Web 2 Ireland

The it@cork annual conference has just been announced. Its title is “GREEN IT: Reduce CO2, Raise Profits” and it’s on November 26 in the lovely Radisson SAS Hotel in Cork.

The line-up looks like an excellent mix with the focus being clearly on Green as it relates to IT and Business. I particularly like the profit angle given the turmoil the world is going through right now

The is an Early Bird Discount available Book on or before October 31 and it’s €250 for members, €350 for non members.

The agenda is as follows:

07.30 Heads of IT breakfast sponsored by Certification Europe

08.00 Arrival coffee & registration

08.45 Welcome from Donal Manning, Chairman, it@cork

08.55 SETTING THE SCENE George Lee, Economics Editor, RTE

09.35 – Green IT: Moving Beyond the 2% Solution, Douglas Neal, Research Fellow, Leading Edge Programme

10.05 – SMART2020: ICT and climate change. Opportunities or Threat? Chris Tuppen, Director Sustainable Development, BT

10.35 Q&A Moderated by Tom Raftery. Lead analyst, energy and sustainability practice, Redmonk

10.50 Coffee sponsored by Complete Telecom

11 20 – Virtual Worlds: making organizations greener, Pierre-Olivier Carles, Co-Chief Stonfield InWorld

11.40 – Measuring the energy footprint of everything on Earth, Gavin Starks, Director, AMEE

12.00 – The Electric Grid 2.0, Fergus Wheatly, General Manager, Allied Solar Ltd

12.20 – Q&A Moderated by Damien Mulley, Mulley Communications

12.35 LUNCH sponsored by Lenovo

13.45 – Situation normal, everything must change, Simon Wardley, Independent Consultant

14.35 The Business Challenges of the Future Low Carbon Economy, Niall Brady, Green Sigma Technical Development Manager, IBM

14. 55 Green IT @ STRATO, Rene Weinholtz, Executive Director for IT & Innovation, STRATO

15.15 Q&A Moderated by Dan Barry, Enterprise Ireland

15.30 Coffee Sponsored by Premiere Global Services

16.00 Green Computing – A leadership role, Tom Moriarty, EMEA Regulatory and Environmental Manager, DELL

16.30 Green ICT – How ICT will help deliver ESB's Sustainability Strategy, Padraig McManus, CEO, ESB

17.00 Q&A Moderated by Tom Raftery followed by drinks reception sponsored by Smart Telecom

After October 31st, the rate is €300 for members and €400 for non members.

See you there!

Trinity Entrepreneurial Society (TES) is running a “Speed Networking” event  tomorrow in the Atrium in TCD at 2.45pm.

This is the penultimate leg of the global speed networking tour. The event is aimed at entrepreneurs, academics, students and all members of the business community. The speed networking tour is designed to unleash energy, share ideas and make connections fast.

The global speed networking tour has visited over 6 continents in the past 3 weeks including places such as Hong Kong, Mexico City, Toronto, Johannesburg, Botswana, Singapore, Santiago, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and San Francisco. You can find out more on the site.

The event will be hosted by Oli Barrett an expert speed networker who has travelled around the world in the past few weeks.

Sounds like a lot of fun and handy for practicing the elevator pitch.

It has been over two years since the last one, but BarCamp is finally coming back to Cork. It’s soon, very soon, only four weeks away. The venue is the lovely Webworks building in the City Centre, just like the last time.

We have a strong vision for this event and we need your help to make it happen on the day. Please read the first set of posts and give us your feedback. If you think you’ll be attending, please register. As always with BarCamps, it is completely free with the costs being taken care of by our kind sponsors.

If you wish to sponsor or help, please read the “what we need” post.

We have two mottos for BarCampCork II “talking with, not talking at” and “less talking, more doing”.

If you don’t know what a BarCamp/Unconference is or have never attended one, here is a simple description from the main BarCamp site:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

Every attendee of BarCamp is expected to contribute in some way. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give a talk. But at the very least, you should take part in lots of the discussions that occur and share the knowledge you have in your area of expertise.

We’d love to see you down in Cork and we encourage anyone based outside of Ireland who reads Web2Ireland to consider flying in for the day.

Sign-up now.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about the EnterpriseStart programme in Cork. It was a real lifeline to many Motorola employees last year. The idea is to give basic business skills to those looking to set up their own companies.

Mary Boyle let us know that they run the same scheme in Sligo and the next one is coming up. If you are even considering making the leap then it’s worth popping down to hear what it’s all about.

A free information evening will take place in The Glasshouse Hotel, Sligo on 23rd September. Hear from experts on the supports available to entrepreneurs and from companies who have already set up. Liam Birkett will be the guest speaker on the night. Liam's career began in office management in the grocery trade and extended into sales and marketing. He was involved in the launch of Mace and VG group in Ireland. His experience extended into wholesale, retail, cash & carry, and consultancy on a national and international basis before moving to O'Kennedy Brindley Advertising (later to become Saatchi & Saatchi). With colleagues from the advertising agency, he founded Bernardini, Birkett & Gardner Ltd, a design & marketing consultancy which, for more than 20 years was responsible for corporate identities and many marketing initiatives for Stokes, Kennedy Crowley, Waterford Foods, Monaghan Co-op, Smurfit Group, The K Club, The new GAA branding as well as graphic and packaging projects for a long list of high profile clients.

The evening will kick off at 6pm. For more information please contact Mary Boyle on 071 9159700 or mary.boyle@enterprise-ireland.com

UPDATE: The programme is happening in Cork too in October.  It is delivered by a mix of trainers and entrepreneurs, over six weekends, and at the end of the programme participants file a short feasibility study. The participant is then given a mentor for 5 sessions. The total cost of the programme is €275, with the balance of costs funded by EI and FAS. Contact Paul DOT Healy AT cit DOT ie for details