Blueprint for Recovery is a document which focuses on creating the conditions needed to generate specified economic objectives. Read in full at the Irish Times.

InterTrade Ireland are offering a cash prize of €280,000 to one lucky Businessin order to kick-start or develop their business further. InterTrade Ireland are providing a number of free information and advise workshops around the country for entrants in order to inform them of what they will be looking for in terms of a winning Businesss Plan. Also the previous winner of the Seedcorn Business Competition will address the audience and explain what theie own own personal experience with the competition was like. Below is a list of the venues and time for the workshops;

Location         Date                 Time              Venue

Cork                      4th May           6pm                Rochestown Park Hotel

Galway                 18th May         6pm                Harbour Hotel, Galway city

Belfast                   9th June         08.30am       The Ramada Hotel, Belfast

Dublin                    15th June      08.30am       The Grand Canal Hotel

This info session will last around half an hour and refreshments will be provided, if you would like to register email sarah.sneddon@intertradeireland.com or tel 028 3083 4138 (048 from Ireland).   For more info please click on Seedcorn Business Competition.

The Entrepreneur Show will take place on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th April 2010 in the largest possible venue in Ireland, the Simmonscourt Pavilion, at the RDS in Dublin.

The Entrepreneur Show is designed to inspire visitors to do new and better business.

It will host an array of speakers from all sectors of business, to inspire you in your business development.

There will also be an array of service providers exhibiting at the show demonstrating all the services you will need in your business development.

We are in challenging times, but for Entrepreneurs times are always challenging, even without an economic downturn. Therefore, this is the opportune time to learn and develop new business ideas and the necessary skills, to put them into practice.

This looks like its going to be an amazing weekend, just wish I could attend! Great info the website and great additional links. Will be looking forward to hearing all about this event.

An expert in Employment Law and Key Speaker at the event, Alastair Purdy provided an overview of the recent developments in European Court of Justice Case Law on Holiday Pay and Sick Leave. Mr. Purdy guided attendees on how to apply these developments in a practical manner in the workplace.  

The seminar provided businesses with the opportunity to understand the changing nature of the Contract of Employment, the new EU proposals on Maternity Leave and the emergence of Social Networking Sites and what this means for employers.

The seminar was well attended by local HR representatives and business owners from the region. It provided practical advice and there was an opportunity for questions and answers from the audience.

Niall Murray, Regional Manager with Collins McNicholas, believes such information is extremely valuable: “It is vital for employers to keep abreast of developments in employment law particularly in the area of Social Networking and Internet Policy in the workplace.”  

Long established recruitment and HR consultancy firm, Collins McNicholas recognises the need for HR professionals to be well-informed regarding the realities of the legislation in their field. Collins McNicholas, in its eleventh year in Sligo has experienced first hand the multitude of legislative changes in employment law and understands how these changes can affect local businesses.

Photo: (l-r) Alastair Purdy, Sarah O’Gorman, Miriam Guinane, Ciara Walsh & Niall Murray

Your Country Your Call is a competition to find and reward two transformational proposals that will help secure prosperity and jobs for Ireland – proposals that could help change the way we do things, allow businesses to grow, employment to be created and prosperity to flourish.

Your Country, Your Call will award the winning two proposals with a prize of 100,000 each and both proposals will then be implemented with the support of an independent working group and with a development fund of up to 500,000 Euro for each project.

Your Country, Your Call is all about Ireland . Its about helping to create future prosperity, whilst at the same time generating hope, confidence, and positive thinking. It is about getting everyone in the country to look at what they can do to make use of our innate ability as a people to be creative and imaginative and generate fresh thinking.

Check out the webpage Your Country Your Call, which will be the home for the competition. The interactive website contains full details regarding the application process and also provides a platform for potential entrants to see who else is entering, what else is being proposed and seek possible collaborations.

It also gives people the opportunity to leave a message of support or link to discussion groups on other social networking sites.

The competition is open for entries from this evening until April 30th after which the entries will be reviewed, assessed and filtered down over the summer to a point where two winning entries are selected in the middle of September 2010.

Over the next few days you will start to see and hear a lot more about Your Country, Your Call and the originator of the initiative, Martin McAleese, has recently appeared on the Late Late Show to promote it.

The Sligo County Enterprise Board believe that this is an inspiring and timely initiative and encourages your involvement in Your Country, Your Call.

The competition is open to everyone , spread the word and get thinking, talking and proposing!

These awards are about encouraging third level students with the ambition and drive to establish their own businesses to explore their ideas and their own appetite for going into business for themselves. Taking part in the programme gives them the chance to test their flair for business and in the process become more confident of their sense of judgment, more adept at decision-making and idea generation and resourceful in making these ideas a reality.

 Conor Fahy, Regional Director Enterprise Ireland said “Enterprise Ireland is delighted to again join forces with Invest Northern Ireland and Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys to encourage innovation and promote enterprise and a spirit of entrepreneurship amongst third level students in Ireland. The Awards have proved to be a real incentive for students to consider starting their own businesses. The Awards are crucial to the future of Sligo as it starts an entrepreneurial mindset amongst the students”. Sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland and Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys, the Enterprise Ireland Student Enterprise Awards are Ireland’s largest and longest established third-level student enterprise competition.

Pictured left to right: Cathy O’Kelly, Lecturer IT Sligo, Orla Mongey , ACE Iniative IT Sligo, Conor Fahy, Enterprise Ireland, Cait Keavney, ACE Iniative IT Sligo and Ciara Walsh, Research Student, IT Sligo.

Source: sligotoday.ie

THE SHORTLIST for The Irish Times Innovation awards, in association with InterTradeIreland, has been announced. Out of a total of 282 companies and organisations that initially registered, 17 have qualified across the six categories.

During the first phase, applicants were required to complete detailed descriptions of their organisation or product and its innovative nature. In most instances these were supplied with supporting background material and independent references.

This was followed by a day-long assessment of the entries by a judging panel that included Irish Times Innovation staff members along with: Prof Patrick Gibbons of UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School; Aidan Gough, strategy and policy director at Intertrade Ireland; Edel Lynch , senior executive of Accentures health and public service practice; and Dan Murphy, consultant at BCM Hanby Wallace.

In the product and/or service innovation category, three firms qualified from an impressive field of entrants.

Medical technology firm BiancaMed was shortlisted for its non-contact sleep sensor that has already attracted significant commercial interest. InTime Media made it through the assessment process for its audience interaction application for mobile devices. Finally, Mcor Technologies was shortlisted for its printer that allows three-dimensional models to be created using regular A4 paper.

In the category for green-tech innovation, eco-towel developer Easydry made it through to the final three in this category. Initially targeted at the hairdressing, beauty and healthcare sector, it offers an eco-friendly alternative to cotton towels. The eco-towels are recyclable, biodegradable and help cut laundry bills. The firm claims its eco-towels are 25 per cent cheaper than buying and laundering cotton towels.

Solarprint was shortlisted for its patented Dye Sensitised Solar Cell (DSSC), which is fully printable and can be applied to glass, metal or plastic surfaces. The company is currently at advanced stages of collaboration with a number of companies which include an automotive manufacturer, a home appliance and consumer electronics manufacturer.

Finally Treemetrics made the final round for its commercial forestry measurement system, which has already collected several accolades since its creation.

Under the award category for innovative application of research and development, NUI Maynooth was shortlisted for the RD development of its Blue Box Sensors, which are implantable brain sensors used in the development of new drugs for neurological conditions, to test their efficacy in real time.

Medical device firm Medtronic has been shortlisted for its zerofold balloon catheter, used during angioplasty procedures to combat coronary artery disease (CAD). Other balloon catheters are moulded to the desired dimensions and then folded down. Under the zerofold design, Medtronics claims the reduced catheter diameter makes insertion easier for the surgeon and less injurious to the patient.

Finally, Sigmoid Pharma made the final cut for its development of an orally-administered drug for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, that causes severe inflammation of the colon.

In the organisational systems and processes category, Bausch Laumb impressed the judges with its production line innovation that significantly reduced stoppages on the line. The process, developed at its Waterford facility, has now been patented and introduced at the firm’s other plants.

Bgate Technologies attracted the interest of judges in its innovative transaction system that is already used by several major companies and claims to deliver impressive savings.

Finally, the joint entry from aid agency Concern and Valid International for their innovative approach to tackling severe malnutrition caught the judges’ attention. The new system significantly reduces the number of patients required to seek support from over-stretched medical centres while creating viable, locally sourced food supplies.

In the public service sector, three candidates stood out. First, was a new online processing system for handling neurological cases. Developed by St Vincent’s University hospital in conjunction with Healthlink, the Neurolink system allows GPs to make neurological consultancy appointments and queries online, dramatically reducing waiting times for patients.

Another practical innovative response to the current situation came from Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) with its shop-and-collect system that lets passengers buy on the way out and collect when they return.

Finally, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland was shortlisted for a new unique software solution benefitting the pig industry by providing processors and producers with a facility to analyse and benchmark their data on carcases in real-time, within processing plants or via the web.

Finally, in the category for North/South collaboration, the Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre (C-TRIC) led by the University of Ulster, Western Health and Social Care Trust, and Derry City Council is one of the finalists.

The centre facilitates clinical research and the streamlining of new developments from the laboratory to the market place through a focused “bench to beside” approach. Located within the Altnagelvin Hospital complex, C-TRIC provides access to collaborative academic, business and clinical research in a bespoke environment for the island of Ireland and the UK.

The other entrant to qualify in this category was a new online patient recruitment and screening database for clinical trials for multinational biotech and pharma companies has been developed by Clinical Conduct Associates, with assistance from Intertrade Ireland’s Fusion programme.

The shortlisted firms will now go on to present to a panel of judges, with the category winners and an overall “innovator of the year” – chosen from the category winners – announced at an awards event to be held in late March.

PRODUCT/SERVICE 

BiancaMed

Mcor Technologies Ltd

InTime Media

GREEN TECHNOLOGY 

Easydry Ltd

Solarprint Ltd

TreeMetrics Ltd

APPLICATION OF RD 

Sigmoid Pharma Ltd

Medtronic CardioVascular

NUI Maynooth – Blue Box

ORGANISATIONAL SYSTEM/ PROCESS 

Bausch Lomb

Bgate Technology Ltd

Concern

PUBLIC SERVICE 

Agri-Food Biosciences Institute

DAA

Department of Neurology, St Vincent’s University Hospital

NORTH/SOUTH 

University of Ulster

Clinical Conduct Associates Ltd

Source (Irish Times)