Innovation CHEF

• Having a break this weekend #

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Last week we reviewed the first installment of the Irish Dragons Den. Hopeful Irish entrepreneurs pitching their business schemes in front of five wealthy and successful venture capitalists. Not too many winners last week. What does this week tell us about the state of Innovation Ireland?

First up was Kate. It’s an internet based company www.hen-party.ie .  Apparently 117 million Euro is spent on hen parties in Ireland and Kate reckons that is a market that is underserved in Ireland. She wants 30K to take the business to the next level and sell more of those L-plates and pink hats. As everyone with a website knows, getting to page1 on Google is paramount to get customers, Kate is there already so surely a business to invest in.

Kate gave a good performance and wanted to make her business “an absolute beast”. It’s not the most novel idea and as Sarah pointed out other online businesses serve the party market. Anyway Gavin and Niall chipped in 15K apiece in return for 20% each. It looks like a great business but a small business and Kate got what she wanted; the cash to grow this business and the mentorship of two dragons to build her business acumen. Good deal all round.

An actual invention next from Michael. It’s the Ride Right stabiliser. A kids bicycle stabiliser that allows a degree of tilt so the child can learn to go round corners safely.  Pretty sound. TRIZniks will appreciate the dynamism of a rigid system as a solution to a safety problem. Now the Dragons uncovered that Michaels strongest suit wasn’t in his go to market strategy. As a business to invest in, it wasn’t there yet. In a flurry of cycling metaphors they were out and pretty much so was Micheal. Gavin gave him the option to come back to him again after a little more development. Gavin also gave a his fellow dragons some straight talk. Guys like them don’t make any money without guys like Micheal.  All big things start small and I hope Michael gets the support he needs to put together a business plan to convert his ideas into innovations and on to creating some value.

Tony the Rock star promoter pizza guy from Limerick with the Italian grandparents runs Sal’s pizza.  Tony wanted to expand his grip on the rural pizza market in Limerick. Like Kate, he saw an underserved market and is going for it.In all honesty, Tony’s business didn’t seem to fit any of the criteria that the Dragons were looking for in terms of revenue and scalability. Pizza and sauce is Pizza and sauce. Tony is making a good profit and has a well positioned product. Good luck again and I hope someone doesn’t close him down for running the business out of his garage.

Couple of quickfire ideas that whizzed by. Hard to get a sense of them but in a line each:

• It’s the ratchet strap from Gerry who didn’t get the cash but it looked good.
• Laminate Wood for stairs, Dragons say no good, hard to disagree.
• Justin with his “free” alarm monitoring service seemed to have a business model like those “free” text in competitions. Just say no.
• Tim with his Weekend golfer . It’s a plastic cover on a shelf that you write your golf score on. Advertise too! Nope.

Finally, Adrian from Roscommon with his handbag light. It is an internal light for your handbag. As Adrian pitched it – don’t lose your stuff when putting on your lipstick or set your hair on fire when searching in your bag with a lighter. The battery and switch are hosted in external pockets making the prototype look like a bomb, but hey it’s a prototype. Lot of conversation about this being patented. As this sounded like a recent innovation from Adrian it sounded to me like he had patent filings. Actual Patents can take years to issue and only then offer any protection. A UK patent is certainly a wise thing to pursue, there is no such thing as a European patent, despite having the very Useful European Patent Office that makes patent protection in European countries easier and cheaper but I digress. At least Adrian was looking to protect his invention first and hadn’t turned up, given full disclosure to his idea and then tried to patent it. Adrian got the cash, and I suspect a massive step improvement in his chances of bringing his idea to market with Bobby coming on board.

Another inventor happy+ thousands encouraged=Result.

Good stuff this week, actual inventions. It does show again that there is a big difference between having an Idea and having a business. The inventor might not have the business savvy but that those with the savvy absolutely need to look for the new and useful ideas and be encouraging to those who create them.

Back next week with more.

Innovation being for everyone, the Irish Patents Office has announced the launch of Junior Inventor 2009

This competition is aimed at Irish primary school children and encourages young students to be innovative thinkers. Children will be asked to submit a drawing or illustration for their invention accompanied by a written description. The theme is “Green Innovation” in line with the theme for World Intellectual Property day (26 April). So get thinking about eco friendly ideas, ways of saving energy and ways of making life better and helping the environment.

The competition is divided into three categories with one overall winner who will be presented with the Junior Inventor 2009 award.  The categories are:-

1. Junior Infants to Senior Infants
2. First Class to Third Class
3. Fourth Class to Sixth Class

The closing date for entries is 5.30pm on Wednesday 8th April, 2009.

The competition is being organised to mark the Patents Office contribution to World Intellectual Property Day, which is held annually on 26th April.

Here is a beautifully presented list of the 10 Commandments of Design expressed by Dieter Rams, the German industrial design genius. Hugely influential gentleman over his 30 years at Braun as head designer. Just look at the iMac or iPhone to see the cool functional asthetics he espoused. Check out Dieter talking about his design work.

Good news for Innovation and research in Ireland as the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan T.D., announces the establishment of 5 new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Strategic Research Clusters.

The SRC programme is intended to link scientists and engineers in partnerships across academia and industry to address crucial research questions, foster the development of new and existing Irish-based technology companies, and to grow partnerships with industry.

This announcement represents an investment of €23.9million.

The 5 centres are:

1. Clique - A Graph & Network Analysis Cluster
2. Alimentary Glycoscience Research Cluster
3. FAME (Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end Communication Services)
4. Irish Separation Science Cluster
5. Precision – Plasma Technology for Nanomanufacturing

The roll call of companies partnering with Irish Academia is again very impressive, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Ericsson, Pfizer, IBM, Idiro Technologies, Norkom Technologies, Agilent Technologies Ireland ltd., Alimentary Health, Biomining Inc., Bristol Myers-Squibb, Cisco Systems, Telefónica I+D, Dionex Corporation, Waters Technology Ireland Ltd, Enbio Materials, Holfeld Plastics, Impedans, Lexas Research, Proxy Biomedical and Straatum.

Great science and the opportunity for real innovation and development of some critical assets for the Irish economy. A lot of hard work goes into these. Congratulations all round.

Of course we’ll be watching!

The Future..

What does the future hold for Ireland?

In an uncertain present who would dare to say they knew what the future held? Ireland played host last week to Bob Johansen from The Institute for the Future. The institute is an independent, nonprofit research group specialising in ten year forecasts by integrating micro and macro trends. Big multinational companies and leading governments use the insights they get from Bob and his colleagues to shape strategy and investments. After all, with a 70% success rate over 40 years; these are the guys with the right pedigree and track record. What did Bob have to say about 2009? What about emerging technology and socio-economic trends and how they will affect Ireland? Was there anyone paying attention?

Bob holds that 2009 will be a “springboard year”, one of great opportunity. While clearly a lot of organisations are just doing everything that they can just to survive there are clear trends that smart companies and entrepreneurs are taking insight from that will pay off within the next 10 years. 2019 will be a much more connected time, your Bebo and Facebook friends will be there in real time helping you shop, keeping you planet friendly and talking you out of the fattening pizza that looks good but your friends know doesn’t fit the diet. It won’t be all busy bodies either, safety data, traffic info and statistics will all be available, local to you through the miracle of geo-positioning and in-vision displays. Start investing in those language lessons too, multi-linguists are going to be powerful people. All that connectivity isn’t going away and your multilingual Twitter feed is going to be part of the instant data river your life is going to swim in. Companies such as HP, Google and Microsoft with their cloud computing initiatives are leading the way on the infrastructure side but there is plenty of room for the small and nimble player to create value once Cyberspace disappears like a shadow and integrates with the everyday life.

Who is taking advantage at the moment? Certainly the big IT players. Governments such as those of Finland and the Korea have made the investments and set in place the strategies that will reap dividends for their economies. In Ireland, we have got some good longer term bets out there. CSETS such as the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN ) or the Bio-Diagnostic Institute (BDI ) are in the game for a cheap integrated sensors everywhere, transparent display world. Their world class science and global partnerships must be convertable though. It is not about stamping your foot for more IP or demanding spinouts – it is about building a truly supportive structure that allows Irish based innovation to take advantage of the trends out there and create value.

A decent broadband structure has to be seen as the playground for our kids to learn the ropes. I got my first taste of programming on a ZX81. I’m not a programmer now but computers have always been part of my life and a tool to be used. If we want to be leaders not just consumers then we must be learners first. The few who heard Bob and his forecast last week and gained some insights would do well and start learning fast.

I have my copy of Get There Early on order. I’ll do a review.