Top Technology experts about Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Wednesday, 25th April 2012

Exciting opportunity to hear from Top Technology experts about Entrepreneurship and Innovation at free event Wed 25th April, @ 7pm Kazbar Bar, Waterford

A NEW group which is promoting the South East region as the ideal base for hi-tech jobs is hosting its first Speaker Event later this month where leading industry leaders will meet in an informal setting in Waterford city to share their expertise, tips and experiences of growing enterprises in such a sector.

The free event at The Kasbah in Waterford city on Wednesday, April 25th is organised by the Technology Cluster South East (TCSE) and will feature three top speakers, among them Venture Capitalist Gavin Bourke, Rory Caren from IBM and Barry Downes from TSSG.

Each will speak for 10 minutes with no slides or formalities – just tips and information which will be followed by an opportunity to network and learn from industry peers.

Similar events in casual settings in Dublin and other key European hubs have proven exceptionally popular and productive.

The inaugural South East Speaker Event in Waterford will be addressed by Gavin Bourke, a partner at NVP Ltd - Venture Capital. Gavin will talk about the funding environment, and start ups from a VC perspective including firms he has worked with. Rory Caren is Marketing Manager with the IBM Global Entrepreneur Program. He will speak about the Global Entrepreneur program that IBM runs which supports early stage start ups. Barry Downes, Executive Director TSSG will share his experiences with two TSSG spin offs based in Waterford Zolkc and Feed Henry.

TCSE is made up of key players in the technology industry, drawing its membership from business, public and private sectors across the region. It's a voluntary group which is promoting the South East region as a centre for Innovation in Technology, thereby generating employment and economic income. Its ultimate aim is to establish the South East as the Silicon Valley of Ireland.

TCSE spokesperson John McAuliffe said the first Speaker Event is the ideal opportunity for like-minded entrepreneurs in the region and those involved in the technology sector or interested in regional development to network and join the initiative.

"We want to strengthen the development potential of the South East Region by creating a Technology Cluster (TCSE) associating universities, research centres, enterprises, regional authorities and other stakeholders."

Areas of particular interest to TCSE are

Applications for government and science,

New generation of web based applications and services

Key enabling technologies in ICT.

TCSE wants to build instruments for collaboration with Irish partners and with international Technology Clusters as well as Web services.

TCSE also hopes to offer supports in areas such as research to enable companies create Doctoral R&D competence; a proposal writing facility to help SMEs participate in EU funding and EProcurement Programmes; a benchmarking process for SMEs, linked to the Multi-Helix model as well as upskilling, consultation, networking and dissemination processes e.g. SkillNet. For more, log on to http://www.tcse.ie or contact John McAuliffe on 086 3157292.