Teknovis

I read an interesting article today that was making the case against merging the Irish Universities. I had been in favour of this, but based upon the numbers presented I think that I need to rethink!

The article is The claim that we have too many universities is simply wrong, but note that it is written by a former president of DCU.

Tags: DCU, Ireland

I read a great quote in File under – ‘Silly comments by middle-aged university managers’ by Ferdinand von Prondzynski:

In his book, The Uses of the University, Clark Kerr, the late chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, suggested that a university president has three key tasks that the institution’s main stakeholders will expect to see achieved: “sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty”. Only the last of these, Kerr suggested, presented a problem.

Ferdinand is of course, the President of DCU, so he should know what is is talking about!

I must use this quote in my Quote of the Moment!

Tags: DCU, Sex

I learned today that DCU is to outsource all of its email to Google. I estimate that DCU must have tens of thousands of email accounts. So I would have thought that it would be more cost effective to provide this service in-house.

For more detail about this see Information Systems and Services.

Tags: DCU, Google

I read an interesting idea for a B.Sc. in Web Development and Design in Web Development Should Be a Third Level Degree. This idea is particularly interesting because it comes from the Lead Software Developer in Boards.ie, and he previously started, but did not complete, the computing degree course in DCU.

Tags: Boards.ie, DCU

I previously wrote about the Irish Companies involved in W3C, so today I am going to list the Irish companies (and organisations) that are involved in the TM Forum. Again, I am basing these lists on the online membership list.

The Irish companies that are currently members are:

• Amartus
• Arantech
• CommProve
• Dataduct
• DCU (There is nothing on DCU’s website about this!)
• Eircom
• Nomos Software
• Openet
• RedZinc
• Selatra (One of its founders is the President of the TM Forum)
• TCD
• TSSG

The non-Irish companies that have technical operations in Ireland that are currently members are:

• Accenture
• Agilent
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Amdocs
• Analysys Mason
• Arris
• Asidua
• BOC Group
• BT
• Cable and Wireless
• Cisco
• Deloitte and Touche
• EDS
• EMC Corporation
• Ericsson
• HERMES SoftLab
• HP
• IBM
• Martin Dawes Systems
• Microsoft
• Motorola
• Nortel
• O2
• Oracle
• Perot Systems
• RedKnee
• SAP
• Satyam
• Siemens (Also known as Nokia Siemens Networks)
• Sun
• Verizon (Due to its purchase of Cybertrust)
• Vodafone

At least I think that all of those companies have technical operations in Ireland. It can be very difficult to tell from their web pages.

Tags: Accenture, Agilent, Alcatel-Lucent, Amartus, Amdocs, Analysys Mason, Arantech, Arris, Asidua, BOC Group, BT, Cable and Wireless, Cisco, CommProve, Dataduct, DCU, Deloitte and Touche, EDS, Eircom, EMC Corporation, Ericsson, HERMES SoftLab, HP, IBM, Ireland, Martin Dawes Systems, Microsoft, Motorola, Nomos Software, Nortel, O2, Openet, Oracle, Perot Systems, RedKnee, RedZinc, SAP, Satyam, Selatra, Siemens, Sun, TCD, TM Forum, TSSG, Verizon, Vodafone

Science Foundation Ireland is an organisation that is tasked by the Irish Government to invest 1.4€ billion in fourth level research in the areas of science, technology, and innovation. (Chris Horn noticed that it is unfortunate that Science Foundation Ireland’s remit excludes Engineering in Accident and Emergency Beds ? Or….)

I am familiar with some of the Science Foundation Ireland projects that are currently being funded in the Irish Universities, so I will briefly mention them here for my own record. I am listing these projects because I either know some of the people involved in them, or they are of interest to me. (I am certainly not suggesting that they are the best in any way!)

There are two Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs) that are of interest to me:

• ITOBO is investigating the creation of new types of buildings that make greater use of information and communication technology. For a long time I have felt that current buildings are really just large, but dumb, devices that contain many simple but totally independent systems. So I think that there is a lot of potential here to create really smart buildings simply by linking these systems and giving them some intelligence. This project is based in UCC.
• StratAG is investigating methods for measuring and processing spatial information. It is based in NUI Maynooth.

For the complete set of Strategic Research Clusters projects see Strategic Research Clusters.

There are three Centres for Science, Engineering & Technology (CSETs) that are of interest to me:

• Clarity is investigating techniques for sensing data in the real world, and then combining this data with existing digital information. This project is based in both DCU and UCD.
• CTVR is investigating both low-level and high-level issues that are relevant to the next generation of telecommunications networks. It is based in TCD.
• Lero is investigating techniques for developing dependable software. It is based in UL.

For the complete set of Centres for Science, Engineering & Technology projects see Centres for Science, Engineering & Technology.

Tags: Chris Horn, Clarity, CTVR, DCU, Ireland, ITOBO, Lero, NUIM, Science Foundation Ireland, StratAG, TCD, UCC, UCD, UL