– Prize Fund in Excess of €50,000

The call to innovators has never been louder. With a prize fund in excess of €50,000, Global Forum Dublin 2010 is appealing to eager and interested innovators to apply now for the Innovators’ Challenge before next week’s deadline of Friday 22 October 2010.

Taking place as part of Globe Forum Dublin 2010 (17-18 November), the Innovators Challenge is a competition for individuals and businesses who have proposals for unique, innovations with potential for market development and investment. The proposals selected will be leading examples of Ireland’s best sustainable innovations.

The prize fund of €50,000 for the Innovators’ Challenge includes a mentoring programme by Accenture, an IQ web content kick-start package, access to incubation space and entrepreneurship programme at NovaUCD, exclusive membership to Globe Forum’s facilitator programme and a public relations consultancy. 

A panel of experts will have screened the submissions and whittled them down to six innovators who will challenge for the prize on stage at the event. The TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance will host the final of Innovators’ Challenge, and each challenger will have 60 seconds to make his/her case to an onstage panel of judges and the Globe Forum audience. The judging panel includes; The Lord Mayor of Dublin Gerry Breen, Dr Aoibheann Gibbons, Director of Research Development, University College Dublin and Marian Corcoran Head of Management Consulting Group for Accenture. 

Speaking about the Challenge, Denis O’Brien said, “We have to give people the space to ventilate ideas and to feel comfortable and confident that they will get a hearing.  This Innovators’ Challenge at the Globe Forum gives people that space and the universities are the catalysts to make it happen.”

The event which is supported by the Department of Communications & Natural Resources and Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan, TD said, “Dublin welcomes the Globe Forum. The Irish Government’s strategy for economic growth has sustainability at its core. Energy and broadband will be the drivers of our new economy. The Globe Forum will be a space where investors can meet innovators and policymakers can share the latest ideas.  I look forward to meeting like-minded people where we can all work together to create a new and vibrant sustainable economy for Ireland.” 

Globe Forum Dublin event offers the opportunity to bring together innovators, educators and funders in a creative think-tank that can generate real and tangible wealth-creation prospects. The conference marketplace will actively encourage investment in emerging enterprises, providing professional support for innovators, encouraging new methods of funding innovation. 

The core elements required for global success are confidence, intelligence, imagination, hard work and of course, investment.  The underpinning innovation is the creation of a product that is unique, better, faster or cheaper than the competition.  Ultimately, innovation means profitability.

 Dr Aoibheann Gibbons, Director of Research Development, University College Dublin said, “Universities are rightly seen as catalysts for new ideas.  The UCD/TCD Innovation Alliance sees its role extending outside the walls of the campuses.   They have established innovation as the third pillar of university activity, alongside education and research.  They believe they have a guiding role to play in nurturing those with ideas and helping to bring them to the marketplace.” 

This event is taking place during the Innovation Dublin 2010 festival.

ENDS

15 October 2010

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: + 353 1 716 3712 or Emer O’Reilly, Limelight Communications e: emer.oreilly@limelight.ie, t: +353 1 668 0600 or Tara Carey, Limelight Communications, e: tara.carey@limelight.ie,  t: +353 1 668 0600.

Editor’s Notes

Through the TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance, the universities support the transformation of research and innovation ideas into high-tech and knowledge-intensive companies, creating an ecosystem for others to join.  

The universities have a proven track record of launching and commercialising ideas through their technology transfer units.  Their facilities for pre-competitive research and design, prototyping and process innovation help harness and commercialise new ideas, knowledge and inventions.  They prioritise the establishment of a wider support framework of educational, legal, financial, technical, management and marketing capabilities to set good new business ideas on their way.  

The UCD-TCD incubator units are home to more than 50 new companies.  In 2009, UCD and TCD spun out 15 companies and currently have contracts with more than 300 multinational and indigenous companies. Ninety-eight patent applications, including 47 priority, 31 PCT (patent co-operation treaty) and 20 national/regional applications were also filed by UCD and TCD during 2009. The new science centre in UCD, launching in 2012 and the new biomedical centre at TCD will provide a hotbed for ideas and discovery creating the platform for the next wave of economic prosperity in Ireland.  

Globe Forum is an international marketplace that brings together Irish innovators, investors and business. It creates a forum for leading Irish sustainable innovators and for positioning Dublin as a platform city for a system of open innovation. It looks to the city as an engine of economic renewal and to provide solutions for sustainable living for the future population. The TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance is a sponsor of the event.  

NovaUCD is University College Dublin’s Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre.  NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business. NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises such as Socowave. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx.