took away are how all of the Irish participants, who each come from different parts of the Innovation value chain, shared both a common vision and great ambition for Innovation in Ireland. Jonathan summarised this very succinctly when he said that in Ireland we don’t really have any other choice but to drive hard to Innovate and commercialise as that is the only way we will be able to keep our boom going (post the coming real estate crash) but in the UK this is not yet accepted by everyone. Our advantage was that the debate in favour for policies that support and encourage Innovation and commercialisation has been won. That the dogs in the street know that after the real estate crash it will be places like the WIT and the research and innovation that we create, that will be our only chance of not returning to the bad old days of the 80s and mass emigration.

However, there are still issues to be addressed – I took the opportunity to highlight the funding gap that exists between government funding for innovation (ie EI) and private funding (ie VC). This is still a problem that we need to address to help get Innovations commercialised and Campus Companies off the ground. Brian Cogan supported this with some recent research that indicated that it was the first 200K – 500K of private cash that was the hardest to obtain. So more work has to be done here. I’m actively working in this area at the moment but will save this for another post.

So the conclusion? There is only one way forward for a modern 21st Century economy if it wants to keep growing – Innovation. Its not always obvious but the work we are doing here will be creating jobs (outside of WIT) for years to come and will hopefully contribute to keeping Ireland moving forward after the crash predicted by David McWilliams actually occurs.

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Comments (0)