Web 2 Ireland

The Press Release on the IQPrize has just gone out and the important bits are as follows.

• Decisions For Heroes (Robin Blandford) A web application that saves lives by helping rescue teams record and analyze their rescue operations and training
• GetitKeepit.com (Alan Coleman) A web application to help consumers declutter their lives by offering an online portal for the management and retention of important documentation
• MyHotel.ie (David and Matt Sherlock) A website and booking engine that reinvents the traditional booking model, offering hotels a powerful new marketing channel with no booking fees
• Neurosynergy Games (David Delany, Lorraine Boran and Michael Boran) Innovative online brain training application designed to enhance both intellectual (‘IQ’) and emotional (‘EQ’) performance for healthy people and people with specific mental disorders
• Octopied (David Behan, Ronan Morris and Michael Flanagan) A web application for freelancers, helping them manage invoicing, project management, sales and support through one simple and cost-effective tool
• Our Writers' Bloc (Owen Gallagher and Karl Quinn) An online marketplace that connects self-published authors directly with their readers, and facilitates the distribution of material over multiple formats including mobile phones and e-Reader devices
• Pendle House (Michael Furey) An online currency exchange marketplace that allows companies and individuals around the world to trade currencies directly with each other, cutting out all transaction costs
• Plink (Mark Cummins, James Philbin) An image-driven search engine that allows users take a photo of an object with a mobile phone, and automatically retrieve information about it online

On July 8th, the final candidates will make a Dragon's Den type presentation to the judges, followed by a public event where the candidates will be able to make a short elevator pitch to the audience. The People's Choice Award of €1000 and the Grand Prize of €10,000 for the overall winner will be announced at the end of the night.

To add my 2 cents as a judge, I was honestly blown away by the quality of all the biz plans I reviewed. I expected that there’d be lots of badly thought-out, lunatic fringe stuff but I was completely wrong. 90% of what I read could make a feasible business.

Selecting the final 8 was bloody difficult because there were so many great ones submitted. I fully expect to see a ton of those who submitted plans running highly successful businesses over the next few years. I hope they all go straight to their County Enterprise Board or Enterprise Ireland and give them the same plans they sent us.

I don’t know who will win the prize but those 8 businesses could easily generate €100m+ revenues between them.

Here’s hoping IQContent are getting non-stop calls from EI and the CEBs to get access to all the other fantastic plans.

Video from Damian Bannon of the Announcement:

More coverage from Villa81:

Tags: iqprize, startups

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Events, Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.