In 2011, for the first time, the innovation and talent of individuals and businesses in the gaming industry in Ireland are to be recognised at the 2011 Digital Media Awards, with the introduction of the Best in Gaming Award.

This new award is for any programme using online gaming (e.g. online, mobile or casual).
Says Susan Grant, Event Director, “the reason that gaming was identified is because it is a real evolving market in Ireland. There are a lot of international gaming companies who have come into Ireland and are now making their presence known.”
She adds that it is very reflective of the growth of digital media in the last couple of years. “As it evolves the Digital Media Awards need to recognise this…The industry itself has said this is an area that needs recognition if it is to continue to attract that level of investment into Ireland. It needs to be embraced and rewarded.”
Nominations are now open for the awards which are in their 9th year. Every year the Digital Media Awards recognise and reward the most stylish, creative, and pioneering work within the digital media industry in Ireland.
For 2011, there are 22 categories awarding the innovation and talent of individuals and companies in areas including viral marketing, user experience, best app, financial services, animation, digital advertising, e-learning and best agency.
Ashville Media Group has secured Satellite Broadband Ireland as its partner for the awards for the next three years
For further information on the Satellite Broadband Ireland Digital Media Awards 2011, and to enter, log on to www.digitalmedia.ie.

TechCrunch Europe, the European edition of the widely read tech blog, is looking for stories and views from the Irish tech scene.

Editor Mike Butcher last week wrote in a blog post that the blog would like “guest posts for TechCrunch Europe, written by people on the tech scene in Europe”.
Speaking to Prosperity’s Digital Ezine he said “it’s not very dissimilar to a newspaper calling for readers’ letters. But we’re a blog so we ask people to write guest posts.”
However, Butcher commented that he has found the amount of people willing to contribute from Ireland astoundingly low. “I’m generally fairly flabbergasted by it. Every time I go to Dublin … I get my ear talked off and it’s fantastic, there’s so much going on and then I go back to London and … nothing. I don’t hear what’s going on. It seems to be quite an internal conversation a lot of the time in the market there.”
I would love Irish entrepreneurs to ping me with any ideas for guest posts…. You’re native English speakers as much as the Brits so it doesn’t make any sense not to have more contributions and I know the Irish entrepreneurs are fantastic so I’d love more from there.”
People in the technology industry across Europe have been invited to submit pitches for blog posts that are likely to be closer to full-blown articles. So who should get their pen to paper? “We like the people who are CEOs, start-ups, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, maybe occasionally the odd social media expert that actually does know what they’re talking about.” Ideally, guest posters should be from within the tech industry but, says Butcher, occasionally people come from left field “who isn’t necessarily an insider but has an interesting take on stuff.”

To find out more see the original blog post from Mike Butcher at: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/my-fellow-europeans-we-want-to-hear-your-voices-write-for-us/

A recent report from Science Foundation Ireland shows some tangible fruition of our National aspiration to become an innovation economy. Science Foundation Ireland’s 2009 annual report showed that research links between industry and academia in Ireland grew by 25pc last year.

184 multinationals and 165 SMEs were linked to academic teams by Science Foundation Ireland, with 29 research centres and 3,225 researchers in higher education institutions supported.

This has all been achieved off a very low base – considering that we were (to quote Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Conor Lenihan TD) “a level below Bangladesh”. While we are now in the top twenty of global scientfic rankings.

In the post bubble wasteland, Ireland has been looking enviously at the Israeli model of a cohesive approach to seeding innovative companies with revenue and expertise.  Over the past 60 years Israel has achieved a fifty-fold economic growth, much of it fuelled by technology start-ups funded by venture capitalists. Small businesses and start ups in Ireland largely remain starved of the funding aspect that is vital to such growth, however the new innovation fund (launched by An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen) will offer matching revenue of  €250m as an incentive to an inflow of vital Venture Captial revenue. The hope is that this fund will mirror the economic aspect of the Israeli model, while we continue to build collaboration and partnership between Ireland’s scientific research and enterprise communities

Prosperity, The Irish Times Training and the Irish Internet Association have joined forces to offer a new Diploma in Digital Marketing.

Students of the course will benefit from Prosperity’s knowledge of the digital media recruitment industry and skills required for digital media roles. Course speakers include journalist Conor Pope, head of Cybercom Rob Reid, Darragh Doyle from boards.ie and Krishna De, experienced digital marketing trainer.
According to Prosperity co-founder Gary Mullan, the recruitment company will be feeding into the course design by identifying areas where there are skills shortages.
The course, according to Mullan is best suited to people who have had “some exposure to digital media and would have some knowledge of the disciplines such as SEO, online advertising, etc.”
Topics covered include website structure, SEO, online advertising, email marketing, online pr, writing for the web, mobile web, semantic web/web 3.
“It would benefit people who have some digital experience but if people are doing it as a hobby, for example, building a music website, they can benefit from it if they have some interest.”
The Irish Internet Association will play an important role in identifying the most suitable trainers in the market. The Irish Times Training section has considerable experience in course delivery.
The course, which is Dublin city centre based, runs over 13 weeks and begins in September. This part-time diploma is FETAC accredited (level 5 minor award).

Detailed outline of course modules and profiles of instructors

The battle of the pricing plans is well underway with mobile phone company Meteor the latest to announce its iPad microsim deals.
After months of speculation as to when the iPad would be sold in Ireland it went on sale here last Friday. Consumers who faced uncertainty on which model to go for, now have a choice of data plans to choose from, if they plumped for the Wifi + 3G model.

Last Tuesday Vodafone and O2 revealed their pricing plans, followed by 3 on Wednesday and Meteor on Monday. First off the blocks with Micro Sim data plans was Cubic Telecom. The Irish headquartered mobile network operator, Cubic Telecom launched what it says is Europe’s first SIM card for the new iPad 3G, in May. The SIM card costs €75 and comes pre loaded with 50MB of data.
Meteor currently seems to come out best on its daily tariff for Micro Sim data at €2.99 per day on prepay and free on billpay for customers who sign up to Broadband to Go plans. This deal also includes access to Eircom’s wifi hotspots, which is good news for anybody with a Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad
02’s iPad data tariffs will be available without a minimum term contract and include free access to Bitbuzz Wi-Fi hotspots in Ireland. The tariffs are 500MB for €3.97 a day (for 24hrs) and 5GB for €19.90 monthly (for 30 days).
Similarly, all of Vodafone Ireland’s data plans will be available without a contract. It has launched two commitment-free plans specifically tailored for iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models, a 1 day and 30 day plan - available to customers using Vodafone Micro SIMs. The 1 Day Plan is ideal for customers who want to use mobile broadband on their iPad occasionally and the 30 Day Plan caters for customers who want to browse the web, download music and update apps on their iPad while on the move throughout the month. The 1 day plan costs €3.99 for 500MB of data per day and the 30 day plan, €20 for 5GB of data per month
3 is also offering data plans without a contract -  €9.99 a month for 1GB and €19.99 for 15 GB of data a month.