Ultan Technologies wins prestigious entrepreneurial venture award

Ultan Technologies, a Dublin based start-up which develops software solutions for device and sensor management, has won the Association of MBAs (AMBA) 2012 Entrepreneurial Venture Award.

The award was presented to company founder Cathal Brady, an MBA graduate from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, at a gala award ceremony held in London.

The award recognises entrepreneurship and innovation by MBA alumni and students who have recently founded successful businesses.

 
Sir Paul Judge, President of the Association of MBAs, Cathal Brady, Ultan Technologies and Kriss Akabussi MBE

Speaking about winning the award, Cathal Brady, CEO and founder, Ultan Technologies, said, “Innovative, smart and new high calibre businesses from around the world were nominated for these awards. To have won is testament to the hard work of the team at Ultan Technologies and indicates the continuing strength of Irish start-ups who can compete with companies from all around the world and win."

He added, "We identified a growing need by utility companies to better manage their customers and bill more efficiently and we developed proprietary and bespoke software solutions for them. Our product is hosted in the cloud, which gives a huge amount of value for companies in terms of costs as they don’t need to invest in extra hardware or IT infrastructure and can scale up or down as needed without the need for additional investment.”

He concluded, “I would like to thank the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School for nominating me for this award and I would like to thank the staff in the Business School and at NovaUCD who helped me prepare for this competition.”

Cathal graduated with a first class MBA from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in 2004.

He founded Ultan Technologies in 2009. The company, a graduate from the Hothouse programme and an Enterprise Ireland HPSU client, currently employs 12 staff between its Dublin and Ukraine based offices. They plan to employ an additional 10 people over the coming two years as they expand their national and international customer base across the UK, US and Ireland. The company has a turnover of €450,000 with plans to grow that to €14 million within five years. Brady added that they recently won a new contract worth €300,000 over the next three years.

Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Dean, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, said, “We congratulate Cathal and Ultan Technologies on their AMBA award win. It’s great to see graduates like Cathal combine their entrepreneurial vision and knowledge from their MBA to start new and successful enterprises. As one of a number of elite business schools in the world to hold the ‘triple crown’ of accreditation from the three international centres of business and academic excellence – EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB- we are committed to promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship among our MBA graduates. This award gives us an opportunity to shine a light on the creative business successes that result from quality business and management education.”

ENDS

29 October 2012

For more information contact: For further information contact Micéal Whelan, University College Dublin, Communications Manager (Innovation), t: + 353 1 716 3712, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie or Ronan Roche, e: ronan@corporatereputations.ie, t: + 353 1 661 8915.

Editors Notes

In 1964, University College Dublin became one of the first universities in Europe to offer the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA). In 1991, the graduate business school opened its own campus in Blackrock, County Dublin. With over 100 faculty members, 1,300 students and 10,000 alumni worldwide, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School is one of a small number of business schools worldwide to hold triple international accreditation (US - AACSB, European - EQUIS and UK – AMBA). Its MBA programmes have been consistently ranked among the best in Europe by the Economist and Financial Times, since 2000. www.smurfitschool.ie/

AMBA

The Association of MBAs is the international impartial authority on postgraduate business education. Established in 1967, it sets the global standard for accrediting MBA, DBA and MBM programmes. The Association currently accredits more than 700 MBA programmes in 199 schools in 75 countries worldwide. The Association of MBAs is also a professional membership association connecting MBA students and graduates, accredited business schools and MBA employers in more than 110 countries. www.mbaworld.com