Archive
Propeller on Dublin City FM – 103.2 fm
Terence Bowden, Propeller Coordinator, will be interviewed on Dublin City FM on Friday the 2nd of December. Terence will be talking about the DCU Ryan Academy and Propeller. He will be joined by Don Corbett who is the CEO of mm Technologies and will talk about his product ‘Mobile Minder’.
Details:
Dublin City FM – 103.2 fm
Show: Good Morning Dublin
Date: 02/12/11
Time: 10-11am
Propeller Venture Accelerator features on Nationwide Friday 25th of November!
On Friday the 25TH of November, DCU Ryan Academy’s inaugural Propeller Venture Accelerator Demo Day presented on RTE One’s Nationwide at 7.00pm. The show will also be streamed live on RTE Player. Programme Enquiries to: nationwide@rte.ie
The Propeller Venture Accelerator aims to accelerate early development stage of technology start-up companies, both Irish and international, in Dublin. The Propeller Accelerator has taken the successful US accelerator model and adapted it to the Irish context. In early 2011 the Propeller Venture Accelerator became a charter member of the Techstars Network, only one of five outside of the US and only one of three in Europe.
The Propeller Venture Accelerator has an emphasis on software, Web 2.0, applications, informatics and cleantech start-ups. The accelerator programme is a mentor-led, three months incubation with free space and services and an additional €30,000 cash investment in each company. This is in return for 6.5% equity stake.
The first Propeller Programme which started in February 2011 had an initial six companies – who were:
This year the programme has received a total of 135 applications. Aside from a healthy number of Irish start-ups, the programme has also received applications from 20 countries, including Germany, Finland, the US, Australia, Iran, India, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, Rwanda and China. It is no surprise that people from all around the globe are showing a huge interest in participating in this award winning accelerator, recently ranked 7th in Europe.
The chosen companies will enter the Propeller offices in January 2012 in Citywest, Dublin. Waiting are over 60 mentors with a formidable amount of experience to help the companies on a path to success.
“The Propeller Venture Accelerator has been a great experience one that has truly accelerated our company by at least 2 years if not more in only 3 months. With easy access to a number of experienced mentors we were able to achieve results so much faster.”
Tom Byrne, CTO & Founder, HealthComms
The application process will open again for Propeller 3.0 in the Spring of 2012. Keep an eye on the Ryan Academy’s website.
Propeller start-ups have access to and advice from mentors, which is a key part of the programme; the mentors are senior corporate executives as well as seasoned entrepreneurs in the technology area. Another benefit of the programme is the package of corporate and service support including marketing, accounting, legal and intellectual property advice. Companies such as Sage, Arthur Cox (largest law firm in Ireland), Tomkins IP (intellectual Firm of the Year in 2010), Enterprise Ireland, Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME), the HALO Business Angels Network, the Irish Technology Leadership Group and Arizona State University in the US have agreed to partner on the programme.
Minister Richard Bruton launches second year of DCU Ryan Academy‘s Business Innovation Programme
On Monday the 24th of October Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Richard Bruton launched the second year of the DCU Ryan Academy’s Business Innovation Programme (BIP), with a total of 126 unemployed professionals signed up participate on this year’s course.
The programme will last for nine months with people securing on-the-job work placements with some of Ireland’s leading employers, while also gaining a recognised qualification in the process.
Of the 122 participants who took part in the inaugural year of the programme last year, over 55 per cent are now in fulltime employment.
During the launch, Minister Bruton welcomed the work of the DCU Ryan Academy and met past and present course participants.
Minister Bruton said:
“The people I met today in many ways reflect the experiences of so many people across the country in recent years – well qualified, hard-working people who have been unfortunate enough to lose their jobs due to the collapse in the economy.
“My hope is that the success of this Programme can be reflected across the country in the coming years. Through a combination of government support, the private sector, our educational institutions and above all the hard work and commitment of individuals, a large number of people in a short period of time have found employment again. There are many lessons for all of us here – for my part I am determined that government will keep its end of the bargain and work hard to get people into employment again”.
Speaking about their expectations for the course, BIP participant Tom Cavanagh from Shankill Co Dublin said, “I am delighted to have obtained a place on the course. I feel like I am taking control of my situation and it’s a great feeling to be in a room with dozens of other people with the same goals for the future.
I am looking forward to building on my own expertise, expanding my networks and giving myself an edge in a difficult job market, while gaining the confidence to change my career path and obtain a recognised qualification in the process.”
Ann Horan, Chief Executive of the Academy, said, “We are delighted to have such a diverse group of participants with a wide range of skills and experience.
Our aim over the next nine months is to work with this talented group of professionals and entrepreneurs to support them in unlocking their potential and ultimately, help them succeed in getting back into the workforce.” said Horan.
The BIP nine-month programme is part of the Higher Education Authority’s Springboard Initiative and incorporates academic classes with an innovation team placement with one of 40 host companies. Following the huge success of the first year of the BIP, this year saw the course oversubscribed by over 100 per cent.
Of the 126 current participants, 84 are men and 42 are women and while the majority are Irish, participants hail from all over the world, from as far away as Malawi and the United States.
Collectively, the 126 participants in the course this year have 2,184 years of work experience.
Over a third of participants, with an average age of 35-55, have been unemployed for over two years. Fifty four per cent of participants have been unemployed between 6 months and 2 years.
Free Professional Help to Develop Your Business
The DCU Ryan Academy is looking for companies that would like to host a business development team to carry out an assignment, free of charge, over a period of 40 days commencing in February 2012. We have over 100 experienced managers and professionals who are studying business innovation. As part of their course, each will carry out a project in one of a wide range of business development topics including product and/or service innovation, business process reviews including reviews of sales and marketing processes, reviews of the companies’ business models and some will help host companies to become systematically more innovative.
Companies interested in participating should contact Aifric O’Malley (01) 700 6786 before 31st October 2011. We will follow up with a meeting to discuss what you would like to get done and make every effort to try to match your requirements with the skills of our course participants.
The DCU Ryan Academy is a joint venture between Dublin City University and the family of the late Tony Ryan, founder of Ryanair. Our aim is to bridge the gap between academia and entrepreneurial practice in Ireland through training, support and funding for entrepreneurs. The students on our Business Innovation Programme are unemployed persons with a wide variety of professional and managerial backgrounds who are currently studying innovation, market and feasibility research, project management and consultancy skills.
Ryan Academy now on Twitter
The DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship is now on Twitter, we hope that you will be able to follow us and keep up-to-date with what is hot in innovation and entrepreneurship in less than 140 characters, don’t forget to tweet with what you think!
State of US Innovation
Industry Week has an article on the state of US innovation which makes for interesting reading. Entitled ‘Innovation Nation’ the article points out that manufacturing industries operating in the United States are more engaged in innovation than non-manufacturing companies, based on preliminary data from the National Science Foundation, which is a U.S. government agency that promotes science and engineering.
The survey data, which is from 2006-2008, show that about 22% of manufacturers introduced product innovations, compared with 8% of companies in non-manufacturing sectors. About 22% of manufacturers introduced process innovations compared with 8% of non-manufacturers. The NSF’s Business R&D and Innovation Survey also shows much higher innovation incidences are observed in the manufacturing subsectors of chemicals, computer/electronic products, and electrical equipment/appliances/components, and in some parts of the nonmanufacturing sectors of information and professional/scientific/technical services. Further, the BRDIS data indicate that companies that perform and/or fund R&D have a far higher incidence of innovation than do companies without any R&D activity.
One of the clearest findings i is the large difference in innovation incidence when companies with R&D activity are compared to those without any R&D activity. Companies with R&D spending exhibit far higher rates of innovation than do non-R&D companies.
Around 47,000 of the estimated 1.5 million for-profit companies (3%) performed and/or funded R&D in 2008. According to the survey data, 66% of all these companies were product innovators in the 2006–08 period, and 51% were process innovators. There is also indication that the companies with the most R&D (those in the $50–$100 million and $100 million or more annual R&D categories) report the highest incidence of innovation: 76% and 81%, respectively, for products in 2006–08, and 69% and 71% for processes.
Develop Your Earned Income Potential
- Are you a recently graduated college student?
- A social enterprise trying to create new revenue streams through earned income?
- Or an aspiring entrepreneur?
- Or a manager in an Irish Small or Medium sized company?
- Or looking to get a job in a knowledge economy company like Google or Facebook or green technology company?
- Or a researcher looking to commercialise your idea?
Then you shouldn’t miss the Jumpstart Bootcamp delivered by the Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship in association with Invent DCU, to learn what it takes to develop an idea into a successful venture. This is an intensive crash course which is designed to prepare participants to hit the ground running with the skills and resources needed to start a new venture or contribute innovative ideas to more established companies. Only €125 per day or €210 for both days.
Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurial thinking are the key to the Knowledge Economy in Ireland in the 21st Century.
With practical workshops covering the key aspects for new business start-ups, the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp is a two-day intensive program that provides participants with an intimate knowledge of the processes and challenges that any innovator or entrepreneur will face.
During this programme you will acquire the management and leadership skills needed to excel in a business environment, which will also help your own career prospects if you decide not to start a new company.
Delivered in a practical way, these executive modules are delivered by a group of peers with a strong entrepreneurial background, either working on a daily basis with entrepreneurs or with a serial entrepreneurial background of their own.
- Are you ready to start your own business?
- Want to be able to think creatively?
- Like to use innovative thinking in your career?
- Interested in learning to think like an entrepreneur?
- Got an idea you think can be turned into cash?
If you would like to book places for either of these workshops, please contact Niamh at niamh.collins@ryanacademy.dcu.ie or by phone on (01) 700 6762
Your Country Your Call: Our Chance
I was fortunate to have been at the launch of a very exiting, innovative project this afternoon. President McAleese formally launched ‘Your Country Your Call’ (YCYC) in the National Gallery.
Yourcountryyourcall.com is a competition, but no ordinary one. The vision for it came from Dr Martin McAleese, very much the mover and shaker on it from the beginning, with the patron being the President. In a sense, as it is being run as a charitable organisation, this is a massive social innovation experiment. Everyone involved in Your CountryYour Call did so on a pro bono basis.
Your Country, Your Call will award the winning two proposals with a prize of €100,000 each and both proposals will then be implemented with the support of an independent working group and with a development fund of up to €500,000 for each project. The competition is about helping to create future prosperity, whilst at the same time generating hope, confidence, and positive thinking. It is about getting everyone in the country to look at what they can do to make use of our innate ability as a people to be creative and imaginative and generate fresh thinking.
What makes Your Country Your Call different (apart from the substantial prizes and development money available) is that it is looking for the ‘big idea’ – the ideas that will help not only get our country out of the current doldrums but also help create jobs and prosperity. It is open to all. This is a great opportunity for the social sector, individuals or teams, to show just how innovative we are. Check out the details at http://www.yourcountryyourcall.com
After all creating social capital is vital to the country’s well being, something the Academy has pointed our repeatedly to anyone who would listen. More than that, the jobs creation element can be built into it now. After all the social sector in the US, Canada and UK are very much taking this approach. Obama and Brown have supported social enterprise in comment and deed in the last year, and now here is a chance, more than that, a national and international stage, to help promote the social sector via this competition.
Dr McAleese called on many individuals and partners to help put this competition together. The Ryan Academy is proud of being involved from an early stage in the working groups, through the Ryan Academy Director of Programmes Gordon McConnell. The President of Dublin City University was also heavily involved (and is on the high level steering committee) in helping to turn Dr McAleese’s vision into reality. It was a joy to participate in such an innovative approach, a positive statement in cynical times.
Low tech as good as high tech
A recent Sunday Times report noted that a new company funded by the charitable arm of Royal Dutch Shell has produced a cheap stove that also cuts smoke and toxic emissions by 80%. An interesting factor of social enterprise innovation has been that is covers both high tech and low tech. Often low tech solutions are ignored by the Western World, yet many in the social sector are dealing with issues in the developing world and have come up with very innovative solutions to such issues.
The company is called Envirofit and is a spinout from the University of Colorado. It claims that its $20 stoves cut smoke and toxic emissions by 80%, and halve the amount of fuel that is needed. It aims to sell 10m in the developing world over the next five years. Envirofit’s goal is to develop and distribute well-engineered energy products that address major environmental problems in the global emerging markets that traditionally have been overlooked.
Another innovative approach is the 15 below jacket. Developed to help homeless people in Canada—who face winter temperatures of as low as -30 degrees Celsius—Canadian ad agency TAXI developed the 15 Below Jacket. The garment owes its insulating properties to old newspapers. The jacket is distributed to the homeless by the Salvation Army, the jacket’s durable, waterproof and wind-resistant case has internal pockets in the sleeves, body and hood for its owner to fill with newspaper. TAXI wanted a ‘big idea’ to celebrate 15 years of success and to give something back to the community. Over 3,000 jackets have now been donated.
In world where high tech rules, sometimes we forget that low tech solutions can be just as good.
DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship 