Archive for March, 2010

A Spin off from Mars can Beagle 2 be exploited on Earth? The 33Kg Beagle 2 mission was the smallest, most heavily instrumented soft landing spacecraft of our time; it was used to search for methane gas and water on Mars but never returned to Earth in 2003. Beagle was designed at the Open University in Milton Keynes and The Pro vice chancellor of the Open university for research and Enterprise, Bridget Haywood has now offered the technology for exploitation. Beagle 2 lightweight and robust electronics, robotic arm and mole are being made available to aid new development for products, processes and technologies of the 21st century. Interested in finding out more ?

It is important to know the value of your IP whilst trying to raise capital. A new service has been launched that will help businesses across the UK exploit their intellectual assets. Inngot have a new online tool, known as Sollomon, which has been developed with specialist input from leading business advisers Grant Thornton UK. This service will assist businesses derive an impartial value indication for their IP and other intellectual assets, should they wish to sell them, license them or raise funding.
To read more about this specialist valuation service here.

Yesterday saw the launch of the Irish Inventorium project. The launch event took place in the Guinness Storehouse a building steeped in history but with a very futuristic (new) interior.

The turnout was good with 65 attendees filling the room. The event was opened by Kevin Jennings followed by a talk by Ben Hurley (CEO of the NDRC) who give a good overview of the NDRC, it’s remit and goals. After this it was back to Kevin again for a talk about the concept of Inventorium.

Andrew Parish, CEO of Irish company Wavebob was up next. Wavebob is manufacturing an unique and very innovative wave-energy “harvesting” device. They are growing at a very healthy rate and staking a solid claim on the international renewable energy market.

Andrew was followed by Ireland’s digital media guru Bernard Goldbach (aka @topgold). Bernie gave a high octane presentation about innovate workspaces, mobility & hyperlocality. He showed an example of how the innovate service Pinpoints was developed by Cauwill Technologies a company who’se founders frequent the informal and innovate gathering known as Limerick Open Coffee Club. Bernie showed how some of his students at the Tipperary Institute of Technology used these type of technologies together with portable devices to produce fresh video content. His presentation can be viewed here.

After the talks it was time for some lunch and a bit of good old face to face networking. I would like to thank everyone who attended the event and hope to see all of you at some of the upcoming Inventorium events!

I’d like to start a discussion on the key supports that early stage ideas / startups and entrepreneurs need in order to get their “enterprise” off the ground.

No doubt funding will be a popular suggestion.  However, I would argue that there is always going to be a problem funding every idea.  Furthermore, funding is rarely won for ideas that aren’t well thought out.   So the real question is what “Non-Financial” supports do entrepreneurs need in order to get their idea into a shape so that it stands the best possible chance of getting a slice of the funding pie?