Help Haiti - Evert Bopp sent us this

Following my recent (short) presentation on Haiti & emergency communications at the Dublin Ignite event (see above) I have decided to give a number of public presentations on Haiti Connects work and on the role of technology in disaster aid & recovery in general. The purposes of the talks are two-fold; I want to raise awareness of the ongoing situation in Haiti and raise support for our work so that we can continue our work there.

The presentations will focus on the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Haiti, the 2010 earthquake, Haiti Connects response and work in the last 14 months and our future projects.

It will also highlight the growing role of Open Source technology & Online media in disaster response.

The talks will be free to attend but there will be an option to donate during or after the event.

http://events.linkedin.com/Haiti-Connect-role-technology-disaster/pub/727500

Haiti Connect: the role of technology in disaster response
Thu, Jul 28
Best Western Academy Plaza, Dublin, IE


Regards, Evert Bopp.
Founder, Haiti Connect.
www.haiti-connect.org

Summer Break at Silicon Ireland

We are taking some time off and wont be publishing regular posts. We will be back in August. We thank you for your continued readership and look forward on reporting more tech news from August.

DWS October Announcement 2011

DWS are about to announce the first of its 70 speakers for October's Dublin Web Summit. There are rumours on Twitter of some big names from the likes of Youtube and Facebook, we don't want to give away too much just yet, but we're very excited.

October's Summit will run for two full days: Thursday October 27th and Friday October 28th, with dozens of practical workshops, interviews, keynotes and networking sessions.

Grow VC sets the pace for crowd funding with free global service for startup funding

Grow VC sets the pace for crowd funding with free global service for startup funding
July 12 – London & Hong Kong – ‘Virtual Silicon Valley’ platform creator Grow VC launches new and improved model to make startup funding global, transparent and effective.

The online venture community and micro funding network has grown to over 9,000 entrepreneurs, investors and experts from 200 different countries. As the first global crowd funding platform Grow VC developed a new set of tools to empower startup companies, making investing in startups transparent and effective.

Grow VC has listened to the market and now provides access to the service for free.
"Since we launched the platform in 2010, we have been listening to our community for the right time to move to the next level. With our new model, we open our service and startup funding opportunities to a larger audience. Users can now use the service for free and gain easier access to the community of entrepreneurs and investors", Grow VC Chairman and Co-founder Jouko Ahvenainen says. The micro investment membership model has also been improved. Users can now efficiently make micro investments in startups and startups can raise capital from these micro investments in milestones.

"We believe this will create a healthy dynamic, as startups will be incentivized to look for the appropriate amount of capital that they need to get to the next level, all the while being validated by the crowd" Ahvenainen continues.

Grow VC aims to excite the non-traditional startup investors to start exploring startups as another way to diversify their investment portfolio. It will also serve to open the doors for more people to join startup companies early on. That’s why our new update also boasts new visuals for the service, an iPhone application and new features and tools to create meaningful matches in the service. This is a
result of Grow VC’s long-term strategy to listen to our users and provide ongoing improvements to benefit the community.

"We believe that startup investing should be democratized and more people should have access to supporting early stage ventures,” states Grow VC CEO and Co-founder Valto Loikkanen. "By including the crowd in the early stages of startup funding, the entire process can be simplified and made more effective. For non-professional investors, this also creates an easy way to be part of a startups journey, something that until now has not been possible. In the age of online democracy, the
future of startup funding should involve more individuals, rather than being available to only a select few" Loikkanen points out.

Grow VC has also recently successfully closed its first round of external investments in the company, including the crowd as shareholders in the organization. "In building a solution for entrepreneurs and investors, it is important to include the crowd in the organization itself. There is a community sense in what we are building, and we are glad to invite the entire community to join us on this quest for
democratizing startup funding" Loikkanen emphasizes.

Grow VC will continue to focus on building operations, their global organization already has a strong foundation in North America, Europe, China and India and has entered markets like South America and Africa with plans to build sustainable, long-term operations. "Having operations on a global level, we can see that what we are building suits a lot of different environments. Creating a healthy,
transparent and purposeful paradigm to startup funding can not only help alleviate the challenges faced in local regions, but also lead to valuable synergies via cross border collaborations. We have our own team, a total of 50 people in almost all major markets, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, India, and China. We continue to look for new people and partners to join our community," says
Ahvenainen.

"From the very beginning, we realized that the numbers required to establish a funding network would not work as a local service. Building a global network is the only viable option,” Ahvenainen states.

"Initially we decided to pilot our service as a paid platform to study the market but now with the overwhelming market response and sufficient testing, it’s time to make our service free and more accessible for an even broader audience."


About Grow VC Grow Venture Community (Grow VC) is the first global, transparent, community-based platform dedicated to entrepreneurs and their needs. Grow VC enables great ideas and great teams to get visibility with the right investing audience, funding and support earlier with less effort. Grow VC is
more than crowd funding, it's a nurturing ecosystem where entrepreneurs can connect with experts, funders, team members, new customers and partners to realize their ideas.

DWS - October Super Event

DUBLIN WEB SUMMIT TO REVEAL TOP TECH NAMES FOR OCTOBER



Last October The Irish Times said it was the "highlight of the year."

Matt Cooper said: "Brilliant, incredible line-up"

The Independent announced: " The Lords of the internet have descended on Dublin"


And now it's back....


Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD will launch launch Ireland’s biggest tech event yet - The Dublin Web Summit 2011.

October's Summit will feature some of the biggest game changers in tech, international names that have rocked tech in 2011. Over 1,200 people, from across the world will attend October's event, making it one of the biggest tech events in Europe.

Headline speakers, themes and details of October's summit will be revealed to an audience at 9am in The Clarence Hotel on Monday July 11th.

In just over a year, Dublin Web Summit has attracted almost 5,000 people to its events. The summit has garnered international press attention and has been lauded by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

“Dublin Web Summit keeps getting bigger, there’s a phenomenal appetite for this in Ireland. October will be our biggest summit yet, one of biggest in Europe. The speakers are household names, the startups are some of the world’s most disruptive and the Irish speakers are truly inspirational. The event will firmly place Dublin on the map as one of Europe’s tech capitals” said Paddy Cosgrave organiser of Dublin Web Summit.

July 4th Celebrations and Sadness

So while our friends in the USA celebrate Independence Day, we are tinged with sadness because tomorrow is one of the funerals we mentioned.

It is only in death that we realise the fragility of life.


'I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. ~Gilda Radner

A goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again.


We will Not be posting on the 5th July ( hope you understand)