Web 2 Ireland

It’s been a quiet year for many people on the conference front but there is one event that many of us just can’t miss, and that’s Le Web. It’s not just the brilliant speakers that Loic and Geraldine manage to get, it’s the battery recharge we need to prepare us for the new year.

Despite the venue hiccups last year, I still find myself referring to Le Web 2008 regularly. Marissa on the importance of local to Google, Dave Morin on Facebook Connect and Christine Lagarde on startups in France.

Just check out this year’s speakers and tell me you’re not excited by that line-up. It’s the style of event where you can easily chat to many of these people and meet them year after year. Apart from the learning and general networking, Le Web is a place where deals are done.

We’ll be covering the full two days on Web2Ireland and let’s hope we don’t take down Twitter with the volume of updates!

If you are interested in going, make sure to use the discount code BLOG09 to get 10% off.

The Final 5 companies for Smartcamp have been selected

SmartCamp day will take place on the 15th Oct in Dublin.

The NDRC will select 1 of the 5 SmartCamp finalists to enter its new 3 month programme, which includes funding of 25k, to focus on commercial validation of web and mobile proposals.

UPDATE
In addition to NDRC Grant,

- IBM is offering the winning candidate of their choice, a three month mentorship course at its Dublin Innovation Centre to help them build an 'investor ready' commercial proposition in order to secure funding.

- Vodafone will offer a 3 month mentorship course to a candidate of their choice.

- AIB Seed Capital Fund will make an offer of investment of €50,000 to each of two candidates of their choice subject to normal diligence.

Companies

1. Cloudsplit Dynamic Infrastructure Analysis

CloudSplit offer a real time view on what is happening on your Amazon grid from a cost perspective

2. Green DiamondWaste Management

Green Diamond provide cost-efficient green solutions for the environmental industry

3. Heystacks–Social Search

HeyStaks helps you and your friends to benefit from each other’s search experiences.

4. ResourceKraft-Energy Effiecency/management

ResourceKraft supply highly sophisticated energy cost control systems – saving money and carbon

5. TreeMetrics-Forestry Management

Treemetrics optimise value recovery in forestry

What’s the Irish for “football”? Find out in seconds with Get the Focal, now available on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

‘Get The Focal’ is a 12,000 word Irish language translator which can be installed on modern mobile phones. A new version of the application has just been released with extra translations and the ability to translate words from Irish-English as well as from English-Irish.

The company behind, Get The Focal, Maithu are releasing a mobile Irish translator for the iPhone in April and Samsung are also including a version of the application under the name the Gael Fón Dictionary on new handsets.

13 Enterprise Ireland supported companies recently attended CTIA Wireless event in the US

Companies attending

Accuris
Altobridge
BitRabbit
Dial2Do
dotMobi
MobileAware
NewBay
Openet
Tango
Taoglas
VistaTec
Zamano

Some Highlights

Dial2Do nominated for Mobile Excellence Awards

NewBay, the leader in digital lifestyle solutions for carriers, announced that over 10 million subscribers are now using its award-winning LifeCache Social Networking solution and also announced LifeCache Smart Address Book (SAB) 2.0, a converged, telco-grade social address book offering for carriers. LifeCache SAB is a white-label address book that syncs, merges and updates contacts and dynamic content from multiple sources and stores the data securely in the cloud

Taoglas has announced the first LTE and WiMax antennas for telematics, mobile, telemedical and security markets. The antennas will benefit M2M manufacturers developing LTE and WiMax prototypes for new fourth generation networks

Some Job Opportunities within Web2Ireland Community

Realex Payments are hiring – reference Colm Lyon, CEO’s tweet

Leading Irish property site, Daft.ie are hiring – PHP Developers

Pat Phelan is hiring in Cork – .net developer with XML, SQL

Facebook are hiring in Dublin – loads of open positions

Newbay are hiring – Engineers, etc

Do drop us a line if you’re hiring

This is a guest post by Enda Madden, CTO and co-founder of GroupNos, an on-demand Healthcare Software startup that helps clinicians and healthcare organisations improve patient care and quality of service delivery. He has previously been a software developer and enterprise architect for a number of Fortune 500 companies and has a background in Computational Linguistics. Enda can be followed on Twitter at @endamadden.

eHealth, mHealth, Telemedicine, EHR', PHR', Healthcare Social Media, CCR, Personalised Medicine, Information Prescription. The proliferation of terms currently used in Healthcare Technology is a sure sign that the hype cycle is well and truly at its peak.

Recent articles on mainstream analyst sites including Mashable Smarter Healthcare: How Social Media is Revolutionizing Your Doctor Visits and Vator.tv What Angels want along with high profile early stage investors such as Jeff Clavier, Rob Hayes and Aydin Senkut talking about looking for cloud based and personalised medicine start-ups are all good indicators that this area is generating significant interest amongst investors and technology analysts.

What does all this mean? Given the work of the larger companies healthcare divisions (Microsoft, Intel, Google, IBM, etc) in doing the heavy lifting in terms of agreeing on Healthcare Data Standards, Personal Healthcare Records, Interoperability and Data Governance this has paved the way for smaller start-ups focused on particular niches and with a high degree of innovation to plug into this ecosystem and build on top of the work done already.

Enterprise Ireland recently facilitated a discussion between a number of Irish Health Technology companies, Patient Interest groups and State Bodies North and South to look at forming a Connected Health Group. The main focus of the discussions centred on fostering this sector within Ireland, identifying and supporting early stage companies and creating a connected health cluster of companies large and small, established and start-up in Ireland.

One of the key challenges facing many eHealth startups is escaping the gravitational pull of pure Research and Development. It is very encouraging to see a new generation of Irish eHealth start-ups following a more entrepreneurial path. More and more profiles are appearing on CrunchBase (RevaHealth), taking part in Seedcorn competitions and founders engaging with other entrepreneurs at various technology and networking events throughout the country, for example SokoHealth at CMYPitch.com the other day.

So where are things at in Ireland? I'll leave a discussion on what is needed to help make Ireland a cluster for eHealth startups for another day. To begin with here is a list of some of the Irish eHealth start-ups I know of in Ireland today.  

It would be great if Web2Ireland readers could add comments about companies they know of or comment on some of those listed here. There is no doubt this is an exciting space to operate in at the moment, I hope this article serves as some sort of introduction to newcomers and acts as a means to get the rest of us operating in eHealth to continue to connect.

Slainte Technologies
www.slaintetech.com
SlainteTech is one of the most exciting companies coming out of Ireland in the Healthcare Technology Space at the moment. I think these guys could be the next Curum Software. Their products are well positioned in two major growth areas within Healthcare IT. Improving efficiencies through workflow driven solutions and also in the area of integration and creating a complete patient record from multiple sources. They've been making big inroads with their Claimsure product. I'm very interested in watching their other products gain traction in the market. One of the things that most impresses me with these guys is their knowledge of the US Market. In fact they seem more knowledgeable than many US Healthcare IT companies I've met in recent times.

Chief Executive Officer: Andrew Murphy
Chief Operating Officer : Billy Diggin
Chairman : David Nash

 Neuro Synergy Games
www.neurosynergygames.com
One of the earlier stage companies listed, Neuro Synergy Games profiles users along a number of parameters and measures the patients performance along each of these. The product then creates a tailor made series of brain training exercises for the patient in order to improve their score in the particular areas where the patient exhibits deficiencies. The product is based on extensive research performed by David Doherty during his doctorate studies in Trinity College.

Neuro Synergy is a great example of a startup Healthcare IT company that is following a commercial path. These guys have got alot of media coverage lately through taking part in the Imagine Cup, sepp enterprise awards, iqprize and more recently IBMs smartcamp competition.

Chief Executive Officer: Dr David Delany
Co-Founder: Dr Lorraine Boran

 RevaHealth
www.revahealth.com
Reva will be well known to many Web2Ireland regulars primarily through its CEO Caelen King. RevaHealth.com provide a healthcare search engine that gathers information about health clinics in the UK and Ireland, and further afield, and display it all comparably. I've seen Caelen speak a couple of times, once at last years BizCamp where he talked about fundraising and another time at FOWA  where he talked about UI design and the pain and effort it takes to get it right. This is reflected in the site where the effort has clearly paid off in making it quick and easy for patients to find the information regarding treatments and options. Consumer Healthcare whilst at an early stage is set to grow rapidly and RevaHealth are well positioned. Like Slainte Technologies RevaHealth have a very experienced management team including a Chairman who is a serial technology entrepreneur.

Chief Executive Officer:  Caelen King
Chairman:  Ray Nolan
VP of Product: David Roe

http://twitter.com/revahealth
 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/revahealth-com

 SokoHealth
www.sokohealth.com
Based in the Business Incubation Centre in Sligo IT SokoHealth is founded by Aidan McKenna who was a fellow participant of mine on the excellent CEIM programme based out of Sligo IT.  Sokohealth aims to be an online marketplace for cash-paying healthcare consumers. The company will be an aggregator of US and International Healthcare providers in a wide range of specialities and will offer consumers the opportunity to search, compare prices and book procedures directly with Healthcare providers. SokoHealth aim to capitalise on the growing trends in Medical Tourism, Electronic Health Records and online/Telemedicine.  Here is a video overview of the product (courtesy of Mike Afford Media).

Chief Executive Officer: Aidan McKenna

http://twitter.com/sokohealth

PsychFusion
www.psychfusion.com
These guys are involved in developing a number of products that leverage technology to carry out psychology experiments in a user friendly and feasible manner. One of their key selling points is the fact that their expertise in Psychology and Technology allows them to take the design in psychological terminology from many different modalities and adapt a technology solution without an intermediary simpler abstract document.

Dr Robert Whelan
Colin Lawlor
Helen Treacy

http://twitter.com/psychfusion
http://twitter.com/helentreacy

Automation Intellect
www.automationintellect.com
Based in Dublin and headed by Siobhan King-Hughes Automation Intellect provide integrated technology solutions to assist elderly or disabled people to remain independent and safe in their own home.

The technology is primarily based on Wireless Sensor technologies tracking the daily activities of the patient monitoring their patterns against their normal benchmarked patterns of behaviour. This system has the potential to be invaluable to patients with long term chronic conditions such as COPD where it is key to detect early signs of deterioration in the patient before they need to be admitted to hospital and all the trauma and expense associated with that scenario.

 Chief Executive Officer: Siobhan King-Hughes

 G-Pace Ltd
http://www.gpace.ie/
I don't know a whole amount about this company but they appear to be creating a database of individuals with pacemakers. This is the information I found from their LinkedIn profile. One of their products is a web based system to cardiac departments all around Ireland, the system connects all participating hospitals and gives them a complete management system for Pacemaker & ICD patients, the system enables patients to travel to any of the connected hospitals and have all their device history easily accessible. Once a patient is registered on the Heart Rhythm Ireland system they will receive a new credit card like ID Card.

Managing Director : Robert Kelly
Chairman & Co-Founder: Gene Kelly

 GariVo Techologies
www.garivo.com
A graduate of the DIT Hothouse programme, GariVo has developed GariNav, an innovative solution which combines wireless computers and patient tracking in a novel application to enhance efficiency and patient safety. GariNav tracks patients going through surgery using WiFi tags which link in to an existing wireless LAN. An electronic operating list displayed on wireless computers can be updated instantly to eliminate bottlenecks.

Imagine Health
Imagine Health is a start-up company in the early stages of launching a new range of products for the Health Care sector. Its Service Areas include:

1. Adult & Children Psychology & Counselling Services

2. Services to Medical Specialists – Diabetes, Cardiology

3. Employee Support

Chief Executive Officer: Dr. Eddie Murphy www.linkedin.com/in/dreddiemurphy

Shimmer Research
www.shimmer-research.com
SHIMMER (Sensing Health with Intelligence, Modularity, Mobility and Experimental Reusability) provide a wireless sensor platform to support long-term wearable wireless sensing. The technology was developed as a spin-off venture from  in the TRIL centre . The technology has numerous applications such as for:

• Limb motion analysis of Parkinson's Disease and stroke patients
• Gait Analysis
• Sleep Studies
• Cognitive Awareness
• Activities of Daily Living Studies
• Vital Signs Monitoring
• Chronic Disease Management

Recently they have opened a R&D centre in Cambridge, MA.

I met Kieran Daly recently at an Enterprise Ireland Connected Health event and he had some forthright views on the current environment in Ireland for Healthcare Technology start-ups and what can be done at a policy level to help stimulate growth in this sector.

 GroupNos Software
www.groupnos.com
GroupNos is a startup healthcare technology company providing online software solutions that facilitate collaboration between clinicians, patients and healthcare managers to deliver consumer-driven services that promote superior patient outcomes. Its target customers are organizations and individual clinicians in the behavioural healthcare field which encompasses mental health, substance abuse and behavioural medicine services. The two core products currently in development are GroupNos Collaborate an on-demand Electronic Healthcare Record that facilitates collaboration between clinicians, patients and healthcare managers in a manner that supports superior patient outcomes.  GroupNos Community  is social software platform to support the development of collaborative and outcome focused clinical practices within clinical communities and provider networks. It allows for the creation of virtual supervision and support networks where clinicians can connect with and learn from each. Behind GroupNos Community front-end our analytics engine monitors and looks for patterns of behaviour exhibiting excellence in the metadata generated from members activity on the network as well as sentiment analysis regarding particular healthcare trends and topics.

 Research Groups
If you're thinking of starting an eHealth company or have an existing project that you're looking to collaborate on then these groups could be a good place to start along with interacting with some of the companies listed above.

Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre, Derry
www.c-tric.com/

Technology Resources for Independent Living. TCD and UCD
www.trilcentre.org

National Digital Research Centre, Dublin
www.ndrc.ie

 Dundalk IT
www.netwellcentre.ie

 Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) Health Care and Life Sciences Group , Galway
http://hcls.deri.ie/

Our roving Web2Ireland reporters popped down to Trinity College on Tuesday for the cmypitch event

An excellent event, with 10 start-ups pitching in front of 5 Dragons and a room full of investors, with short snappy 4 minute pitches were the order of the day followed by 4 minutes grilling from the Dragons.

The dragons were
- James Carroll of Investor First
- the very well known Brian Caulfield
- Maurice Roche of Delta Partners
- but the real stars were Pat Brazal and Eamonn Fallon who were invariably spot on with their feedback.

Getting successful entrepreneurs like these as angel investors in your start-up is one sure fire recipe for success. Kudos also to Maurice Roche who led very admirably from the VC angle. It was good to see the most active house in town, Delta, participating.

On to the start-ups which included some overseas entrants, which we think is a good idea as home grown talent needs to know there’s much competition out there for those investment dollars.

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Event Elephant offers online tools to make organising conferences easier. Eamon O’Brien started out with a very text based pitch but kept the best wine till last with great product shots towards the end.

Sentry Wireless gave a great pitch focused on their SMS spam guard for the Asian market with some great partners, including Acision, lined up. A very polished performance from Matt Norton.

Soko Health led with a video pitch, which works well for one person at a PC but not for a room full of investors who come to hear you and not a recording. Product become much clearer with Dragon questioning which Aidan McKenna handled admirably.

Learn 2 Lingo led by Shira Rubin is an online web cam based language school that focuses on partnering (not competing) with their bricks & mortar language school brethren. They have also inked some large corporate deals, notably with Lonely Planet and Lovells. Dragons seemed to get tripped up here on scaling, but we thought this was the best pitch of the night. Suspect they need to meet the Hostel World guys?

Intelligent Comms presented their Telecom Expense Management Platform for large corporates. Walter Tyser led on this one.

Eplixo offer video conferencing on the mobile via premium SMS pricing. Gerard Brandon battled hard with the dragons to assure them background mobile noise/reception was not a usability issue.

Rocudo presented their online re-mix solution to release the inner DJ in you. Chicken and egg scenario loomed large here but Culann MacCabe batted well on that score.

Headway Software announced the second coming of their code base management solution. Chris Chedgey was very confident that this time around, they had a winner.

Simchronise presented on their solution for mobile back-up again focused on the Asian market. David Inglis and the team have much sector experience, so one to watch.

Alan Mulcahy closed with Spirit of Ireland, and thankfully declared upfront that they are not looking for investment at this time, as their needs are great – need €9 billion to flood the Ring Of Kerry and make one giant Hydro Electric plant with a bit of wind power thrown in too!

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Dragons in the end voted Event Elephant as the most investable, so congratulations to Eamon O’Brien and his team.

Entrepreneurs, get you to cmypitch.ie and upload your pitch.

Best of luck to Emmet Kilduff and team as their stated objective of getting more angel investors participating in the Irish market is one which we whole heartily support.

Our own Anton Mannering (from Hat Media), has kindly provided us with some discount tickets for the upcoming Audience Conference in New York

Audience is a conference aimed at those who recognise the need to reach engage and influence audiences of all kinds, an investigation into how this is changing, and a look at how technology has in the past and is now, through new media tools and the social web, changing audience participation and interaction.

Engaging on November 6th in the Hudson Theatre, one of New York's oldest playhouses with a capacity of only 500, this will be an intimate gathering of fine minds in Manhattan. We felt it was appropriate to hold a conference that was about Audience in a place that was specifically designed for it and recently restored to it's original beauty

The discount code for web2ireland readers is web2ire.