Grow VC Launches Community Partner Program

Grow VC Launches Community Partner Program – 70 Campuses in the USA

September 28 – London, Silicon Valley & Hong Kong – „Virtual Silicon Valley‟ platform creator Grow VC has launched a national university program in the US to ignite student entrepreneurs with the entrepreneurial spark. The online venture community and micro funding network has grown to over 10,000 entrepreneurs, investors and experts from 200 different countries.

“We see the student demographic as a cornerstone in building the future of entrepreneurship and venture capital”, says Grow VC Chairman Jouko Ahvenainen. “It‟s the students that are going to lead value creation in the new era, it‟s them that have to point us in the right direction and lead the change. It all starts at the grassroots,” Ahvenainen continues.

The Community Partner program covers 70 campuses from California to New York, from Washington State to Florida. The program activates undergraduates, graduate students and other academic professionals from schools such as Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of Colorado Boulder, Georgetown, the University of Texas and dozens more. The network has a reach of over potentially 10 000 entrepreneurs, which represents the programs short term goal.

“Students have a pragmatic attitude, applying trial and error to business can serve as a valuable business instinct for building ventures for the future,” points out Grow VC CEO Valto Loikkanen. “Grow VC has always been about democratizing startup funding for when the „Facebook generation‟ grows up, which makes students and student demographic a clear focus for building the future of investing and startups. It‟s with the students that we want to build the future step by step,” Loikkanen emphasizes.

The Community Partners will be incentivized to grow their own personal network, within campuses but also with partners in the startup ecosystem. “The program aims to weave together a net of entrepreneurial campuses, to further boost getting the right initiatives and startups off the ground in the US for more job growth”, elaborates Mr. Ahvenainen. For student entrepreneurs the program offers tools to advance their own ventures and activities, but also engage in building a support infrastructure for student entrepreneurs.

“We are looking forward to seeing the drive and talent of this entrepreneurial group,” states Mr. Loikkanen. “For those that exceed, they can earn a good position within a growing entrepreneurial organization in the future,” he hints.

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.

Google to open new data centre in Dublin

Google to open new data Centre in Dublin and create up to 200 jobs.

Google will invest up to €75m in the acquisition and the build and fit out of its new facility.

Both local and national firms will be involved in the construction phase.

'It is understood the contractors have already been selected after taking part in a competitive bid process.

Once operational, the centre will employ up to 30 people in a variety of full-time and contractor roles, including computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, and catering and security staff.

The new data centre will be in addition to Google’s existing rented data centre facility in Dublin, which will continue to operate.

Google already employs over 2,000 people in Dublin, and last year bought three major office buildings in central Dublin, including the city’s tallest commercial office building, Montevetro.

Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, said that the global cloud computing industry offers Ireland a massive opportunity for jobs and economic growth.

“I am determined that government will act decisively to seize that opportunity, and that is why I have established a cross-government implementation group to ensure that prompt action occurs.

“The decision by Google, one of the most important multinational companies in Ireland, to locate a state of the art data centre in Dublin is an endorsement of our policies in this area, and a sign of what is possible if we continue our focus.” '

As reported by Inside Ireland

Thank you for all your applications to StartupAcademy Ireland

Startup Academy applications for this coming year is now CLOSED. Thank you to all those that applied and good luck.

More news will be announced in the coming weeks.

DoneDeal sells 50% to Norway firm

As reported earlier

'Norway’s Schibsted Media Group is to take a stake of just over 50% in Irish online classifieds adverts site DoneDeal, it has been announced.

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

As part of this deal, Fred Karlsson, co-founder of DoneDeal will continue in the management of the company and as a major shareholder in the business.

DoneDeal, which employs 10 staff at its offices in Wexford. had revenues of slightly more than €3m in the fiscal year that ended April 30, 2011.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/donedeal-sells-50-stake-to-norways-schibsted-522639.html#ixzz1ZZoDaP1q

Just 1 day left for Startup Academy Entries for this year

Well its finally here. The deadline for receiving applications is 4pm 30th September 2011. Which is tomorrow. The month has flown by. We have received in excess of 150 '100 word' pitches via email. This has far exceeded our expectations.

Just 6 will be selected to join the 'Class of 2011/2012' They will work with their mentors and teams to either launch or grow existing ideas forward.

We wish everyone who has applied good luck, you may not automatically receive a reply, but you will be notified via email no later than the 7th October if you have been successful.

If you have not applied yet, but you have an idea, why not jot it into a 100 word pitch and email it over. Visit : Startupacademyireland.com for details.

Good luck

NI's GEM bought by US Firm

One of Northern Ireland's biggest call centre firms has been bought over by an American company.

There will be no job losses or major changes at homegrown Gem, which has been acquired by California-based firm Concentrix Corporation.

Gem has around £16m in annual revenues and employs around 700 staff in Northern Ireland and Hungary.


Read more:

Learnupon - needs your help !

Our friends and sponsors at redhills.ie have been telling us about a great new project they are working on with Irish Startup Learnupon.

They are currently looking for 'alpha' testers.

Here is what they need:-

'As we continue to get the word out about LearnUpon and what our app has to offer, this is the first in a series of 3 blog posts that provide a bit more information on what functionality LearnUpon provides customers in each of the markets we are focused on. First up is professional training companies and content developers. Basically anyone who sells training courses to other companies and individuals, we had you guys in mind when we first started designing LearnUpon.

If you are a training company or content developer who already delivers much of your courseware online then we would like to let you know a little more about some of the benefits of using LearnUpon as your delivery platform. You may already have an LMS you are using but we think we have put together a range of functionality that will make it much easier for you to manage your business while offering a great online learning experience to your clients.'

Read More and help them

DWS October Adds more speakers

Twitter chief, Huffington Post and Obama campaigner added to Summit lineup



Tony Wang, General Manager of Twitter in the UK has been added to Dublin Web Summit’s lineup. Wang who recently moved from Twitter’s San Francisco HQ is charged with developing the company’s international operations. He joined Twitter from Google, where he was Managing Counsel supporting Google’s international expansion.

Paddy Cosgrave organiser of the Dublin Web Summit said “given Twitter’s recent expansion to Ireland we hope that Tony Wang will be able to provide more detail on Twitter’s Irish operations.

“Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks, so we’re delighted to have someone so senior at the Summit”

Joining Tony Wang will be Carla Buzasi, Editor of the newly launched HuffingtonPost.co.uk. The UK edition is only the second international edition of the hugely popular US news blog founded by Arianna Huffington in 2005 and acquired by AOL for $315m in February of this year.

Blue State Digital founder Jascha Franklin-Hodge has also been added to the ever-expanding lineup at October’s summit. Blue State Digital was heavily involved in Barack Obama’s campaign for the US Presidency in 2008. The company specialises in political activism and online fundraising.

In addition, prominent Silicon Valley angel DaveMcClure will also speak. McClure, a former PayPal exec is one of the Valley’s most prolific angel investors having put his money behind over 100 startups.

All four speakers will join almost 100 others at the two-day Dublin Web Summit on October 27-28 in the RDS in Dublin. Over 1,200 attendees are expected making it the biggest Dublin Web Summit yet.

Tickets for available from DublinWebSummit.com

Northern Ireland’s best small company celebrates a berry successful pitch

Northern Ireland’s best small company celebrates a berry successful pitch


The entrepreneur behind a premium liqueur infused with wild berries has won the Northern Irish heat of The Pitch 2011, BusinessZone.co.uk’s search for Britain’s best new companies.

September 26th 20011, Barbara Hughes, who runs Boozeberries with her husband, won over three expert judges in Belfast’s Grand Opera House. The event, organised in association with print and digital services company Yell, was the last regional heat in The Pitch 2011’s search for Britain’s best small businesses.

The couple’s product is a liqueur naturally enhanced with the infusion of wild fragrant berries, and is already stocked in several branches of Tesco Northern Ireland.

Boozeberries and four other small businesses were judged by Karen Darby, a serial entrepreneur; Carl Hopkins, marketing expert and star of Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire and Will McKee, entrepreneur, investor and one of Ireland’s leading board directors.

A confident pitch combined with a product that has secured genuine interest in both the UK and USA markets secured Hughes, who has a background in the food and retail industry, a place in the grand final of The Pitch 2011 at London’s legendary Pacha night club on 18 November. The overall champion will receive £50,000 worth of business support.

Dan Martin, BusinessZone.co.uk editor and The Pitch founder, says: “The Pitch 2011 has been on the road since June tracking down the UK’s best small businesses and our Northern Irish contenders certainly didn’t disappoint. All five demonstrated exactly the sort of commitment and passion needed to get the economy back on track. Unfortunately however, there could only be one winner.

“Barbara Hughes won over the judges with a business that already has an impressive brand and is stocked by the UK’s biggest supermarket. We look forward to seeing how she compares to our champions from England, Wales and Scotland.”

The other finalists in The Pitch 2011 Northern Ireland were:
• Anthony Kieran, Media Lightbox (an online file storage and management for businesses)
• Conor James Moran, Mobile Report (a web and mobile application used to generate reports for field based operatives)
• Maria McGee, Marble Hill (natural skin care solutions for everyday skin problems)
• Jason Paul, Floe (a device that downdrains and removes stagnant water from houses, holiday homes, caravans and motorhomes)

Northern Ireland was the last heat in the regional search for finalists. The event also included presentations from business experts including millionaire entrepreneur Lara Morgan, chief executive of Invest Northern Ireland Alastair Hamilton and David Malone, Belfast divisional telesales manager for Yell.

Startup Academy Class of 2011 2012 Applications 3 days left

Well its been an amazing month for the Startup Academy. We have received over 100 applications for the Class of 2011/2012. So before the deadline passed, we wanted to outline the benefits of the Academy and why if you have an idea you should apply.

1) Just 6 startups will be selected and nurtured for the year of 2011 / 2012.

2) We will appoint a mentor for each startup. ( picked with industry experience for your startup from our pool of mentors)

3) If needed we will provide office location for your startup. ( we say if needed because some people like to work at home or have offices, so we wont make you move :) )

4) We will arrange and develop all aspects of your business with you, from technology, business plan, funding and promotion. Any aspect you feel your startup needs help with we will be there.

5) Testing - We can market test the startup pre- launch with you to make sure launch goes to plan.

6) With our partners we will make sure that each business is ready to launch based on a timetable agreed before you start.

7) We will help with launch, promotion and PR.

8) When the year is up we will let you go, proud and ready to know that you have achieved your goals in the year.


So if you think you would like to be a part of the Startup Academy this year, then its simple, send your idea in a 100 word pitch via email with all your contact details, and we will select the best ideas.

To apply email siliconireland@gmail.com - Ref: startup Academy

Visit hhttp://www.startupacademyireland.com

Heystacks launches Search App

'HeyStaks, the Irish social search start-up has today launched their one-stop mobile search solution for the iPad and Android powered tablets like Sony Tablet S Honeycomb which is launching soon in the US, Asia and Europe.


Based on the premise that people sharing common interests will generate the best and most personalized search results, the Heystaks model is built on unique and proprietary relevance and reputation-based social algorithms.'

Read More here at Irish Dev

Visit HeyStacks Site

No Silicon Valley yet Derry attracts new creative entrepreneurs

Check out this great piece in the Irish Times.




No Silicon Valley yet Derry attracts new creative entrepreneurs

Bioware announces new jobs for Galway

Another great announcement for Ireland! From the West of Ireland.

One hundred new jobs are expected to be announced for Galway later.

BioWare Ireland, a gaming development company, will make the announcement at the official opening of its Galway headquarters by Taoiseach Enda Kenny this afternoon.

It is understood that 200 staff will be employed at the customer service base, around half of whom have already been hired.


Read more here

Twitter picks Dublin for European Operations

Great news, Twitter announces it will set up its European Ops in Dublin. This is something we believed would happen at Silicon Ireland for a long time. Ireland has attracted a lot of great companies due to the workforce and 'tax' breaks but what it does is create jobs. There will also be a spin off for suppliers and small businesses in Ireland. This is again a very positive sign of Ireland's reversal of fortunes.

Well done to the IDA for sticking with it.

“IDA is absolutely thrilled that Twitter has decided to establish an international office in Ireland,” Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland, said.

“Twitter is a fantastic addition to Ireland’s dynamic digital media cluster and we are excited to support the company's continued international growth.”

More news as it develops.........


Other Reports

Silicon Republic

Irish Times

The Press Association

Startups Wanted

Silicon ireland has been supporting startups in ireland for the last 3 years. So it is great to see SiliconRepublic.com launch help for startups with NDRC and Enterprise Ireland.

This is a great initiative and well worth the time to get your startup noticed. From our point, please also take a look at Startup Academy for this years class. Applications close on Sept 30th.

See below info from SiliconRepublic.


'Start-ups everywhere, your time has come. Siliconrepublic.com is stepping up its support of start-ups with new resources to help entrepreneurs. Check out some new microsites we’ve launched in partnership with Enterprise Ireland and the NDRC, and some of the useful tools we have created to help you on your journey.'

Read More

Digicom 2011 Annual Tech Event Aviva Stadium

Hey Silicon Ireland readers, Digicom, Experts in Business to Business Video Communication and Managed Document Solutions, would like to invite you to our 2011 Annual Technology Event - Business Efficiency Realised.

We will be demonstrating the latest technological advances for business with our technology partners:

Cisco | Ricoh | AMX | Polycom | Extron | Nuance | Laserfiche | Smart Technologies | NEC | Samsung

We will also be providing a seminar on business efficiency with guest speakers from Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and IBM.

This is your opportunity to be informed, get connected and meet with our technology experts to discuss your specific technology requirements.

To Register click here

We keep on growing! a massive thank you

It amazes me how our site and Twitter followers continue to grow. It really is great. Because it shows that Ireland is seeing itself as a strong contender in the European tech scene.

Over the years we have tried to focus on all that is positive, never focus on the negative. We focus on all the small businesses out there that just need a mention. There are plenty of other sites out there that can report on the big tech scene, but that is not what we wanted to do.

We thank you again for reading and following.

Trinity’s Innovation and Technologies Showcase

Trinity’s Innovation and Technologies Showcase will be held in the Science Gallery from 4-8pm on Thursday 6th October 2011
Registration is open – email acrosbie@tcd.ie

What’s it all about?
Trinity researchers will showcase 35+ innovative ideas, technologies, products and processes at different stages in the commercial pipeline and derived from a wide range of disciplines across College.

Why attend?
With Trinity’s record of over 18 spin-out companies in the last 3 years, this showcase is a must-see for business partners, investors and entrepreneurs alike. This year’s projects promise real commercial opportunities, demonstrating the benefits of research to the economy and the community.

More information on www.tcd.ie/research_innovation

A sample of the 35+Projects on show include:
Peptides Biomarker: Breast Cancer
Atrial Fibrillation Scan
Beer Spoilage Prevention: Antimicrobial Peptides
Ulcerative Colitis ProDrug
Novel Mecamylamine Compounds: Neuropsychiatry
Aspiration Efficiency Reducer
Nanohelices for energy harvesting
Diamond patterning
A new chromatographic media for bioseparations
Wingwatch: Collision Avoidance for Aircraft on the Ground
UNITE: Cross Site Web Personalisation
Endoview: Measurement of Endoscopy Quality
PBOC: Primary Care Admission Prevention (PCAP)
Impartio: Enhanced Cloud Security


Audrey Crosbie,
Industry Liaison Manager
Trinity Research & Innovation
Taighde agus Nuálaíocht- Coláiste na Tríonóide Innovation Centre,
O'Reilly Institute
Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Shhmooze is making it easy to 'schmooze'

This great company based in Belfast has now got an app for Andriod. After having made itself a hit on the iPhone its ready to rock the Android world. Its also started to be recognized as a company by press, blogs and tv.


Recently, they had some great coverage in some fantastic publications, including Wired Magazine, The Times and the Irish Times. See what they said below

'We've also won some great awards, including being voted best Irish app of the year at the Belfast App Circus and selected as one of the world's 20 best apps of the year at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (Mobile Premier Awards).

But what we love most is hearing from our users. From London to LA and from Belfast to Barcelona, thousands of people have already used Shhmooze to network and have told us what they think:

"Just wanted to let you know how impressed I was with my first use of your app at an event. I used it at the Barcelona Affiliate Conference. I made two very profitable deals that will shortly cover all of my flight/hotel costs.

I am absolutely convinced that I would NOT have made the deals without your app. Both contacts came from using your app at the event. 'kin amazing!"

"Absolutely love it! It's like Foursquare without all the noise - and it actually connects people!"

"Really liked Shhmooze - made 3 contacts today at Dublin Web Summit I honestly wouldn't have otherwise"

"Checking out the Shhmooze iPhone App here at Showcase Conf - very impressed. Login and give us a 'wave'!"'

We are so pleased that this app which we have talked about a few times is being so widely recognized. We love the app, and with such a management team, it will easily become a industry standard.

Podio - make a work app for your business

We were contacted yesterday by Kasper Hultin Co Founder of Podio. He wanted us to look over the new app info and put out to our readers some info for you, so here it is

Podio are changing the way people work together in teams and companies, and we value the opinion of thinkers and movers in the field.

Here is the news: What if everyone could build their own mobile work apps to get their work done in a collaborative way? With today's iPhone app release this is now possible.

When we launched back in March, the BBC called Podio a citizen developers movement. Since then our users have built or modified more than 200,000 work apps. In fact anyone can build an app on Podio, without technical skills. With today's iPhone app release Podio users can put all of those work apps on their iPhones.

We are very excited about this and would love to know what you think. I bet you can come up with more cases where this could be useful, and I'd love to see you, and your readers, become part of the movement to change the way people work.

Check out - Podio here

DWS adds more speakers

5 More Speakers, 500 More Attendees
We've announced 5 more huge international speakers as of this morning, including the founder of Angry Birds, Mikael Hed, and the founder of 4Chan, Christopher 'Moot' Poole. Full details on our website.

We've also comprehensively updated our attendee list to include hundreds more attendees. See the list.

Erly.com

Now we know that there are enough networks for social experience, but here is another which tries to capture peoples experiences.

The first project is called Collections


The easiest way for a group to build a collaborative album of photos, notes, videos, and links.

Erly Collections helps you and your friends organize your personal content around a shared experience so that you always remember interesting moments.

Erly is a new social platform for organizing and sharing your personal content.

Everyday, people create and consume increasing amounts of personal life content, such as status updates, check-ins, and photos. Most social products organize this personal data around people with a friend graph that consists of individual profile pages, and shared content is specific to the person instead of an event or experience as a whole.

Erly, organizes content by first creating canonical event pages within which we map people, time, and locations. This experience graph is inspired by the way the human mind often recalls what, when, and where just as often as we remember who. In publicly organized resources like Wikipedia, events and people exist at the same level of prominence, and we want to bring that to people's personal lives as well. Overall, we believe that an experience graph can help connect people to each other and their vast amounts of personal data in new, unique, and valuable ways.

The development approach is inspired by a studio publishing model where we will release a portfolio of products and services (instead of a single application) that each address a targeted customer scenario. Each product will leverage a common backend platform and will all be built on top of our global experience graph

You can find out more by visiting Erly here

Blackberry - a dying icon

Is there a media obsession with destroying Blackberry? There does not seem to be one reporter that reports anything positive, and now news outlets and Wall Street revel in the fact that $3 billion has been wiped off there stock price.

I am a Blackberry user, and I use it over the iphone, I think sometimes that people forget how useful this phone has been for business persons on the move.

Also this firm is still designing great products, and has great software. Is it now a dying icon, ready to be snapped up by someone like Oracle? Who knows?...



Check out the Guardian's Coverage below

'BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is under intense pressure from Wall Street to change its leadership as a worse than expected profit collapse wiped £3bn off the company's value during morning trading in New York.

Shares were down 18% by midday on Friday after Thursday's announcement that income before tax had halved quarter-on-quarter to $414m (£262m). Goldman Sachs estimates its global market share has fallen to 9% from 16% a year ago. Reports Guardian/.'

Read More

Klouts 100 million users

100 Million People now have Klout!

We're excited to announce that 100 million people now have Klout Scores! We've watched as social media has transformed communication; increasingly the power of the individual is winning out over mass-media broadcasts.

Let us know if you have used it. I heard via TC Disrupt that Twitter uses it to do recommendations?

Let us know what you think.

DWS adds more speakers

DWS's big event has added more speakers today : see below

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed joins international execs from Mozilla and AOL

He’s the man behind one of the most successful and engaging apps to hit our phones yet – Angry Birds. Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio, the company behind the hughely successful game has been added to October’s lineup.

Joining Hed will President of Mozilla Europe, Tristan Nitot, David Shing, Digitial Profit at AOL and Mike O’Toole Global Head of Technology Operations at Morgan Stanley.

7th Annual Belfast Business Top 50 Celebrations

The Belfast Media Group is gearing up for our Seventh Belfast Business Top 50 celebration which is scheduled for Stormont's Long Gallery at 6pm, on Thursday 29th September 2011.

Many Belfast companies are growing, and they will be honored along with both businessmen and businesswomen, veteran business people and many young guns. Some will be entrepreneurs and small business owners, others executives of major companies.

With Guest Speaker, Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson, MP, MLA.

As a long-time supporter of Belfast Media Group initiatives, I do hope you'll join us for this unique occasion. Tickets, priced £25 + VAT, can be purchased on our website at,

http://belfastmedia.com/top50/?page_id=80

Deadline for tickets is Friday 23rd September 5pm.

Last Chance to Apply

The deadline for applications for the Start Up Zone in association with Enterprise Ireland is tomorrow, Friday, at 6pm.

The Start Up Zone entitles successful applicants to 2 tickets to the Dublin Web Summit, and the opportunity to showcase your business to 1000 attendees.

The cost is just €550 and successful applicants will be notified next week, but we are limiting places to just 35 companies. Start Ups must be less than 3 years old, and must have received less than €3 million in funding. For more details or to apply just visit http://www.dublinwebsummit.com/index.php/why-attend/startupzone before 6pm tomorrow.



SPARK

Also, don't forget to enter the ESB Electric Ireland Spark of Genius Competition for your chance to win €40k. Enter HERE.

Muud.io - Galway startup by App Sandwich

Galway, Ireland — September 14th, 2011 — Galway-based startup, App Sandwich, today released Muud.io - an exciting, new music application for iPhone and iPod touch. Muud.io is a social music app, that can recommend playlists, based on a given mood. Tell Muud.io what mood of music you'd like to hear, and our community of music-lovers will build a playlist for you, using the music in your library.

"To date, making playlists to suit specific situations or moods has been a very manual and cumbersome process," said Vinny Coyne, Managing Director of App Sandwich. "With Muud.io, we've made this process as simple as touching a button. Whether you're preparing a mix for a tough workout at the gym, or taking it easy on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Muud.io can provide a suitable soundtrack in an instant."

Muud.io is available on the Apple® App Store and includes the following features:

- Community-recommended playlists, based on a mood of your choice.
- Automatic rating of song moods via the Muud.io community.
- Manually rate song moods according to your own personal preference.
- Save and edit your favourite playlists to get them *just right*.
- Let your friends know what you're listening to via Twitter and Facebook.

iPhone & iPod touch users can purchase Muud.io directly from the Apple® App Store for EUR €2.99 / USD $3.99. Download: http://muud.io/app

App Sandwich Ltd. is a Galway-based software development company. App Sandwich Ltd. is based in the Innovation in Business Centre at the Galway campus of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and has previously received funding from the Galway County & City Enterprise Board.

A new board member for GrowVC

London, Silicon Valley & Hong Kong – ‘Virtual Silicon Valley’ platform creator
Grow VC has nominated a new member to the Advisory Board, Mr. Sarosh Kumana from San
Francisco. The online venture community and micro funding network has grown to over 10,000 entrepreneurs, investors and experts from 200 different countries.

"Sarosh brings strong experience in the traditional investment and business angel world, which is of great importance as we expand our network and solutions. Just last week President Obama’s American Job Act presented important steps to enable crowdfunding in a larger scale in the US. We see this is an
important step to develop the startup funding market, and Grow VC will play a key role in this process", states Grow VC Chairman and Co-founder Jouko Ahvenainen. "Mr. Kumana has extensive experience from many investment areas and companies, from global real estate investments to Sand Hill Angels in Silicon Valley. Grow VC wants to open startup investing to more people, not only to traditional business angels, Sarosh's experience and insight will be very valuable for us in this work."
Ahvenainen continues.

Sarosh Kumana (http://www.linkedin.com/in/saroshkumana) is a real estate entrepreneur and angel investor based in San Francisco, with over 25 years of startup and management experience. He founded and ran a leading California government foreclosure brokerage and a mortgage brokerage company for over 15 years. He is President of Pacific Capital Management, managing member of Junglee LLC, and also manages several other private investment vehicles. He is a member of Health
Tech Capital, a limited partner in numerous VC funds, and active with Sand Hill Angels in Silicon Valley as a Board Director.

Sarosh has a major commitment to global sustainability. He sponsors and supports a number of educational projects in the US and around the world through the Foundation for a Sustainable Future.

Locally, he is actively involved in civic, community and political affairs, particularly involving housing and good government issues. Sarosh serves on the Ambassador Council at Global Footprint Network, and on the Advisory Council of the Don Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University. Sarosh received a B.Com. from Sydenham College,
University of Bombay, and an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University.

"Crowdfunding, seed-stage investment represents the next step in the democratization and globalization of the startup investment ecosystem. GrowVC has come up with a platform that can be used to accomplish this. Developing safeguards for fledgling investors, complying with the legal requirements of multiple jurisdictions, cross-border and domestic systems of sharing entrepreneur data,
and enabling crowdsourced due diligence with security for all parties, are among the challenges that GrowVC faces in achieving its vision, and I am pleased to contribute to the process", Mr. Kumana commented on his nomination.


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.

Euro Startup Weekend Battle Presentations today

After an intense community vote, the top 13 teams from Euro Startup Weekend Battle are heading to London to present their startups in front of top European investors and members of the Startup Weekend community. With a sweet prize for the winning team, the heat is on!


Learn more about each of the presenting startups at eurobattle.startupweekend.org.

GrowVC now has over 10,000 individuals in 196 countries

Just got this in from GrowVC, great work.



Hey Silicon Ireland Readers,

Have we got news for you! As a community, we have grown to include over 10 000 individuals from over 196 different countries. Thank you all for your support and passion for the future!

Here are some new features for you to try out:

You can now publish public startup profiles! If your startup is already published, you will need to re-publish it for the public profile to be activate. See more instructions.
Improved dashboard and more search features.

10 000 Members
It is with great pride and privilege we celebrate this milestone with you

When we set out building Grow VC, it was apparent that we were building something for when the "Facebook generation" grows up. Reaching milestones such as this, validates our work and makes us all the more committed to bringing our vision of democratizing startup funding to life.

As we celebrate our progress so far, we set our sights on the fall. With the Networks model at the door, we are determined to reach our next milestone of 100 000 members with confidence. We call upon all of our community members to leverage our community tools for empowering startups and creating new success stories for the future.

Now is the time to set up your own Network! With the apparent financial dilemmas in the market, the White House is showing their support to crowd funding and new innovations in this field, seeing the true potential for economic growth. It's now time to get ahead of your competition and fuel your operations for the long term.


Who Are Networks Partners?

Meet some of our innovative Networks Pilot Partners

From incubators to angel networks to universities, the Grow VC Networks can be utilized for a plethora of different applications. Meet some of our Networks Pilot Partners:


Onsuccess is a media enterprise for startups and ventures in Korea. Onsuccess introduces innovative Korean startups and ventures to people overseas through media partners and inspires readers by sharing interesting business ideas and trends from all over the world.

ENOVA, the Entrepreneurship Society of the New University of Lisbon's mission is to promote and stimulate entrepreneurial practices, to assist in the creation of new Ventures and Projects, and to create an infrastructure to foster the entrepreneurial mindset.

The NEXT network is an e-community comprising aspiring entrepreneurs, owners of business startups and students. Associated with the NEXT Stock Exchange, the network forms a conducive environment for discussions and to incubate new business ideas.

Uth Board and Apparel offers a direct consumer participation based mobile and social channel so individuals, groups, skate shops and major brands can create, market and SELL their own custom and limited run skateboard decks, shirts, hats and other goods.


These are merely a few highlights. So far we have already over 20 partners signed up for the pilot program and they are in the process of getting their networks setup. Make sure to not miss out as the global startup ecosystem grows closer together with new powerful tools at use, speeding up for the future.

As you know there are plenty of things to develop and work to help startups grow, managing your network can be a "problem solved" with one single action you can make right here and right now. Inspired and interested? Why don't you sign up for free for the Pilot Program!


Visit www.growvc.com

wow 10000 page views for our blog in last 30 days

We would like to thank all the readers of our site. We have hit another milestone, 10,000 page views in a 30 day period. This is something we never imagined happening.

It shows the importance tech information is being given in Ireland.

So thank you to all our readers, followers, fans, contributors and advertisers.

a decade since 9/11

Its hard to believe thats it is a decade since 9/11 but thats what time does. No posts today except, spare a moments for those lost that day, a day that truly changed the direction of the world.

rest easy, your work is done.

Another Irish tech success featured on Rte

 







Arrangemyworld.com an Irish Tech success featured in September.

Please look out for the RTE1 Nationwide programme next Monday (12th Sept) at 7:00PM as it will explain the story of ArrangeMyWorld.com.
 
One System, One Location, All My Information!  
 
 
 Tel:        01 892 8029
 Mobile:   087 203 9369
 Email:    eric@arrangemyworld.com
 Web:      www.arrangemyworld.com
 
ArrangeMyWorld Ltd
Drinan Enterprise Centre
Swords Enterprise Park
Feltrim Road
Swords
Co Dublin

40 new Applications for Startup Academy Ireland

Thank you to all those that have sent in your 100 word synopsis' for the class of 2011/2012. It really shows the continues variation and breath of ideas in Ireland. We have seen applications from Limerick, Athlone, Galway, Cork, Sligo, Belfast, Coleraine and Dublin. This is exactly what we wanted from this years Academy applicants.

Startup Academy also has seen types of business ideas, from apps to web and cloud based ideas. We would like to announce that we now have 10 mentors on board and 3 angels investors now on board to help develop ideas and make the selected enterprises even more viable.

We welcome further applications up to the end of the month. Thanks ans good luck.

Dublin Startup Jobs

We were passed a site we would like to recommend. Even though we have a jobs board recently launched we think this is also right on target.

This to us is a good indication that things are moving in the right direction.


A Marketplace For Inspiring Jobs in Europe's Startup Hub - Check out Dublin Startup Jobs. We will link to it also on our Jobs board and track it accordingly. So good jobs on there for developers.

Check it out here

Pub Summit Review from an Irish Entrepreneur

The #pubsummit 2011. A review from an Entrepreneur in Ireland..Vinny Obrien

If i’m being honest i was fairly underwhelmed by the event. I’m not going to go on a bashing tirade but there is something missing from these types of events. Firstly it seemed to be hosted by non industry volunteers, which is in itself commendable but there in lies the issue. Creating an environment to stimulate discussions on hiring or investment is difficult on such a large public format. Maybe it should take the form of more is less – identify targets of people from each sector that have potential to offer each other tangible benefits. That requires alot of work and expertise. I attended one earlier this year where the speakers talked about their mcommerce strategy in the UK and how far behind Ireland was as a core market, but, and here’s the thing, they were going to help by providing templates for small businesses to have a presence in the regular online world?? Great, i hear you say – as an index tool for Irish business yes, but we need to be futureproofing business not bringing it up to 2007. Sorry for the cynicism. But a forward view would be brilliant. Not the “leg-up” program offered.

Read More

Wines Made Easy for Everyone to Enjoy

WinesMadeEasy.ie (www.winesmadeeasy.ie) is Ireland’s newest wine website. Brought to you from the lovely people at Flowers Made Easy, Wines Made Easy is the most interactive and socially active wine website this side of your modem. With over 800 wines to choose from on the site, they provide some of the biggest choice in the Irish market.

The concept is Easy. Make wine easy for people to enjoy. With wine available to order online with delivery to your door or someone else’s as a gift, what better way to find the perfect wine than from the comfort of your home or office.

So how do you know which wines you will like? Easy – With their socially integrated website, they have all the bases covered. You can read reviews, watch video reviews and even see who liked a wine on Facebook or +1’d it on Google. “We want people to get involved in our site, we want our customers to be the experts,” says Eamonn Grant, director at Wines Made Easy. “We hope to open up a place for people to share experiences and give opinions about wine allowing other users to get more ‘Real Life’ opinions about what a wine tastes like without having a degree in Wine. The concept is based on social inclusion. Everyone can like wine and hundreds of thousands of people drink wine but lots of those people still feel isolated or intimidated when it comes to choosing what wine to buy. We hope to remove that and open up the floor to everyone who wants to drink wine,” says Grant.

Speaking about the focus on video content, Grant said “We hope our site will become a video glossary for wine with customers providing video reviews of wines they have tasted in the past or present. The aim is that our site will become a great source of content and information about wine. By allowing our customers to get involved it will allow us to focus on finding the very best wines in every corner of the globe for them to taste and enjoy. Opinions will therefore range from people with no experience with wine to expert opinions.”

The interaction with customers at www.WinesMadeEasy.ie goes beyond the online world with plans for wine tasting events with a comical twist, social wine nights, a welcoming wine club soon to be launched and monthly competitions to allow their customers to get involved face to face.
The product range includes more than 800 red, white and rosé wines as well as sparkling wines and Champagnes. Visitors of the website will find high quality Australian wines, such as d’Arenberg, Barossa and Eden Valley wines or lovely Chateau Camplazens or Georges Duboeuf French wine. The choice is great with the decision made easy by getting involved.

As an opening offer www.WinesMadeEasy.ie are offering 10% Off for 10 reviews. Simply create an account on the site, submit 10 reviews of wines you’ve liked and they will email you with a 10% discount code for you to enjoy.

DWS - pre-event bash - Odeon Dublin

Paddy and his crew at Dublin Web Summit put together a range of pre-event 'meetups', prior to the big uber event in October. We went last night to the Odeon, at Harcourt St, and it was brilliant. Packed as usual! with a heady feel of optimism and buzz.

New startups mixed with those past masters of Irish tech like Pat Phelan from Maxroam and Irish VC Brian Caulfield. Lots of new startups with great products, talking mixing and networking.

Some great ideas, that mix on and offline reality - like http://www.prettyvacantdublin.com/ - which 'repurpose vacant Dublin properties as temporary exhibition spaces for artists.' and Dublin Skill share - that allows 'you to share your skills and learn from others'

Also there were announcements of new speakers for the DWS October event - Mashable Editor - Ben Parr and Amazon CTO Werner Vogels. All in all an enviable and amazing line up.

From our side, we watched and listened and sat back amazed by the spirit that Ireland has for technology. Paddy and his team have really focused it now and have come far in a short time.

We recommend you attend the DWS October event. It will be a case of be there or miss out! - You can book tickets here

Tech and Porn DWS 2011

Tech and Porn: Self-confessed Cougar Joins Founders Of LinkedIn And Youtube At Dublin Web Summit



A self-confessed cougar and a sci-fi novelist are among three new additions to October’s Dublin Web Summit – Ireland’s biggest tech event.

Cindy Gallop describes herself as a cougar, a woman who enjoys the company of young men. Gallop was head of ad giant BBH in the US until her sexual prowess inspired her to set up MakeLoveNotPorn. Gallop says “porn is the single biggest impact that technology is having on human behavior today.”

“I date younger men, usually in their 20s, and came up with the idea for MakeLoveNotPorn based on direct personal experience.

“Today's explosion in accessibility of online porn combined with our society's reluctance to talk about sex has resulted in porn becoming sex education by default.” said the former Ad guru. Gallop launched her startup at TED in 2009.

Gallop acts as board advisor to a number of tech startups and consults, describing her consultancy approach as 'I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.' She has a reputation as a highly compelling and inspirational speaker at conferences and events around the world on a variety of topics.

Joining Gallop at October’s two day tech summit is Maz Nadjm Head of Social Media for Ogilvy Group UK. Maz is a former Head of Digital Strategy for Sky. Ben Parr, Masahble’s Editor-At-Large has also been added to the lineup at Dublin Web Summit.

Previously announced speakers include: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, LinkedIn founder Eric Ly and Youtube founder Jawed Karim aswell as Irish entrepreneurs Chris Horn, Liam Casey and Colm Lyon.

Innovation Roadshow

Around 70 companies from across the province attended the Innovation Roadshow event which took place in the University of Ulster’s York Road Campus in Belfast and saw the launch of the Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards. Now in its third year, the competition aims to recognise and promote the best innovations within organisations of all sectors and all sizes across the island.



Read more

Are you going to the DWS PubSummit tonight?

Are you going to the DWS PubSummit tonight? If so perhaps you would like to speak with us at Silicon Ireland about your startup?

If you would like to have a 5 min or longer talk then please email us @siliconireland (at) gmail dot com. We will gladly arrange a set time.

IF not then no problems! Just enjoy the evening. :)

Nerds Unite

Nerds Unite – Ireland’s biggest tech networking event



Dublin Web Summit will host Ireland’s biggest tech meet up this evening (September 5), where a number of keynote speakers for October’s Dublin Web Summit will be announced. The founders of LinkedIn, Bebo and Youtube will be among over 60 speakers for the October 27-28 event.

“Long gone are the days of three nerds eagerly gathering around a laptop.

“The Pub Summit networking event is the biggest single tech meet up in the UK and Ireland. There’ll be 650 people tonight and another 650 tomorrow. We run the Pub Summits in advance of the Web Summit itself, to give people a chance to meet up and network but they’ve just been getting bigger and bigger” said Paddy Cosgrave, organizer of Dublin Web Summit.

Tickets for the event were snapped up in just six hours. Demand was so significant that the summit was forced to launch an additional event (September 6), which filled up in just nine hours.

“We’re very lucky in Ireland to have quite an outward looking tech scene. The Pub Summit brings together not just the programmers or the social media types but also the accountants and the lawyers who have a focus on tech. It’s all encompassing” said Cosgrave.

A recent survey of attendees by Wired Magazine concluded the average number of attendees at a tech meet up is 140, yet the Dublin Web Summit’s pub summit events continue to attract hundreds of additional attendees.

THE DIGITAL IRELAND FORUM 30th Sept 2011

THE DIGITAL IRELAND FORUM

Brought to you by Siliconrepublic.com


Friday, September 30, 2011

Event 8-10.30am, registration and breakfast 7.30am

Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2

RUNNING ORDER
7.30 to 8.00: Registration and breakfast
8.00: Introduction by the chair
8.05: Opening by Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD
8.15: Keynote 1: Lord Puttnam on meeting the education and skills needs for the digital economy
8.35: Panel discussion and Q&A with Lord Puttnam and:

Mary Lou Nolan, Country Manager, Cisco
Fiona Carroll, Executive VP, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Jim Wynn, Chief Education Officer, Promethean
Panelist 4 TBC

9.10: Coffee and tea, served at tables (short break)
9.30: Keynote 2 (TBC): Ireland's digital opportunity, and the infrastructure that will facilitate this
9.50: Panel discussion and Q&A with keynote and:

Jason Ward, Country Manager, EMC
Maurice Mortell, CEO, Managing Director, Ireland, TelecityGroup
Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO, Vodafone Ireland
Graham Sutherland, CEO, BT Ireland and Northern Ireland
10.30: Event closes

For more info including booking - click here

25 Applications for Startup Academy Ireland

Silicon Ireland's Startup Academy, has received the first 25 applications for being included in the Startup Academy taking place in Belfast this year. The 6 selected startups will have the chance to receive full mentoring, finance, and technical support to launch in 2012. They will also get space to work from in Belfast at the Academy offices. We are accepting applications until end of October 2011. If you want to apply send over a 100 word summary via email including your contact details. Good luck

Biz Camp Galway - Sept 10th 2011

We love to see great events happen in Ireland and love them even more when they are in other parts of Ireland like Galway, Limerick, Cork and so on. If you havn't been to a BizCamp event - here is the info:- BizCamp is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value out of the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the business community, VCs and investors, and representatives from the relevant state agencies. Lost your job recently or thinking about bringing your good idea to the world? Come along to BizCamp; who knows what new opportunities might present themselves? Our aim is to embrace as much of the Irish business community as possible. We want to see people from all areas – finance, operations, HR, legal, delivery specialists, R&D, marketing and technology. Ireland Inc. has a wealth of knowledge and acumen, more than enough to help us out of these troubled times. By attending (and more importantly contributing!) you can help make BizCamp a new good news story coming out of the recession. Hey, it’s almost free (only €5, donated directly to charity), what have you got to lose? Who knows – your idea could be Ireland’s next success story. Why miss the opportunity to get the push it needs to get it started, find some support that will help, or talk to people who have been through it before? This is a user-generated conference, so it’s up to you what you bring to and take from the day. If you want to learn and share your thoughts with some of the brightest and most enthusiastic minds in the country, then BizCamp is for you. Register Here

Leaving Cert App

We often are contacted by young startups, asking us to review and write about their sites. Some times its good and sometimes not so much! When Robbie Lynch contacted us about his new app aimed at students we thought that it was prudent to look and mention it, especially with so many students returning to schools in the coming weeks, The app is aimed at Leaving Cert Students. It enables students to View/Download and Manage Exam Papers and Marking Schemes on their mobile phones. Although this might not replace the Exam Paper hard copies, hopefully it'll make life a bit easier for students who would like access to Papers whenever and wherever they are. There is two versions of the app available. The Lite Version (Free): Gives students access to all Exam Papers from the years 2009 - 2010. The Pro Version (€0.99): Gives students access to all Exam Papers from the years 2000 - 2011 and all Marking Schemes from the years 2001 - 2010 At €0.99 for the Pro version, For a quick demo click here or buy from here

Yelp Dublin - Businesses in Rathmines

We were asked to promote and help Yelp.ie with theie Businesses in Rathmines. See below the info and support if you can. When: Friday, September 9, 2011 17:30 - Friday, September 16, 2011 19:30 Where: Businesses throughout Rathmines Rathmines, Co. Dublin Submitted by: Annie L. See all events submitted by Annie L. » What/Why: For the first time ever Yelp Dublin is unveiling Passport to Rathmines! Quite simply head to this quirky and fun part of Dublin 6 to avail of fantastic savings! Come out to launch at Rody Bolands for free food and drink, more information further down. From Friday, September 9th through to Friday, September 16th, enjoy exclusive discounts and special offers from all sorts of local Rathmines businesses! How can you get your little hands on one of these treasured passports, you ask? Four ways! 1. On this listing you will see images of the offers so you can use your mobile phone to access the event listing if you do not have the "check-in" option. Simply show the offer to the biz and voila - you save cash! 2. Every participating business will have their offer accessible when you "check in" using the free Yelp app. Check here for more info

Startup Academy Launches - Applications now welcome

Well at long last we are launching the site for Startup Academy. If you have a technology related startup idea and you would like us to consider you for the Academy this year, simply email us you pitch in 100 words or less, outlining your idea, market and the technology. We will then shortlist them and announce the 6 startups selected in October. All the mentoring will this year take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. You can visit the site here We would like to thank everyone involved and look forward to working with the new startups soon.