The annual Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP), which has just commenced at NovaUCD, assists UCD academic and research entrepreneurs in bringing their innovative ideas from intellectual concepts to fully developed and sound commercial businesses.
Just under 190 new ventures and 290 individuals have to date completed this programme which has run since 1996.
The programme culminates with a high profile Awards Evening which will be held in November. At the end of this event the UCD 2012 Start-Up of the Year Award will be presented to one of the participating ventures. Former winners of this prestigious Award include companies such as BiancaMed, Equinome, Logentries and RendezVu.
This year a prize fund of over €35,000 will be available to the 2012 CCDP award winners. In addition to cash prizes and 6-months free NovaUCD desk space, Aristo, Arthur Cox, Delaney Financial Consultancy, Deloitte and Newmarket Partnership will be providing professional services. AccountsIQ will also be providing a free 1-year subscription to its accountancy software.
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, University College Dublin, Communications Manager (Innovation), e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: + 353 1 716 3712

The competition was inspired by an initiative of senior executives at Pepsi. They saw the value of engaging with early-stage digital companies that might help to provide insights and innovation to the soft drink maker. The PepsiCo10 competition was born out of this, and run in conjunction with Highland Capital Partners, and a participant of Highland Capital Partners is now working with the Irish Times on The Irish Times Digital Challenge.
There is a major bonus to the winner of The Irish Times Digital Challenge in the access their innovation will have to Irish Times users  – up to several million per month. Each finalist will receive marketing to the value of €10,000 while the overall winner will receive investment funds to the value of €50,000. To assist the finalists in developing their path to market, NDRC LaunchPad will run a mini-startup incubator inside The Irish Times over eight weeks. In addition to extensive mentoring, there will be €10,000 worth of free legal, accounting, and taxation advice for the finalists over the eight weeks. Enterprise Ireland will also be offering support during this phase.
To register your interest - http://www.irishtimesidealab.com/

Four Irish and six international teams from Israel, Brazil, US, China, Romania, Lithuania and Poland selected from over 150 international applicants, will pitch their start-up businesses to a global panel of over 100 investors.
These new businesses have a good chance of job creation thanks to the Startupbootcamp model. Eoghan Jennings who is behind the Dublin initiative explains: “what we’re trying to do is build tomorrow’s employers.”
The programme focuses on creating sounder businesses rather than focusing on funding. They create traction with customers before seeking funding or hiring people.
“Some of the mistakes we’ve made in the past, if we’ve funded an idea before we reached the product/market fit, jobs aren’t created and funds evaporate.”

Luckily, an Irish company Pilot Photonics is developing technology that allows more information to be packed into existing optical fibres by cleverly bonding together several data channels in the fibre, cutting down on wasted bandwidth.
The new technology is compatible with the existing optical fibres that currently connect countries and continents around the world. “For the end user of the Internet it means a faster, higher quality link through the internet,” says Dr Philip Perry, CEO.
Pilot Photonics Ltd, a spin-out company built on the work of research teams in Dublin City University and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork has succeeded in attracting seed investment of €300,000 to find a route to market for this technology.

Presenter Damien Tiernan opened the 10-minute feature with a reference to Ireland’s success with heavy hitters such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook. “But there’s a lot of places around the country where innovation, research and job creation go hand in hand.”
The pilot programme visited Arclabs in Waterford – an incubation centre home to approximately 20 startups in the digital and tech scene as well as research group TSSG. Companies featured include FeedHenry, GBR Direct, Betapond and ZolkC.
The promising pilot got good feedback from the Twitterati in the south east at least. Here’s hoping the remainder of the series is on the way to see what is happening in the digital and tech scene nationwide.
See the Enterprising Ireland programme on: http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2012/0402/media-3246038.html

Via: Open-Site.org

In the final quarter of 2011, 19 of these pledged 365 jobs by the end of 2013. These included 48 for Fantom, an online community for fans who enjoy collecting and trading digital trading cards and 25 from Facebook app company Betapond.
Speaking at the Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start Ups (HPSU) Showcase Richard Bruton, TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation said that the HPSU programme is a crucial tool at the disposal of Government in its strategy for job-creation.
Separately, the Government has launched a new initiative, which aims to create 5,000 jobs within five years by targeting international companies and business people. It is targeting small and medium sized companies around the world considering expansion, but who would not be large enough to be reached by the State enterprise agencies.

The Real-Time Forest Intelligence service from Treemetrics, a global forestry technology company, with Cork roots, brings live 3D forestry data to mobile devices and machinery anywhere in the world.
Available anywhere in the world, no matter how remote, it allows harvesting machines to respond immediately to changing market demands for timber, therefore reducing waste.
Prior to this development the industry relied on based on 19th Century measurement techniques limited by mobile phone coverage.
RTFI will also act as a highly effective emergency communications network for forestry workers in remote locations worldwide.
Enda Keane, Treemetrics CEO says “This is a huge step for the global forestry industry. Until now, timber production requirement was only established after the forest had been cut, leading to enormous waste.

NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures high-tech and knowledge-intensive enterprises. Companies based at NovaUCD include social web-search solutions (HeyStaks), localization services for app developers (Tethras) and elearning (RendezVu).
Professor Peter Clinch, Vice-President for Innovation at UCD commented: “NovaUCD client companies were established to translate innovative ideas into value-added products and services, including companies which are commercialising UCD research outputs. The development and growth of such high-tech and knowledge-intensive companies is of critical importance for Ireland’s economic recovery.

Founded by teen James Whelton in 2011 and philanthropist Bill Liao, CoderDojo is a not-for-profit organisation that has caught the imagination of many.
Volunteers give their time to help children and teens learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more.
The CoderDojo website gives full details of how volunteers and mentors can get involved and how to set up a Dojo.
In a presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education, CoderDojo recommended the introduction of Coding in second level curriculum, with a similar implementation to that of music or art.