Thursday's Ireland news Blog by Donie

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.

Wednesday's Ireland news Blog by Donie

Coward Taoiseach Enda Kenny formally turns down a TV debate with Adams

       

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has formally refused a second invitation to debate the European fiscal treaty with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

With just over two weeks until referendum day, the Taoiseach turned down TV3’s latest offer for the live television broadcast.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald accused Mr Kenny of running from the consequences a Yes vote victory the referendum would bring.

“It is very telling that Mr Kenny is running away from this debate. He obviously does not want to debate the consequences of austerity and cutbacks for the Irish people,” she said.

The Taoiseach turned down TV3’s first invitation last week, saying he would not take part in any programme involving veteran broadcaster Vincent Browne.

The debate moderator offered to step aside from the show, given the public interest in seeing the leader of the Yes campaign go head-to-head with a senior No campaigner.

Despite the station’s political correspondent Ursula Halligan being drafted in as a replacement, the Taoiseach has insisted he will not take part.

Ms McDonald claimed Mr Kenny was worried that he will not come out of it well.

“There’s an expression that says you can run, but you cannot hide,” she said.   “He may be running, but he can’t hide from this treaty and its consequences.”

Mr Kenny refused to participate in a TV3 debate in the run-up to last year’s general election due to bad blood between himself and Mr Browne.

A Government spokesman confirmed that the Taoiseach had turned down TV3’s latest offer and that he would formally inform the station in writing.

Meanwhile, Mr Kenny came under further fire from the opposition today when Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath said he needed to develop thicker skin.

The party’s finance spokesman said the Taoiseach had behaved disrespectfully towards a member of the public in Athlone yesterday when he told him he looked like he could do with a day’s work. The man was one of a number of protesters challenging Mr Kenny on septic tank and household charges.

“I think that was very disrespectful,” said Mr McGrath.

“All of us in politics have to understand that people are really hurting at the moment

A reform of job-seeker rules badly needed’ Oireachtas Committee has recommended reforms

 

An Oireachtas Committee has called for significant reforms to the rules governing the payment of jobseeker’s benefits to part-time workers.

In a report yesterday the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education urged that in future jobseeker’s payment should be calculated on the number of hours worked per week rather than the number of days.

Under current rules the primary requirement for jobseeker’s benefit is that an individual needs to be unemployed for three out of six days.

Fine Gael TD Anthony Lawlor, who wrote the report, said the current arrangement was “clearly unfair”.

Mr Lawlor said one person could work two 12-hour shifts over two days and be entitled to claim three days benefit, while another could work only two hours over five days and not qualify for any benefit at all.

The report recommends that part-time work should be defined as working 24 hours or less per week.

Sean Gallagher ‘Shocked with arrogance & hostility’ by RTÉ response to his complaint

   

Former presidential candidate Seán Gallagher has said he was “gobsmacked” by the “arrogance” and “hostility” of RTE’s response to his complaint that he had been unfairly treated during the controversial Frontline presidential debate last October.

Mr Gallagher said RTE showed “no contrition” following the programme, in which the host Pat Kenny read out an unverified tweet live on air.

Speaking at the Media Future conference in Dún Laoghaire this afternoon, Mr Gallagher said he had been contacted earlier on the day of the debate by two people in the media who warned him of a potential ambush in relation to his links to Fianna Fáil. He declined to name who had contacted him.

Mr Gallagher was interviewed by the organiser of the conference, Jack Murray, who also served as his adviser on his presidential campaign. Mr Murray said Mr Gallagher had received phone calls that “warned them about what was to come that day”.

In his first public interview since coming second to Michael D Higgins in last year’s presidential election, Mr Gallagher was critical of the media for viewing politics “through the prism of Leinster House” and not accepting that he was an independent candidate.

“I’d never been a politician and I’d never stood for election and I think that’s what put people offside initially. They didn’t see it coming,” he said. “The political media wrote me off because they didn’t understand who I was, because their view of politics was so narrow.”

A screen shot of the message on the @mcguinness4pres Twitter account that was read out during the presidential debate on RTE’s Frontline programme.

Mr Gallagher had been favourite to win the presidential election before the debate, in which a bogus tweet purporting to come from the campaign account of Sinn Féin candidate Martin McGuinness was read out by Mr Kenny, putting Mr Gallagher under increased pressure to explain his relationship to Fianna Fáil.

Mr Gallagher denied the allegation that he had gone to collect a fundraising cheque from the house or business premises of businessman Hugh Morgan.

Today, Mr Gallagher conceded his performance in the Frontline debate “wasn’t my best performance by a long shot” and that he had replayed the moment “thousands of times” since then, wondering if he could have done or said anything differently.

“It wasn’t my finest hour,” he said.

Mr Gallagher recalled that he had a sore back on the day of the Frontline debate and was taking painkillers.

He recalled his advisers testing “every conceivable question” on him in the preparation session for the debate, but that he “just wanted to lie down for an hour”. He was determined not to be riled by anything that happened during the debate, nor get involved in negative campaigning, he added.

“I believed in positive campaigning,” he said. “I said to myself ‘stay true to what you believe, Seán. Don’t get dragged into this’.”

He said “senior names” in RTÉ had contacted him since the debate to say they were horrified by his treatment.

Mr Kenny had not been in contact with him since he appeared on his radio show the morning after the debate.

Mr Gallagher said he would never know if he would have gone on to win the election were it not for what had occurred during the debate, but noted that three polls had shown he enjoyed 40 per cent support before the programme. “So you would imagine that it was an unbeatable lead.”

He drew parallels between his “unfair treatment” and RTÉ’s libel of Fr Kevin Reynolds and said in both cases the broadcaster had “gone into defence mode”, compounding the original error.

In March, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) upheld a complaint of unfair treatment made by Mr Gallagher against RTÉ, but decided the matter did not merit a full investigation.

In a statement this evening, RTÉ said it had accepetd the BAI decision in full and had apologised for its failures. It added that the Director General and the RTÉ Board had also expressed their apologies to Mr Gallagher for the mistakes made.

Editorial review: An editorial review to identify programme-making practices and risks, giving significant attention to the production of live audience-based programmes and to the selection of audience members and questions is underway and will be completed shortly, it said.

“A new set of programme makers’ guidelines is now finalised through a process that began in February under Mr. Stephen Whittle, former Controller of Editorial Policy, BBC. It includes full new Social Media Protocols requiring systematic authentication of inputs offered to programmes. Training in key modules has begun,” it added.

In relation to a request for a meeting with the Director General made by the solicitors acting for Mr. Gallagher, the broadcaster said: “The request came in relation to a Freedom of Information request. In response, the Director General said he did not think it would be appropriate to meet while that process [the FOI process] was ongoing.”

Multi-health & Education campus site on Grangegorman lands’ 

To open in September 2014

Massive health and education campus is about 1km from the capital’s centre,

       

A proposal to locate the new national children’s hospital on the extensive Grangegorman site in Dublin 7 is being backed by the city council’s former chief planning officer, Pat McDonnell.

Yesterday An Bord Pleanála (above right) approved a planning scheme for the 73-acre site under which most of it would be developed as a new campus for Dublin Institute of Technology to replace its existing colleges in the inner city.

Mr McDonnell, who served as chief planning officer for the city until he took early retirement in 2004, said it was “not too late to halt the current proposals to create yet another extensive leafy suburban academic campus” on the Grangegorman lands.

Instead, “a high-density urban design approach would allow for all future room for expansion of the national children’s hospital as well as a co-located maternity hospital and many other uses to regenerate this part of the city in a most useful and exciting way”.

Mr McDonnell said the Grangegorman site is “minutes from the Mater hospital, Rotunda Hospital, Luas, Heuston Station, St James’s Hospital, St Patrick’s Hospital and the Navan Road/N3/M3, [which] leads directly on to the M50”.

He said the distance across the UCD campus at Belfield “is equivalent to the enclosing distance of St James’s Hospital and Grangegorman”, while the Mater is much closer, fulfilling the “co-location” criterion in a campus arrangement.

Valerin O’Shea, who represented local residents objecting to the original plan to locate the children’s hospital on the Mater site, said Grangegorman, which is in public ownership through the Health Service Executive, “ticks all the boxes” in terms of location.

Ms O’Shea has submitted the latest alternative option for the €600 million children’s hospital project to the ministerial review group, warning any move by DIT to vacate its existing colleges would cause “significant dereliction” in the inner city.

“Residents of the Grangegorman area who raised serious objections to the Grangegorman Planning Scheme for the relocation of DIT have indicated to me that they would very much prefer a hospital use on the site,” she told The Irish Times.

In her submission to the review group, chaired by Dr Frank Dolphin, Ms O’Shea says Grangegorman “would easily accommodate” a paediatric hospital as well as a maternity hospital, associated research facilities and room for any expansion required in future.

Existing buildings on the site could also be used for other medical-related activity – daycare centres for occupational therapy, rehabilitation and physiotherapy, as well as centres for the Cystic Fibrosis Association, Alzheimer’s support groups and others.

By contrast, she says, the space identified on the Mater site for the children’s hospital and the maternity hospital intended to replace the Rotunda is about 2.04 hectares (less than five acres), which meant there would be “no possibility of expansion”.

“It is blatantly obvious that the Mater is not a fit site for the development of the national paediatric hospital,” Ms O’Shea says. “We have seen enough costly planning fiascos in this city – apart from the myriad empty office and apartment blocks of recent years.”

She says the children’s hospital in Melbourne is 1km away from the adult hospital and was stated by the 2006 McKinsey report to be “co-located” in a campus model. The Mater and Rotunda hospitals are “very much closer” to Grangegorman.

“It has been stated repeatedly that there is no ideal site for the children’s hospital, and while the Grangegorman site may not be absolutely perfect, I fully concur with the former Dublin city planning officer that it is as close to ideal as we could hope to find.

“Of equal planning merit is the argument that DIT, rather than moving to Grangegorman, should remain at their existing sites throughout the city,” Ms O’Shea says, adding that relocating them to a single site “would create significant dereliction” in the inner city.

New research findings on diabetes painful side effects

  

New research has provided a new insight into painful side effects of diabetes that may lead to new treatments for them.

The research has found that a compound called methylglyoxal (MG) is responsible for increased pain in people who have diabetes. MG is a compound produced from glucose in people who have diabetes.

They can suffer from heightened sensitivity of pain and temperature and painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), due to abnormal glucose metabolism. Glucose metabolism is the breakdown of sugars into energy for use in the body.

Approximately 50% of patients with diabetes experience PDN.

In diabetes patients, nerve endings become very sensitive to pain and temperature causing them to experience  extremes of temperature and intense pain according to Professor Paul Thornalley, of the division of metabolic and vascular health at the University of Warwick in the UK

Patients with PND experience abnormal and persistent pain. This can have a significant impact on the patient’s quality of life as it affects, mood, mobility, sleep, relationship, ability to work, independence and self-esteem.

Until now the cause for PDN was unclear. However, Professor Thornalley believes that these findings will play a significant role in developing treatments for PDN.

This research was conducted by Warwick Medical School in collaboration with other universities in Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany and New York.

Currently further research is being conducted on the reduction pain by removing or inhibiting the activity of MG.

According to the support group Diabetes Ireland there are an estimated 160,000 people with diabetes in Ireland and a further 30,000 people with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.