Teknovis

Entrepreneurship is something that I have always been interested in, and it is something that is now part of my everyday work! So it is certainly something that I intend writing about here!

I think that Ireland has improved significantly in relation to entrepreneurship, but there is still a huge way to go! We are currently experiencing an economic downturn (as is most of the world), and this is likely to increase the number of start-up companies. Unfortunately, it also makes it more difficult for these start-up companies to receive the necessary initial investment :(

I read an interesting article on TechCrunch today titled Teen Bloggerpreneur Jessica Mah’s $500 Startup: InternshipIN. The article describes how to start a company for $500! Yes – just $500! It seems impossibly small! The start-up company is based on a website called InternshipIN, which is designed to provide a single portal for university students looking for internships. I think the most interesting aspect of this is the spirit in which it is being created, and it certainly will be interesting to see if it succeeds! Jessica Mah’s blog provides more details (and it is a good read).

Closer to home, I read that Pat Phelan (overall winner at this years IIA Net Visionary Awards 2008) is on a panel at a Digital Media Island event. Therefore, he asks the question “How can we foster start-ups and innovation in Ireland today?“, and some of the answers are very interesting!

Tags: Digital Media Island, IIA, InternshipIN, Jessica Mah, Net Visionary Awards, Pat Phelan, TechCrunch

The winners of the IIA Net Visionary Awards were announced last night at a black tie event in Dublin. Some of the nominations, and indeed the eventual winners, are very interesting. Congratulations to all involved, and in particular to Blacknight for picking up two awards!

The first winner that caught my attention was Pixie. I heard of them before, but I never actually visited their website. It seems to be very user friendly, and I happily browsed through random photos for a while. I think that they are in a very competitive market, especially if they want to have a global audience rather than an Irish audience.

The other winner that caught my attention was lichens.ie. Yes, this really is an entire website about lichen! The website is well designed, and it is interesting to look at, even if you are not a biologist! I really like the magnifying glass cursor that appears over the photos on the top of each page.

Of course, I am not saying that the other sites are not worthy of a look either!

There are several other similar types of awards during the year in Ireland, such as the Irish Web Awards and the Irish Blog Awards. I think that both of these are the brain children of Damien Mulley. I am not familiar enough with them to know the differences!

Tags: Blacknight, Damien Mulley, IIA, Irish Blog Awards, Irish Web Awards, lichens.ie, Net Visionary Awards, Pixie