Category: Trends & challenges

Irish tech sector experiencing explosion of job opportunities

Trends & challenges

by Wicus Grobler

This week again Ireland and its ICT sector are in the news.  Silicon Republic’s Kristy Tobin wrote this article,  about the announcement of more than 500 new jobs.

In a related article in the Irish Times, Enda Kenny is quote as stating “The Government wants to keep the recovery going by providing the right environment for companies like Infosys to locate, expand and create jobs,”.

In a broadcast on CNBC, Martin Shanahan, CEO off the IDA, is explaining what a competitive and transparent tax systems Ireland has.

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My Pursuit to contact LaunchBox

Trends & challenges

by Piush Vaish

As a student of Trinity College Dublin, my first intuition was to get in touch with LaunchBox to get answers to the following questions for my blog:

  • What happens to the companies from inception to getting funding?
  • What are the challenges facing start-ups?
  • Do they stay in Ireland or sell the business as soon as the company achieves its targets?
  • Are there any case studies for successes or failures?

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“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

Trends & challenges

By Virginia Linehan

A system is defined as “an organised, purposeful structure that consists of interrelated and interdependent elements (components). These elements continually influence one another (directly or indirectly) to maintain their activity and the existence of the system, in order to achieve the goal of the system” (Business Dictionary, 2015). Keep reading

Is Venture Capital For Me?

Trends & challenges

by Wicus Grobler

So before we continue, let quickly have a look at what Venture Capital is. According to on-line resources, venture capital is money or services that is provided to start-ups in the very early stages.  These monies are provided, to start-ups, in the interest of generating a return on the investment.  The return on investment is re-payed at either, the sale of the company, selling their share in the company, or the IPO (Initial Public Offering) of the company.  As part of the funding, the venture capitalists also require that the start-up sign over a significant portion of owner ship, and control over the decisions that the company makes.

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How Estonia Do IT

Trends & challenges

by Ilya Nikitin

As reported by a reliable assessment agency, Estonia holds the current world record in new start-ups per individual, considering that the Estonia has just 1.3 million human population. (Economist, 2013)

For the last 10 years, the Estonian government has been paying additional attention to the ICT sector and making everything possible to attract and encourage more entrepreneurs to start their own business in information systems in Estonia. Government is constantly improving e-services and introducing interesting online services like e-Residency, e-Tax Board, e-Health, e-Banking, e-University and many others (Invest in Estonia). Keep reading

LONDON CALLING – Irish tech start-ups may have to move to the UK to survive

Trends & challenges

By Virginia Linehan

“We have great entrepreneurs and start-up businesses in Ireland – we just don’t have enough of them”. This is the repeated view of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton. On July 13th 2015, Enterprise Ireland announced a new €500,000 Competitive Start Fund (CSF) aimed at attracting entrepreneurs outside of Ireland to locate their start-up businesses in Ireland (Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, 2015). The CSF coincided with Start-up Gathering 2015 the goal of which is “to make Ireland a global start-up hub by 2020”. Both initiatives are part of a broader strategy outlined in the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs. Keep reading

Start-up funding for Woman and other minority groups

Trends & challenges

By Virginia Linehan

Have you ever noticed business managers, leaders and successful entrepreneurs all over the world are mostly white men? Throughout the world, white men can fail in business, pick themselves back up, dust themselves off and start all over again. Whilst they are allowed to fail it appears unlikely that woman and minorities are given the same equal opportunity. To get others involved in the economy perceptions and attitudes need to change. Woman and minorities need to feel that it is ok to fail and not to get it right the first time or every time. The bias is not due to better education, more income or social capital but rather white men are given more chances to take risks. In doing so “they are allowed to fail and succeed in greater numbers than women and minorities”. (Clay & Camfield , 2011). Keep reading

ICT Start-up funding and support-Cui bono?

Trends & challenges

By: Virginia Linehan

While our scope centres on funding for ICT start-ups in Ireland it is important to place our research into a broader context and consider its relevance. So why does funding and support matter? Simply put, start-ups create job and economic growth. Research from the Central Bank of Ireland reveals that start-up companies in the first five years of existence account for two thirds of all new jobs created in Ireland (Enterprise Ireland, 2014). However, as stated in my previous blog, given the lack of data available, it is impossible to ascertain the number of new jobs created by ICT start-ups alone. Keep reading

“What’s in a name? That which we call a ‘Start-up’…”

Trends & challenges

by Virginia Linehan

Following hours and days of research on funding for ICT start-ups in Ireland I became increasingly frustrated with the information available. While there is an abundance of information from government and non-government sources the information unveiled did not offer much insight into our scope of research. It became apparent that it is extremely difficult to build a profile around this particular segment of the ICT sector in Ireland. The difficulty is that much of the information was grouped either as part the Irish technology industry as a whole or as part of a collective “start-up” group including non-tech business areas of professional services, social and personal services, wholesale, Keep reading

Start-up grants in Ireland: things to do before applying

Trends & challenges

by Ilya Nikitin

In the previous blog post we described different sources of funding available to the ICT Start-up sector in Ireland. In this post I will explain what you must do before applying for start-up grants in Ireland. At first glance it appears funds are available to everyone and at any time. However, it is not that easy to get a funding, office space or coaching if you have only an idea. It is a commonly known fact that great ideas are worthless without execution.

So you have a million-dollar idea, passion and spirit but where do you start? Keep reading

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