11th NovaUCD 'Entrepreneurs Live!' Seminar Series

Six leading Irish entrepreneurs will share the secrets of their entrepreneurial success at a forthcoming NovaUCD 'Entrepreneurs Live!' seminar series which commences on October 8 and runs each Wednesday lunch time until November 12.


Greg McAweeney, General Manager, RaboDirect.ie with UCD students Janice Asuncion and Moira Mager prior to speaking at a previous NovaUCD 'Entrepreneurs Live!' Seminar

The seminars take place from 1pm - 1:50pm (light lunch available from 12:30 pm) in NovaUCD, Belfield Innovation Park, UCD.

Attendance at the seminar series is open to all especially undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The guest speakers at the forthcoming 'Entrepreneurs Live!' seminar series are:

 Date  Speaker Company 
October 8 Steve Collins, co-founder Havok
October 15 Sean Mitchell, CEO Movidia
October 22 Sean Fee, CEO iFoods.tv
October 29 Bernard Hensey, CEO Phive Plasma Technologies 
November 5 Michael Cullen, CEO Beacon Medical Group
November 12 Declan Kearney, CEO Supplierforce.com

Speaker profiles

The aim the 'Entrepreneurs Live!' seminar series delivered by NovaUCD in association with the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Enterprise Board is to promote a spirit of entrepreneurship among the academic, research and student population at UCD.

The six guest entrepreneurs will talk about their experiences of setting-up and running their businesses emphasising the highs and lows encountered along their entrepreneurial journey and highlighting the secrets of their entrepreneurial success. After each seminar, attendees will have the opportunity to ask probing questions of the guest entrepreneur.

**** As space is limited at these seminars advanced registration is recommended ***

To register to attend any seminar please contact: Sinead O'Sullivan, NovaUCD Project Manager, CPD, t: 716 3715,  e: osullivan.sinead@ucd.ie.

The NovaUCD "Entrepreneurs Live!" Seminar Series is kindly sponsored by the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Enterprise Board.

Speaker Profiles

Dr Steve Collins co-founded Havok in 1998 as a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin.  Havok is the premier provider of interactive software and services for digital media creators in the games and movie industries. Steve was initially CEO before becoming CTO and he later acted as chair of the company’s advisory board and a technical consultant. Havok was acquired by Intel in September 2007 for $110 million. 

In September 2005 Steve rejoined the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin.

Seán Mitchell is CEO of Movidia. Movidia, founded in 2005, is an award-winning fabless semiconductor company which develops multimedia processors for the next generation of mobile Web 2.0 devices.

Sean has spent over 18 years working in the semiconductor industry in various technical, business, marketing and general management positions. He spent 5 years working for Silicon & Software Systems as an integrated circuit design engineer, before moving to Parthus Technologies where he spent 10 years as the General Manager of the Applications Processing Division. In 2004 he joined Silansys Technologies where he managed the company’s new multimedia software business until the company was purchased by Frontier Silicon when he became Director of Product Marketing.

Movidia was the overall winner of InterTradeIreland’s 2007 All-Island Seedcorn Business Competition.

Sean Fee is CEO and co-founder of iFoods.tv, the social networking site for food lovers which was launched in 2007 and has been called the ‘Facebook for Foodies’. Using iFoods.tv community members can upload their own recipe videos and develop their profiles to prove their own culinary genius to everyone. Users also have the option of learning from iFoods.tv’s professionally produced video cooking tutorials which have been developed by two top-class chefs.

In May iFoods.tv was named the 3rd best European Web 2.0 Startup at Startup 2.0 held in Barcelona.  In August the company appeared on the hit BBC TV programme, ‘The Dragons Den.’ This TV appearance resulted in an instant increase in iFoods.tv’s web traffic with over 185,000 page impressions and 55,000 unique visitors in the 24-hour period following the programme’s screening.

Bernard Hensey is CEO and founder of Phive Plasma Technologies, a spin out from Dublin City University. Phive Plasma Technologies was founded in 2006 to develop plasma sources that address the current and future technical requirement for advanced industrial plasma applications.

Bernard is also the founder and chairman of NewCode Technologies a software tools company that allows for rapid migration of legacy code to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based platforms. He is also the founder and director of Aircraft Management Technologies (AMT) a technology company that provides a solution for distributing workflow and data to aircraft. He developed AMT’s Flightman™ software to be the leading solution in the sector. Bernard was previously the managing director of FLS Aerospace.

Bernard was awarded the ‘Young Software Company of Year 2002’ by the Irish Software Association and also received the ICT excellence award for ‘Best Example of Mobile Internet Technology’ in 2003.

Michael Cullen is CEO and co-founder of the Beacon Medical Group (BMG), which was founded in 2002.  BMG developed the Beacon Medical Campus in Sandyford, which includes Beacon Hospital as well as Beacon Consultants Clinic, Beacon Renal, Beacon Dermatology and Beacon Consultants Concourse.

Beacon Medical Group has won three HSE issued tenders for the development and operation of three co-located private hospitals on the site of public hospitals in Beaumont, Cork and Limerick and has submitted a tender for the development of a similar facility on the site of AMNCH in Tallaght.

Beacon Hospital was an Award Winner at the Irish Healthcare 2008 Innovation Awards and Michael Cullen is a finalist in the 2008 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Industry category).

Declan Kearney is the founder and CEO of Supplierforce.com. Supplierforce.com which was founded in 2004 provides technology to companies to help them manage their supplier relationships. Supplierforce.com has raised initial funding of €2 million from private investors. Prior to starting Supplierforce Declan held a number of senior sales positions within financial and telecommunications organisations operating in the international marketplace.