Web 2 Ireland

HeyStaks Technologies, the NovaUCD-based social web-search start-up company, has just announced that it has secured €1 million of equity funding from The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, which is managed by NCB Ventures.

HeyStaks delivers community-enhanced search results that are more personalised and relevant than conventional search engine results.

More details on the NovaUCD site.

At the recent Eircom Golden Spiders Awards, Realex Payments founder and CEO Colm Lyon was named as 2009 Internet Hero.

Recognition is long overdue as Colm has built Realex into a leader in the payments sector, whilst also spending four years as director and chairman of the Irish Internet Associationand founding the Internet Growth Alliance in 2009.

In a recent Silicon Republic interview, Colm outlined his vision for

He believes it is vital that Ireland realises the internet is a sure route to overseas markets, which must be exploited by increasing the number of start-ups.

We need to have more and more successful Irish internet businesses. One route I recommend would be to have Enterprise Ireland set up a group focused on accelerating internet start-ups, with a fund of €2 million per annum that would put €50,000 into 40 start-up companies to increase the number of companies being supported, rather than just putting money into existing businesses.

In conclusion, Lyon admits to feeling humbled at being recognised as an Internet Hero. I value it a lot, to be honoured by my peers.

Also check out this recent video from the recent UCD event – BEYOND BORDERS – GOING INTERNATIONAL WITH YOUR BUSINESS

We don’t often post about jobs or research posts on this blog but this one looks interesting:

Post-Graduate Scholarships at UCD School of Information and Library Studies & UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics

Applications are invited for
An MSc in Computer Science scholarship (2 years)
An MLitt in Information Studies scholarship (2 years)

To commence September 1st 2008 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Project Title:  OJAX++: A Next-Generation Collaborative Research Tool

Funding Agency: Science Foundation Ireland

Project Details:
The aim of the proposed research is to investigate how concepts from the Social Web can be applied to the research environment in order to facilitate dynamic collaboration and the sharing of ideas among
researchers. It will be illustrated via the creation of OJAX++, a next-generation collaborative research tool, using Web 2.0 technologies such as Web Services, Ajax and collaborative tagging.

Requirements:
Honours degree (first class or 2.1) in Computer Science or related field.
Or honours degree (first class or 2.1) in another subject plus
relevant technical   experience (eg Web technology, JavaScript, Ajax,
Java, Ruby or Python)

Stipend: €17,000 per annum plus fees.

Contact: Dr Judith Wusteman, School of Information and Library Studies
(SILS)
UCD Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. judith DOT wusteman AT ucd DOT ie

For further details, see
http://www.ucd.ie/wusteman/OJAX/OJAX++furtherDetails2008.doc