Startup-Bootcamp Investor’s Demo Day in Dublin features four Irish start-ups businesses
Left photo: Investor Demo Day features four Irish start-ups & right photo CleverMiles’s Sligo’s James McNamara,Chris McNamara and Chloe McGuckin
Investor Demo Day features four Irish start-ups
Four Irish entrepreneurs are pitching their ideas to angel investors, business mentors and start-up communities at an Investor Demo Day at Startupbootcamp Dublin headquarters in Dublin today.
Ten teams from Israel, US, Poland, Lithuania, China, Brazil, Romania and Ireland were selected from over 150 applications.
Themes for the inaugural accelerator programme included visualising and aggregating data; consumerising workplace IT and digitising transport.
Others involved ensuring developing technology is relevant for practical everyday usage including: smart medical technology for doctors on the go; an app to enhance road safety and technology to track traceability of perishable produce across the entire agricultural distribution chain.
Speaking at Investor Demo Day, Martin Kelly, IBM Venture Capital Group partner and main event sponsor said: “Startupbootcamp Dublin has developed some of the very best Irish and International entrepreneurial talent. In addition to the international dimension, I’m really excited to find start-ups who are solving real problems. Every team is addressing big markets and major challenges including car safety, food traceability, healthcare, and travel –the types of problems that our customers are interested in.”
The Irish start-ups
- CleverMiles: App to inspire safe driving, enhance road safety and save lives amongst young people.
- Getbulb: Transforms complex data into clear pictures, without the limitations of pre-defined styles of a typical spreadsheet.
- Outline: Mines inboxes for tasks, questions and commitments and provides managers with complete transparency over emails, tasks and actions across their entire team.
- Skynet: Turning paper-based drilling data into corporate value for the oil and gas industry.
Steering young drivers in the right direction from Sligo Institute of Technology
Wheeler-dealers (from left): CleverMiles’s Chris McNamara, Chloe McGuckin and James McNamara are among Startupbootcamp’s finalists. Next month, at Inaugural Investor Demo Day, they get the chance to pitch to over 200 investors and mentor.
LAST SUMMER, software design student James McNamara stood on a stage in New York’s Lincoln Centre amid shouts, cheers and booming music to accept, along with his three team-mates from the Sligo Institute of Technology, one of the top computing prizes in the world for third-level students: Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.
The team had designed a clever device that plugs into a car’s electronics and monitors for safe driving, with the ability to also flag road conditions ahead on a journey. A tough panel of judges, which included chief information officers and chief technology officers from some leading American organisations, selected their project from those of 67 other international teams for the top prize of $25,000.
Ten months later, McNamara – along with original team member Calum Crawley – has a new company, CleverMiles, centred on their device and, with the help of the three-month Startupbootcamp Dublin programme, they are hammering out a formal strategy and business plan.
And once again, McNamara has found himself up in front of an audience. The 10 start-ups selected for the programme are now in intensive preparation for a day of pitches to investors which takes place next month.
He says he was always determined to look for commercial opportunities for the device. “After the Imagine Cup, we were trying to find our feet and take stock. We decided that Calum and I would carry on,” he says.
With some initial support from Microsoft as well as Sligo IT, the two began to think about possibilities for the device, which they initially had thought would most appeal to the car insurance market as a device for monitoring young-driver performance.
But getting on to the Startupbootcamp programme has helped the young company – which now has added in four others – to do some proper market research. “We have really tried to focus on what exactly is our target market, and what are the pain points. And now we feel it’s parents.”
He says the device could be sold to parents who want to have the comfort of knowing how a child is driving and where they are. He says it is a “light approach” and not a kind of mobile CCTV surveillance system, with the emphasis on improving road safety and giving reassurance to parents.
But the device, which has an inbuilt gaming element where drivers earn points for safe driving and can compete with their scores online, should also appeal to young drivers themselves, he says. The device has remained fairly true to the version that won the Imagine Cup. It fits into the car’s system by snapping into a slot under the steering column. It gives gentle audio warnings to drivers if they are doing something which is unsafe, an unobtrusive noise similar to a seatbelt signal, McNamara says. If the driver removes or tampers with the device, a message is sent back to a parent to notify them.
After a journey is completed, drivers or parents can go online and view an analysis of the journey, which will identify safe and unsafe parts of the journey and flag what was done badly.
The site will also give tips on how to improve driving skills and, consequently, the driver’s score on the site. There are also videos to show good driving techniques: for example, the right way to approach a corner and reduce speed, McNamara says.
Rather than go after the insurance market, which he says has a very long lead-time for sales which could leave a new company foundering, or fleet management, where there are already a number of companies with devices that monitor driving, he explains they felt the consumer arena was perfect. “Going after the consumer market will enable us to get our device out right away.”
They also will be approaching driving schools, as they can imagine a situation where an instructor might give a student the device, and could afterwards analyse driving performance.
The “gamification” approach is a natural fit for driving, “a very powerful technology if used in the right way. It’s trying to imagine the world as a game and the car as a controller, but focused on good driving skills.” He imagines that the device will go to market at somewhere between €100 and €300 – about the cost of a good satnav device. The company would then provide a subscription service for the website.
But he knows a lot of work lies ahead in shaping the company. “We need to focus on distribution, on sourcing components, on building out the device, on putting together a board of advisers. It’s a lot of learning. It’s all about trying to increase the value of your company and reduce risk.” He’s enjoying putting together a new company and getting ready to lure in investors whom he hopes might believe as strongly as he does in the value of the company.
James McNamara says the device could be sold to parents who want to have the comfort of knowing how a child is driving
Occupy Galway protesters to maintain a presence in the city
Occupy Galway Protesters, at Eyre Square have pledged to maintain a presence in the centre of Galway city despite their camp being forcibly removed by a team of about 50 gardaí and council workers early yesterday.
The last remaining protest camp of its type in the Republic which had been in position for seven months.
More than 300 wooden pallets were among the items removed by council workers when they arrived at the camp at about 4.30am yesterday. “We were given about 30 seconds to get our stuff before they started smashing the place,” said protester John Clarke.
Gardaí cordoned off Eyre Square and blocked all roads as the council staff set about dismantling the camp, which included a large marquee and about 10 tents. Gardaí reported that there were six people in the camp, although some protesters said there were about a dozen.
All of their belongings were taken away by council workers and trucks and diggers spent several hours clearing the paved area.
The camp had originally been set up close to the Browne Doorway tourist attraction at the top of Eyre Square but moved position to allow the annual Christmas market to set up.
One man was arrested by Gardaí but was later released. Gardaí reopened roads before morning rush hour but they maintained a presence throughout the morning.
Shortly after noon, just as an assembly was being organised by the protesters and their supporters, Galway City Council staff began re-erecting bicycle stands which had to be removed before Christmas when the encampment was relocated to that area of the square.
About 70 people, including some of the protesters who had been cleared from the site, participated in a lunchtime assembly close to the camp site.
Born to win! The drive to success is in our genes, say scientists –
and DNA dictates if we succeed or fail
Born to win: New research suggests that success could be in our genes & some people are born for success, scientists believe.
Research shows that much of our predisposition towards determination, sociability and self-control and sense of purpose is in our genes.
In fact, our DNA plays a bigger role in influencing these traits than our upbringing and the company we keep.
Taken together, these facets of personality can make the difference between success and failure, say the Edinburgh University researchers.
They questioned more than 800 pairs of twins about their attitudes to life to tease apart the influences of nature and nurture.
Comparing identical twins, who share all their DNA and their upbringing, with non-identical twins, who have a shared background but are no more genetically alike than other siblings, is a technique often used by researchers to quantify the influence of genetics.
The results, published in the Journal of Personality , revealed genes to play a much bigger role than lifestyle, with self-control particularly etched into our DNA.
Our genes also largely determine how determined and persistent we are. This is important in terms of success, as someone who refuses to give up is more likely to achieve their dreams than someone who throws in the towel at the first hiccough.
Researcher Professor Timothy Bates said: ‘Ever since the ancient Greeks, people have debated the nature of a good life and the nature of a virtuous life.
‘Why do some people seem to manage their lives, have good relationships and cooperate to achieve their goals while others do not?
Born to win: Research shows that much of our predisposition towards determination, sociability and self-control and sense of purpose is in our genes
‘Previously, the role of family and the environment around the home often dominated people’s ideas about what affected psychological well-being. However, this work highlights a much more powerful influence from genetics.’
However, those who haven’t been dealt a helpful hand of genes shouldn’t be too despondent. The professor says a sense of purpose is key and advises those vying for success to focus their thoughts on making a difference.
Arson accused 17 year old Galway youth remanded in custody pending trial venue
A 17 year old youth accused of causing €80,000 worth of damages to a house during an arson in Galway in March has been further remanded in custody pending a decision on his trial venue.
The 17-year-old boy had been charged earlier with arson of a two-storey terrace house at Creagh, in Ballinasloe, on March 18 last.
He had been refused bail at a previous hearing and appeared at the Dublin Children’s Court today where Garda Aiden Lonergan told Judge Eugene O’Kelly that it was hoped that directions from the DPP would be available next week.
Directions from the DPP are required to determine whether the case should be dealt with in a juvenile court or instead be sent forward to a Circuit Court, which has wider sentencing powers.
Judge O’Kelly agreed to further remand the teenager, who was accompanied to his hearing today by his mother, in custody to appear again at a sitting of Ballinasloe District Court, on May 24.
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