UCD to showcase latest high-tech ventures at annual start-up awards evening

University College Dublin (UCD) will showcase the latest high-tech and knowledge-intensive ventures emerging from UCD research programmes during the annual NovaUCD start-up awards evening next week.

Among the 9 ventures and 22 individuals competing for a share in a €35,000 prize fund are AB Power and Yokie.

AB Power is pioneering efficient, safe and sustainable hydrogen-based energy storage and release technology to power future environmentally friendly vehicles. The promoters of AB Power are Dr Christian Grave and Dr Andrew Phillips, UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

Yokie is developing a people-powered search and discovery engine that harnesses the fast, rich and social content on real-time web services such as Twitter. The promoter of Yokie is Owen Phelan a PhD student in UCD’s School of Computer Science and Informatics and CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies. 

 
Owen Phelan, promoter of Yokie

[Each of the new ventures taking part in the showcase are profiled below.]

The NovaUCD 2012 Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP) Awards Evening takes place on Tuesday, 20 November in the William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4. From 4:30 pm attendees will have the opportunity to meet with and talk to the promoters during the new ventures showcase. The main awards event commences at 5:45 pm.

Dr Johnny Ryan, Chief Innovation Officer, Irish Times will be the guest speaker at the awards evening.

The aim of this key UCD new venture support programme, is to UCD assist academic and research entrepreneurs in the establishment and development of new high-tech ventures to commercialise the output of their research activities. The programme assists participants in defining, developing and transforming their innovative ideas into sound and commercially feasible new enterprises and in preparing detailed business plans.

To find out more about the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme watch our UCD Innovation video

During the main awards event each of the participants on this year’s programme will deliver a short ‘elevator pitch’. Three short-listed ventures, selected by an independent evaluation panel, will then present their business plans in more detail to an audience comprising members of Ireland’s venture capital, research, state agencies, industry and business communities.

 
Participants on the NovaUCD 2012 CCDP

Speaking in advance of the Awards evening Professor Peter Clinch, UCD Vice-President for Innovation said, “Innovation is the third pillar of UCD’s core mission. Two of UCD’s key innovation themes are putting knowledge to work and growing and supporting new business. Through the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme we are supporting our researchers in a process to put their knowledge to work by establishing new high-tech ventures, to translate the innovative ideas arising from their research programmes into value-added products and services.”

The overall winner will be presented with the NovaUCD 2012 Start-Up Award, a cheque for €5,000 and six-months free desk space at NovaUCD. The two other finalists will receive runner-up awards, cheques for €3,000 and €2,000 respectively along with six-months free desk space at NovaUCD.

In addition the overall winner will receive €6,000 worth of consultancy services from Deloitte; €3,000 worth of consultancy services from Arthur Cox; €1,500 worth of consultancy services from Aristo and €1,000 worth of financial services from Delaney Financial Consultancy and NewMarket Partnership. The AIB Seed Capital Fund will also provide an investor ready assessment of the overall winner. The winner will also receive a year’s free subscription to the AccountsIQ software which allows SMEs to manage their entire accounting requirements via the internet.

Arthur Cox will also be providing €2,000 and €1,000 worth of consultancy services respectively to the two runners-up.

All are welcome to attend the NovaUCD 2012 Campus Company Development Programme Awards Evening.

Click here for further information and to register to attend, visit

The twitter hashatg for the event is #ccdp12.

ENDS

15 November 2012

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications Manager (Innovation), UCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie or t: +353 1 716 3712.

Editors Notes

Profiles of Participating New Ventures

AB Power is pioneering efficient, safe and sustainable hydrogen-based energy storage and release technology to power future environmentally friendly vehicles.

Founders: Dr Christian Grave and Dr Andrew Phillips, UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

DFT Imaging Solutions is developing an innovative soft x-ray microscope ideal for biological imaging. It is a wide field of view, high throughput, high-resolution device with virtually no sample preparation which makes it unique in the world of microscopy.

Founders: Dr Tom McCormack, Dr Dimitri Scholz, Dr Fergal O’Reilly, Dr Paul Sheridan & Niall Kennedy, UCD School of Physics and UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research.

EgoNav Analytics enables organisations to visualise, detect and prevent fraud. It is applying techniques from cutting-edge social network analysis research to identify patterns between groups of individuals that indicate anomalous behaviour, in real-time and on a huge scale.

Founders: Dr Prag Sharma and Dr Lorcan Coyle, UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics.

IRL Photonics is developing robust laser systems with short, high energy pulses for high precision micro-engineering and high value science applications.

Founders: Dr Tony Donnelly, Thomas Cummins, Elaine Long and Dr Fergal O’Reilly, UCD School of Physics.

Pathogen Track will provide specialist expertise in performing and translating microbiological surveillance systems into improvements in food safety and forensic diagnostics for a wide range of pathogens.

Founder: Dr Karen Power & Professor Séamus Fanning, UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science.

PurOrigin is developing a low cost, energy saving device which is a realistic alternative to conventional drying methods.

Founders: Finbarr Maguire and David Ronan, masters students, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

Seronline Networks is developing a WiFi-based easy-to-deploy communications solution which provides Wi-Fi Internet access at a location for the duration of an event.

Founder: Sebastian Robitzsch, PhD student, UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics

SpecPros is developing the use of hyperspectral imaging for the monitoring of food quality changes invisible to the human eye.

Founders: Dr Aoife Gowen, Dr Carlos Esquerre, Professor Colm O'Donnell, UCD School of Biosystems Engineering

Yokie is developing a people-powered search and discovery engine that harnesses the fast, rich and social content on real-time web services such as Twitter. Yokie allows people to better find topical content; news organisations to gain real-time insight into topical trends amongst target audiences; and content creators to get paid with a novel ad market platform.

Founder: Owen Phelan, PhD student, UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics and CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies.

The NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP) is a nine-month, part-time programme designed to suit the busy timetable of UCD researchers and academics. It offers a mix of monthly workshops, mentoring and one-to-one consultancy and is delivered by UCD staff, with support from the NovaUCD sponsors, Enterprise Ireland, as well as other outside experts. It is designed to assist academic entrepreneurs in the establishment and development of knowledge-intensive enterprises by providing the skills necessary to transform innovative ideas into commercially feasible ventures via the development of a business plan. Participants on the programme have the opportunity to access desk space and incubation facilities and associated services at NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs.

Innovation is the third pillar of UCD’s core mission alongside teaching and learning and research. The mission of UCD Innovation is to enhance the value and quality of UCD’s innovation activities in order to achieve a maximum impact for the University, its partners, and for social and economic life in Ireland in the wider world. At UCD there are four key innovation themes; inspiring creative graduates, putting knowledge to work; partnering with industry and growing and supporting new business. www.ucd.ie/innovation