Speaking at the Dublin Pub Summit, an event organised around the Dublin Web Summit that gives people the opportunity to informally meet before the main event later this year, Mr Paddy Cosgrave, organiser of the Web Summit, said “tonight we are using the evening [the Pub Summit] to make a few announcements, there will be more over the weeks ahead!”
The Dublin Web Summit will be in its second year this October according to Mr Cosgrave, and it will bring speakers (primarily from the IT sector) from across the globe to Ireland to speak to the technology and broader business community.
The Web Summit event will have a cloud stream in association with Enterprise Ireland (EI), and one of the keynote speakers will be Dr Werner Vogels, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of Amazon.com, whom Mr Cosgrave jokingly referred to as ‘Dr Cloud.’
“He is one of the foremost authorities in the world on the cloud and Amazon is leading the way in terms of cloud infrastructure and services,” said Mr Cosgrave.
On top of that there will also be a number of other cloud-based speakers who will speak on one of the evenings of the Web Summit during the ‘cloud stream.’
The Pub Summit was also an opportunity for those involved in the IT Sector in Ireland to do some Networking. The Epoch Timestook the opportunity to speak to a few people attending to find out their impressions of the event and to learn why they were there.
“We are involved with the Web Summit because it is the biggest event in the tech scene in Dublin … it’s going somewhere and it’s exciting,” said Ms Thompson.
“From our point of view we get access to key decision makers … we also get to see what trends are emerging and what areas we should be targeting,” explained Ms Thompson.
Another aspect that Invest Northern Ireland are interested in, according to Ms Thompson, is in the main Web Summit, which she said was “all good-news stories and all positive; we like to be associated with that as well.”
With respect to the type of assistance Invest Northern Ireland can provide for companies that may be pitching their ideas at the Web Summit, Ms Thompson said that, generally, they were looking out for companies with 30 plus employees in the technology space, but that that did not mean that they are not interested in speaking with smaller companies.
There is currently a shortage in specific skill sets required to fill vacant IT jobs in the Republic, and Ms Thompson believes that Northern Ireland has the answer to those skills shortages.
“The Celtic Tiger only lasted eight months in Northern Ireland so there wasn’t any massive change, therefore we still have a large amount of engineers and people suitable to be developers, so skills is the number one [reason to choose Northern Ireland], salaries are also lower and general business overheads are lower,” said Ms Thompson.
Professor Jarvis said that it was her first time at one of these events. At the Innovation Academy, she works with PhD students, where they are brought together in multi-disciplinary teams to work on innovative and creative projects together.
“We are looking for interesting people to talk to, find out who’s hiring and what kind of people they are looking for, and talking to entrepreneurs and investors to find out what is happening in the IT scene at the moment,” said Professor Jarvis as she described her itinerary for the night.
Commenting on the event, Professor Jarvis said, “so far I think it is really good, it is a really interesting mix of people, it is a good opportunity.”
Mr Godfrey Fletcher, Director of Vu2Vu Networks Ltd, said he was at the event to network, and to chat with other people who are developing technology that used the web.
“There is an opportunity to mix with people here and it sounds like they have a good portfolio of speakers for the October event, so it will be interesting to see how it goes,” said Mr Fletcher.
Mr Richard Foley, Sales Director at ESET Ireland, said he was at the event because he was invited. “I was in town so I said I’d call in and see if I saw any familiar faces … I haven’t seen any familiar faces yet, it’s a networking opportunity,” he said, adding that there were others who would probably benefit more from the event than him. Mr Foley said he has been involved in the IT sector since 1983: “It’s come a long way since I first got into it … it’s like all these things there were huge innovations in the early days, now the cloud is the latest buzz, but there has been nothing new as such,” said Mr Foley.
With respect to IT talent in Ireland, Mr Foley said “the talent is here, the brains are here, just being Irish is a huge benefit I think.” When quizzed further on his comment, Mr Foley said “aaah you’re Irish, it’s the way we think, maybe it’s our creative flair, look at all the literary giants we have created … I genuinely believe that,” said Mr Foley.
