Web 2 Ireland

The smart guys in Contrast have just announcedApp School 2008 – where they take one lucky idea to product in under 1 week.

They will pick an idea submitted by an Irish startup, charity, non-profit or individual and teach it how to be a fully-grown app. And, will cover 95% of the cost.

Great opportunity for some one…. sign up now…

My good friend, Susan Mernit, co-founder Peoples Software and ex-Yahoo Director/VP Netscape/AOL, sent a note in relation to the Knight News Challenge.

Its a US-based foundation giving away $5 million a year for grants in digital, open-source innovation

Some notes

The last day to submit applications for funding is November 1st.
Site is at www.newschallenge.org, with a peer mentoring site at garage.newschallenge.org.

Applications for the 2008-09 Knight News Challenge must follow three simple rules:
1. Use or create digital, open-source technology as the code base.
2. Serve the public interest.
3. Benefit one or more specific geographic communities

Surely we have some Irish startups which should apply…

In what is a huge boost for the Web2Ireland community, Facebook are setting up their International Headquarters in Ireland.

We had previously covered the proposed setup of Facebook Operations in Ireland.

Dublin will be the centre for Facebook's international operations and will provide a range of online technical, sales and operations support to Facebook's users and customers across EMEA region.

Great validation of the talent pool in Ireland – and congratulation to IDA Ireland folks for attracting Facebook to Ireland.

Facebook jobs in Ireland due are live – and hopefully we will see local collaborations like a Web2Ireland Facebook Developer Garage in the near future.

Update
- press release from Govt

Ryan Carson is hosting his excellent Future of Web Apps Expo next week in London [8-10 October 2008]

We have 1 free pass – and also a discount code [save 15%] for this event.

We’ve decided to run a little survey – to collect some feedback from the Web2Ireland Community.

We will draw a name from the folks who complete the survey – and also provide the discount code to all the participants.

Survey deadline is 5pm GMT Thursday 2nd October

200 folk already registered for Moviestar.ie Irish Web Awards

Event is on on October 11th in Dublin – great opportunity for community to come together and it should be fantastic.

Everyone is welcome too. You don't need to be nominated, you don't need a cool web2.0 service or a fancy blog.

Signup Now for a great night – only 30 euros

Dial2Do which lets you do common tasks by just calling a number and speaking – for EMAIL, TEXT messages, REMINDERS, updates to TWITTER and even LISTEN to your favourite internet content – has updated its services.

Some new features – and an improved layout. Sign Up its free

Based on numerous requests for information on Web2Ireland companies [in a structured format] – we’re going to add support for Crunchbase on web2ireland.org

To get this done we need

1. Companies to submit information to Crunchbase
2. make sure you enter in location details
3. tag as web2ireland
4. update all sections – including funding – and references to likes of EI
5. leave a comment on this blog post – when you’ve got it all completed

On Web2Ireland we will

1. add live data to replace http://web2ireland.org/companies/
2. use Crunchbase widget in our blog posts

Trinity College , Dublin are holding a free Open Demo event of ICT stuff developed by researchers – that is available for commercial use [startup guys take note...]

This is an “unconference ” in that the format is very informal with no powerpoint!

It will be held on the evening of November 6th 2008 in the Science Gallery. For more information checkTrinity OpenDemo

Examples of the types of technologies to be shown include:

* web 2.0 animation tool
* automatic image annotation through cross modal learning
* software defined radio toolkit for next generation cognitive radio networks
* hand wash monitoring device for hospitals and food industry
* p2p video streaming on t’interweb
* video based adaptive e-learning
* token based payments system for VOIP on WiFi
* building a wholesale hosting exchange
* spam prevention through email microcharging
* game authoring tool for mental health therapies
* sentiment index for financial markets
* p2p web search
* immersive experiential selling tool

and lots more…..

Ammado, which combines social networking with charitable giving, linking the non-profits with people who want to support them, has unveiled its online donation system – Ammado Giving Circle.

The sbpost has more coverage interviewing its founders Peter Conlon and Anna Kupka – which includes some interesting quotes and comments

“founders claim will help it become ''one of the biggest internet companies in the world''…..''We have created microphilanthropy,…”kept Ammado under wraps for the past three years, while its technology was built from scratch. The company now employs about 70 people at its headquarters in Dublin, regional headquarters in Singapore, and in 11 other locations, including Amsterdam, Washington, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Novi Sad in Serbia.”…..”For donations of that type, Ammado charges a 10 per cent processing fee, so a company wanting to donate €1,000, for example, would make a total payment of €1,100. Kupka said the system could be used to increase employee motivation and allow companies with staff from different countries indirectly to make donations to charities outside Ireland.”

Last week at TC50, a competitor launched – Causecast. – which had very positive reviews.

Update: Anna from Ammado – has provided a comment – which provides more information around Ammado donations – which is very welcome.

“Just to clarify: for individuals ammado charges 5% per donation. These 5% stay in the ammado foundation and help us to cover the cost which are very substantial as we have build a global micro-payment platform, accepting 33 currencies and nearly every payment method around the world (further payment methods are being added).

The 10% you have mentioned are an administration fee for an employer solution: we encourage employers to boost employee motivation by allocating a certain amount – let's say €10 per employee – to all their employees and allow them to allocate the amount to whatever nonprofits they wish. The employee could therefore give 1 Euro of these 10 to their old school in Belarus, 2.50 Euro to a charity in their hometown, 2 Euro for Amnesty in Ireland etc. It can be sliced down to as little as 4cent. That's why we call it micro-philanthropy. Everyone can build their own giving portfolio and if you wish to, people can show whom they are spporting by displaying their ammado Giving Circle (we also have a bebo applicaton for the circle). Cheers, Anna”

Wubud – mobile social network start-up – founded by serial entrepreneur Paul Walsh – has just announced its initial Angel round – from Paul Birch [of Bebo Fame].

We’ve been aware of Wubud for a while – and industry feedback is very positive on the product from this very secretive satrtup.

Given the level of Irish activity @ mobile sector – Wubud is a welcome development [and no doubt Paul will be setting up his European HQ in Wexford] – as it looks to target consumers directly and in-directly – and avoid the network operator purchasing cycles.

Maria has more details on SiliconRepublic.com