I just heard this afternoon that a friend of mine has recently launched a new company called Glorsoft. In the company’s own words…
Glorsoft is a leading software company focused on the development of .NET based IVR and Voice Application development tools.
Our goal is to simplify telephony programming to the extent that any .NET developer can create voice applications without the need to learn any new skills.Velocity 2.0 is our flagship development toolkit.
I hope that this new venture experiences great success!
Tags: .NET, Glorsoft
The Irish Government will implement 17 of the suggestions from the Ideas Campaign, as described in Recession ideas to be acted upon.
There were two ideas that caught my attention. The first idea is:
Provide a one-stop-shop virtual helpdesk for start-ups with advice on legal, HR, patents, accountancy issues etc.
I think that is a great idea, and I can easily imagine it being very useful. I guess that funding it will be a problem :(
The second idea that caught my attention is:
Teach business skills as part of all PhD education as a means of promoting the knowledge economy
This sounds great, but I seriously doubt that many PhD students would be interested in this :o Generally, PhD students just want to focus on their research, and they generally dislike attending classes of any type :o
Tags: Ireland
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I learned about a business competition on the main national television news last night for Irish Internet based ideas. The prize fund of 10,000€ is being sponsored by an Irish company called iQContent, and entrants must submit a brief business plan. iQContent will not have any further involvement with the winners once the competition is over.
For more details about this competition see iQPrize or The iQ Prize: 10,000 euro for the best business plan.
This could be an ideal opportunity for somebody who has an idea, and I think that it is great to see this type of encouragement.
Actually, the more I think about this competition, the more I realise that it is very beneficial to iQContent also. The company got terrific free public exposure on prime-time television last night. Additionally, the company will get to see many other unsuccessful ideas as part of the competition. I am not suggesting that iQContent will steal any of them, but it might provide it with some useful inspiration :o
Tags: iQContent
BizCamp Dublin was held today in The Digital Hub. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend :( Indeed, I have never attended a BizCamp event, even though it is something that I really want to do!
The line-up of speakers and talks seemed really interesting, and there are many well-known people from the Irish Internet community on the attending list.
Tags: BizCamp
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The publishers of the Irish Entrepreneur magazine have launched a competition for 250,000€. To be included you must subscribe to their magazine, as described in ‘You Can Do Anything’ Competition.
This competition is part of a wider campaign to encourage people to become more entrepreneurial during the current economic downturn. In order to promote this campaign the publishers invited The Naked Cowboy to Dublin. The Naked Cowboy’s story is perfect for this caimpaign, and he has given some really great advice such as:
Just do something you love and find a way to make money from it.
More details about the Naked Cowboy’s visit are described in Naked Cowboy here to give recession the boot and Nakedly optimistic star says we can do anything. He also did interviews on both the Tubridy Tonight show, and the Xposé show, both of which are available to view online :)
Tags: Irish Entrepreneur
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Enterprise Ireland wrote an article that will be of interest to anybody who is seeking early stage investment in 2009. The full article is Angles Investors to the Rescue in 2009?
Tags: Enterprise Ireland
Enterprise Ireland have listed some of the Irish Web 2.0 companies that are currently making headlines in Web 2.0 in Ireland. It is good to see this support!
I think that there are some very innovative Web 2.0 companies. However, I often feel that their innovation is based on an easily replicable novelty rather than on a solid technological differentiator which is difficult to replicate.
I think that one of the amazing things about Web 2.0 is that it can be used to describe any technology, depending on the mood of the person using the phrase. I really love the way Web 2.0 is often used as a synonym for “cash cow” in business models. In fact, I see this happening a lot!
Tags: Enterprise Ireland, Ireland, Web 2.0
Amazon has announced the seven finalists in the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge. The idea behind this competition is to encourage start-up companies that base their products on Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure. The seven finalists are:
The main prize for the eventual winner is $50,000 in cash, $50,000 worth of Amazon credits, and a potential investment from Amazon.
Tags: Amazon, Competition, Encoding.com, Knewton, MedCommons, Pixily, Sonian, Yieldex, Zephyr
Entrepreneurship is something that I have always been interested in, and it is something that is now part of my everyday work! So it is certainly something that I intend writing about here!
I think that Ireland has improved significantly in relation to entrepreneurship, but there is still a huge way to go! We are currently experiencing an economic downturn (as is most of the world), and this is likely to increase the number of start-up companies. Unfortunately, it also makes it more difficult for these start-up companies to receive the necessary initial investment :(
I read an interesting article on TechCrunch today titled Teen Bloggerpreneur Jessica Mah’s $500 Startup: InternshipIN. The article describes how to start a company for $500! Yes – just $500! It seems impossibly small! The start-up company is based on a website called InternshipIN, which is designed to provide a single portal for university students looking for internships. I think the most interesting aspect of this is the spirit in which it is being created, and it certainly will be interesting to see if it succeeds! Jessica Mah’s blog provides more details (and it is a good read).
Closer to home, I read that Pat Phelan (overall winner at this years IIA Net Visionary Awards 2008) is on a panel at a Digital Media Island event. Therefore, he asks the question “How can we foster start-ups and innovation in Ireland today?“, and some of the answers are very interesting!
Tags: Digital Media Island, IIA, InternshipIN, Jessica Mah, Net Visionary Awards, Pat Phelan, TechCrunch
