New High Level Reports Chart Oppertunuties In Water.

Two new reports remind us that demand for water is already greater than supply, especially in developing countries, and that population growth and climate change will only create further opportunities in water.

The recently released McKinsey report Charting our Water Future also reminds us that the same rationale and models used for energy can be applied to water, for instance in how demand for water in countries such as China and India will see an increase as quality of life improves.

U.S.-based investment management firm Summit Global Management’s The Case for Water Equity Investing 2010 describes the water sector as a particularly safe investment choice amidst the current financial jungle. It cites “exploding demand for water”, “an aging and insufficient infrastructure” and “increasing regulations and awareness” of the shortage.

Also, water being an underestimated resource, many might not realise that it represents the “world’s third biggest [industry sector] in terms of embedded capital behind only oil & gas and electrical power”, and the global market is estimated to near $500 billion per year according to the report.

Moreover, large corporations whose business is heavily dependent on water—such as semiconductors, food and beverage and pharmaceuticals industries—are becoming more active in the clean water business, just as the financial sector is becoming more inclined to fund new opportunities (e.g. see IBM’s water tech threefold effect, and PepsiCo to Reduce Water, Energy Use 20% by 2015.)

Together, this sounds good for entrepreneurs: financiers’ attention to the sector is going up, and large corporations, as well as societies across the world, are in need of new solutions.

The Summit report identifies hot areas of investment within the sector as being in:

• Conservation and Efficiency (especially in the context of agriculture which accounts for 70% of water use)
• Recycling and Re-using
• Residential Water Consumption (tap water quality is a rising concern)
• Technological Solutions (e.g. to enhance monitoring and tracking)

Full Story Here –

December 4, 2009 – by Federica Dalamel, Cleantech Group

Acceptance Speech From A Global Leader & Innovative Thinker.

The Nobel Prize is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations – that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice…

…The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud….

…Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.”

So let us reach for the world that ought to be – that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he’s outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that – for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Barack Obama, Nobel Acceptance Speech

Openet named ISA ‘Company of the Year’ 2009

A Dublin technology company that enables telecoms companies around the world to extract increased business value from network activity has been named ‘Company of the Year’ at the Irish Software Association’s 2009 industry awards.

Combining specialised solution-delivery engagements with its FusionWorks event-processing and transaction-management software platform, Dublin-based Openet enables telecom and cable service providers to gain transactional intelligence and increase revenue and profitability. Check out  more about the event and Openet at SiliconRepublic.com

Purpose of the awards

The awards ceremony on Friday, 13 November, in Dublin, sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, William Fry and Software Skillnet, recognised the outstanding contribution to Ireland’s Smart Economy from companies and individuals in the software industry.

Chair of the Irish Software Association (ISA) Sean Baker said the Irish software industry is weathering the recession with considerable strength.

“Many software companies have diversified their markets, especially geographically, and many have increased their revenues in 2009.

“The (indigenous) industry employs 28,000 in the country and, notwithstanding current pressures, the future of the sector in Ireland remains bright. This year’s award winners testify to the strong range of companies based here, from early start-ups to mature companies.”

Award winners

Avego won the Emerging Software Business award for its work in improving efficiency in the transport sector.

Percana won the Sales Achievement award for its Eclipse product suite, which manages a wide range of life and pensions products.

The Technical Innovation award went to iTab for its range of products and services that allows musicians to take advantage of a new content-delivery channel.

The Corporate Social Responsibility award went to Norkom Technologies for its work with disadvantaged youth in its community.

Collaboration of the Year award went to Local Social, a partnership between Rococo, UCD and theNDRC.

In the individual categories, Paul Kerley, CEO of Norkom, won Software Person of the Year for his 20-year track record of successfully building and leading entrepreneurial teams.

IntertradeIreland Seedcorn Competition Announces Winners

SOPHIA Search Ltd, which was crowned Best High Growth Company, was founded in 2007 by Drs David Patterson and Vladimir Dobrynin.  Based at the NI Science Park in Belfast and in St. Petersburg, Russia, they have developed ground breaking semantic search technology which enables companies and organisations to intelligently search their ever increasing volumes of documents and unstructured information, whether it resides internally or external to the organisation.

Chief Executive, Dr David Patterson, said: “Winning the competition is a tremendous boost for our business.  Being selected as overall High Growth winner will bring excellent validation and credibility to our business plan and put us on a new platform with investors.”

title for Best Emerging Company and prize fund of €100,000 were presented to Cauwill Technologies.

Cauwill Technologies has developed PinPoints – an application that helps users locate their hotel using their mobile phone.  Since the launch of the product in July 2009, the company has secured subscribers in more than 66 countries worldwide.

Co Managing Director, Dr Ronan Skehill, said: “Being recognised as overall Emerging Winner will help us gain more international recognition of our product and new access to the investment community.”

The event was attended by An Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Mary Coughlan TD, who said:  “SOPHIA Search Ltd and Cauwill Technologies are to be congratulated on their tremendous achievement here tonight.

Check out the full list of winners at – IntertradeIreland website

Innovation in Ireland: Ground Breakers

Just a little update on Innovation in Ireland – some musings:

So what’s new in Irelands Innovative landscape, let’s have a look at what young companies have come on the scene in the last few years that have turned investors heads with their highly innovative products and services. Were going to look at what companies are the ground breakers and potential money makers coming out of Ireland.

Here’s how the journey usually starts for young and aspiring Irish entrepreneurs or even established companies with new and innovative ideas. In the search for money , advice access to players , markets and mentors the fist port of call is usually Enterprise Ireland – The Irish enterprise and development agnecy in charge ot assisting companies who can develop products or services to sell internationally.

Enterprise Ireland who helps young companies with grant aid and investment funding has seen its fair share of bright stars as well as a plethora of duds over the past number of  years. However it’s newly structured and standardised High Potential Start Up Group is more discerning these days in which projects it allows in and sends up the ladder for approval into the system. On talking to Gerry O Brien their gatekeeper to the HPSU group, new companies need to be able to show that their products or services will perform on an international stage employ at least 10 people in Ireland over the following three years and within that period have a turnover of at least one million Euro. Once the start-up has proven it has the potential and ability to deliver and has what it takes to be a potential international success then the company gets enrolled into the system and a Development Advisor (DA) or handler is assigned to the company to help them move forward in the system toward grant aid and/or investment funding.

Some of the companies I will be discussing have qualified and are in this program have either receive d EI funding or are awaiting funding approval. Some of the companies we will be analyzing haven’t yet approached Enterprise Ireland or might not fit into their required profile of a HPSU Start-Up. Some of the companies will be campus funded and supported companies. In Ireland this means that they have an affiliation of some sort with a learning Institution usually a University and we call these “University Spin-Outs”.

Companies To Keep and "EyeOn"

1. Aqua-Nu Filtration Systems Ltd. www.aqua-nu.com
2. Beyond Encryption Technologies Ltd
   www.beyondencryption.com
3. Owjo Technologies Ltd
   www.owjo.com
4. Fairview Analytics Ltd
   www.fairviewanalytics.com

Spin-Out From Trinity Collage Dublin – Revolutionises E-Learning

Dr Declan Dagger of Trinity’s School of Computer Science and Statistics was recently announced as the winner of Enterprise Ireland’s inaugural ‘One to Watch’ award. Enterprise Ireland has commissioned the ‘One to Watch’ award to recognize researchers whose commercialisation efforts are considered to have the most business potential. Dr Dagger was presented with his award by Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Jimmy Devins at the first Enterprise Ireland Applied Research Forum in June.

Dr Dagger and his team have developed a new personalised e-learning tool to tackle the challenges presented by the fact that no two people learn the same way. A new company called Empower the User is being formed around the technology and Dr Dagger will be the CEO of the spin-out company when it launches in 2009.

Irish e-learning technology companies and the industry as a whole in Ireland has seen some excellent innovations and successes over the past 5 years. Now it looks this “Empower the User” to be launched in 2009  is about to shake the industry up again. Empower The User is essentially an e-learning platform that delivers dynamic, personalised content. The “Empower the User” project all about empowering the user, and will have some serious benefits for companies too, as regards faster, improved training methods and lower costs.

An excellent article on the whole collage spin out industry from irish learning isntitutions is written by Gordon Smith of Silicon Republic –

History’s Greatest Innovations

The Greatest Innovations of All Time

Larry Keeley of Doblin Inc. nominates the innovations that have most improved safety, living standards, and quality of life. His choices may surprise

When it comes to saving or improving our lives, certain inventions and ideas stand out.
Here’s how we chose the most invaluable innovations ever:

1. It saved lives, extended average lifespan, or materially improved the quality of life.
Examples: anesthetics, surgery, vaccines, antibiotics, and genetic screening.

2. It led directly and indirectly to downstream derivative innovations that fundamentally altered how we live and what we are able to do as a species. Mathematics, money, property ownership, and containerized shipping make the list. The Internet makes it, but Google, Microsoft Windows, and iPods do not.

3. It helped to increase the amplifier effect of modern economies–increasing the standard of living for the population as a whole.Printing, free markets, capital markets, and limited liability each do this.

4. It freed up people’s time to do something besides just scramble endlessly for the food and shelter and clothing they need to survive. This is where the logic of Jared Diamond’s brilliant treatise Guns, Germs and Steel was helpful. Examples: weapons, domesticated animals, agriculture, and participative democracy.

We believe it is analytically impossible to definitively reduce these (and any similar) grandiose indices to deterministic ratings, say on a 1- to 100-point scale. Naturally, we would love to have this belief challenged.—Larry Keeley, president, Doblin

MIT Researchers Do It Again – In GreenTech

A better solar collector created by MIT researchers:

A more efficient way to concentrate sunlight could reduce the cost of producing solar power. Looking to make solar panels cheaper, MIT researchers have created sheets of glass coated with advanced organic dyes that more efficiently concentrate sunlight. The researchers, whose results appear in this
week’s issue of Science, say that the coated glass sheets could eventually make solar power as cheap as electricity from fossil fuels.

Colorful concentrators: The colored plastic sheets illustrate a way to concentrate sunlight. Combinations of advanced organic dyes made into similar sheets could make solar concentrators more practical. Credit: Kevin Bullis

The researchers show that the glass sheets can reduce the amount of expensive semiconducting material needed in solar panels and provide a cheap way to extract more energy from high-energy photons, such as
those at the blue end of the spectrum. “This could be the cheapest solar technology,” says Marc Baldo, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. “And I think one day, it could be competitive with coal.”

The simple, flat sheets of glass have a number of advantages over previous solar concentrators, devices that gather sunlight over a large area and focus it onto a small solar cell that converts the light into electricity. Solar concentrators in use now employ mirrors or lenses to focus the light. Because the new glass sheets are lighter and flat, they can easily be incorporated into solar panels on roofs or building
facades.

They could also be used as windows, which, connected to solar cells, could generate electricity. What’s more, mirrors and lenses require mechanical systems for tracking the sun to keep the light focused on a
small solar cell. These tracking systems add cost and can break down over the decades that solar panels are made to be in service. The flat glass concentrators don’t require a tracking system. Instead of using optics, the glass sheets concentrate light using combinations of organic dyes specially designed by Baldo and his
coworkers. Light is absorbed by the organic dyes coating one side of the glass sheet. The dyes then emit the light into the glass. The glass channels the light emitted by the dye to the edges of the glass, in the
same way that fiber-optic cables channel light over long distances. The Image:
Colorful concentrators: The colored plastic sheets illustrate a way to concentrate sunlight. Combinations of advanced organic dyes made into similar sheets could make solar concentrators more practical.
Credit: Kevin Bullis  A better solar collector created by MIT researchers A more efficient way to concentrate sunlight could reduce the cost of producing solar power. Looking to make solar panels cheaper, MIT researchers have created sheets of glass coated with advanced organic dyes that more efficiently concentrate sunlight.

The researchers, whose results appear in this week’s issue of Science, say that the coated glass sheets could eventually make solar power as cheap as electricity from fossil fuels. The researchers show that the glass sheets can reduce the amount of expensive semiconducting material needed in solar panels and provide a cheap way to extract more energy from high-energy photons, such as those at the blue end of the spectrum. “This could be the cheapest solar technology,” says Marc Baldo, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. “And I think one day, it could be competitive with coal.”   The simple, flat sheets of glass have a number of advantages over previous solar concentrators, devices that gather sunlight over a large area and focus it onto a small solar cell that converts the light into electricity. Solar concentrators in use now employ mirrors or lenses to focus the light. Because the new glass sheets are lighter and flat, they
can easily be incorporated into solar panels on roofs or building facades. They could also be used as windows, which, connected to solar cells, could generate electricity. What’s more, mirrors and lenses require mechanical systems for tracking the sun to keep the light focused on a small solar cell. These tracking systems add cost and can break down over the decades that solar panels are made to be in service.

The flat glass concentrators don’t require a tracking system. Instead of using optics, the glass sheets concentrate light using combinations of organic dyes specially designed by Baldo and his coworkers. Light is absorbed by the organic dyes coating one side of the glass sheet. The dyes then emit the light into the glass. The glass channels the light emitted by the dye to the edges of the glass, in the
same way that fiber-optic cables channel light over long distances.

And The Awards Go To –

For the past five years, the World Investment Conference has presented annual awards for both the best investment and the most dynamic European investment promotion agency. In 2008, these two prizes have been combined to form a single award in recognition of the fact that outstanding investments do not materialize without effective support from a well-organized development agency.

Best High-Tech Investment Award
Sony and Invest in Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency have received the Best High-Tech Investment Award for two projects developed in Nitra, Slovakia in the past two years of over 100 million euros, which have created more than 3,000 jobs in the region.
This Prize has been awarded to Serge Foucher, Executive VP of Sony Europe GmbH and Peter Hajas, CEO of Invest in Slova Investment and Trade Development Agency.

Best Knowledge Management Investment Award
Saint-Edwards University and the French West Atlantic Agency have received the Best Knowledge Management Award for the setting up of the university’s European campus in Angers, France. This project is committed to helping students demonstrate knowledge of politics, economics, culture and communication through a global framework and to participate in international experiences. This is the second American University to set up a campus in France.
This Prize has been awarded to Professor George E. Martin, President of Saint-Edwards University, Texas and Jean-Luc

Best Clean Technologies Investment Award
Solfocus and Interes, Invest in Spain have been distinguished for the development of solar plant in Puertollano in Spain, creating several hundreds of new jobs and investing over 50 million dollars. This significant investment is a direct result of the Solfocus’ participation in the 1st California Technology Showcase.
This Prize has been awarded to Gary Conley, CEO of Solfocus and Begona Cristeto, CEO of Interes, Invest in Spain.

Myths of Innovation

This is an interesting vid clip with Scott Berkum who was a senior project manager for Microsoft and now author on innovation and innovative processes. The Clip is all about Innovations Myths. Well worth a cuppa Joe and a sit back and view.

more about “Myths of Innovation“, posted with vodpod