The IRELAND REVIEW - IDA Ireland

INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW
INNOVATION
IRELAND REVIEW
// ISSUE 1 AUTUMN/WINTER 2010 //
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
AHEAD OF
THE GAME
The rise and rise of the
Irish games industry
COMPETITIVE
LANDSCAPE
IMD’s Stéphane Garelli on a
world changed forever
ISSUE 1 AUTUMN/WINTER 2010
great
The
reset
Richard Florida on Ireland’s creative economy

INNO VATION
IRELAND REVIEW
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Innovation
Ireland Review, which aims to bring together many
of Ireland’s thought leaders, as well as leading
international figures, who offer their views on
Ireland’s role in the new innovation-led economy.
Within these pages, we profile some of the key
players – both indigenous and international – who
are transforming how we work and live.
We hope it will offer a snapshot of the range of
activities going on in Ireland in terms of research,
development and innovation, as we position
ourselves to compete in the new global landscape.
CONTENTS »
Our thanks to all those Irish and
international leaders who have contributed
their time and shared with us their valuable
insights. The magazine team welcomes
all feedback and suggestions to
IIR@businessandleadership.com.
Barry O’Leary
Chief Executive, IDA Ireland
ISSUE 1, Autumn/Winter 2010
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
52
MANAGEMENT
INNOVATION
IN PROFILE 4
IDA Ireland chairman on
lessons learnt from a career
in international business
COVER STORY 8
Richard Florida on his
new book, ‘The Great Reset’,
and on Ireland’s creative
economy
IN BRIEF 12
Innovation, research and
development news from the
island of Ireland
INDUSTRY FOCUS 18
We speak to the key players
about the rise and rise of the
games industry in Ireland
72
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 24
World competitiveness expert
Stéphane Garelli on the
new global landscape
THE IRISH MIND 28
Peter Sutherland on the
importance of open trade
and open borders
RESEARCH 32
A new report examines the
nature of the Irish manager
SMART IRELAND 36
We speak with the heads
of some of Ireland’s leading
technology multinationals
DIGITAL WORLD 42
Intune Networks’ voyage
from campus company to
achieving a global reach
inside
FINANCIAL SERVICES 46
Citi’s Aidan Brady on putting
innovation at the heart of
the bank’s operations; and
John Bruton on his new role
as chairman of IFSC Ireland
MANAGEMENT INNOVATION 52
Strategy guru Vijay Govindarajan
on his theory of reverse innovation
THE SINO-IRISH LINK 58
Liming Wang’s ambitious
plans for Dublin’s Confucius
Institute; and entrepreneur Liam
Casey’s Chinese journey
LESSONS FROM BIOTECH 64
An interview with Stanford’s
Professor Woody Powell in
Dublin on building robust
business clusters, and
lessons for Ireland
GREEN ECONOMY 68
International sustainability
expert Will Day speaks
in Dublin
FREEZEFRAME 72
Digital images of innovative
research projects happening
at University College Dublin
Editor: Ann O’Dea. Innovation Ireland Review is published on behalf of IDA Ireland by Business and Leadership
Ltd; Tel: +353 1 6251400; Email: IIR@businessandleadership.com; Address: Top Floor, Block 43B, Yeats Way, Park
West Business Park, Nangor Road, Dublin 12. © Business and Leadership Ltd 2010
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 3

» IN PROFILE
‘You can talk about
assets and you can
talk about
investment, and
they’re all very
important, but
ultimately it’s the
people who make
things happen’
4 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IN PROFILE »
A
After 37 years with Fortune 500
company CRH, where he rose to
group CEO, Liam O’Mahony is
today applying his international
business experience to the board
of IDA Ireland. The new chairman
spoke to Ann O’Dea
POWERFUL
formula
I
N FEBRUARY OF THIS YEAR IDA IRELAND DELIV-
ERED A BIT OF A COUP, ANNOUNCING THAT
HIGHLY REGARDED IRISH BUSINESS LEADER
LIAM O’MAHONY WOULD TAKE OVER AS CHAIR-
MAN OF THE STATE’S INDUSTRIAL DEVELOP-
MENT BODY, BRINGING WITH HIM A WEALTH OF
EXPERIENCE FROM THE WORLD OF INTERNA-
TIONAL BUSINESS. After 37 years with Ireland’s only
Fortune 500 company, CRH, it is a new experience for a
man who has spent his career firmly ensconced in the private
sector, but one he is clearly relishing.
“I’m probably an unusual person by today’s standards in
that I joined CRH when I was 25 and I spent 37 years with the
organisation,” says O’Mahony, who rose all the way to the top
as group chief executive of the building materials giant
before his retirement from the executive in 2008. He remains
on as a non-executive director of the CRH board, and indeed
is chairman of another iconic Irish company, Smurfit Kappa
Group, as well as a director of PM Group.
It was not until withdrawing from his position as CEO of
CRH that O’Mahony spread his wings and took on external
directorships.
“For me it’s quite a change of perspective,” he says. “Up
to two years ago I hadn’t taken on any non-executive
roles, because I believed – and I know others would argue
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 5

» IN PROFILE
otherwise – that when I was CEO of CRH, if I started taking on
non-executive roles, it would send a signal that my mind was
partly elsewhere. My mind was never elsewhere, it was always
on what I was getting paid for, which was to run CRH.”
He admits the transition to non-executive roles had its initial
challenges. “It is a very different perspective and at first it can
be frustrating. You’ve been involved in running businesses, and
so your tendency is to want to be at the heart of the action. Of
course, that is not the role of a non-executive, and it’s hugely
important to pull back and let management get on with it. I’d
like to think I’ve made the transition fairly well.”
TAKING OFF
O’Mahony attributes his longevity with CRH to the timing of his
arrival at the group, and the nature of the organisation. Having
qualified as an engineer and with an MBA, he was studying law
when Don Godson recruited him into CRH. “The great thing for
me was I was joining just as CRH was beginning to expand and
take off. The growth in the company created enormous possibilities
for people who wanted to stay with them. I ended up having
seven or eight different careers within CRH in my lifetime!
“I didn’t actually need to leave to fulfil anything that I wanted
for myself. It was as close as you could get to running your own
company while being part of a larger organisation because they
gave a tremendous amount of authority and responsibility to
young people – although you always had somebody wise and
true looking over your shoulder.”
CRH plc had been formed in 1970 through a merger of Cement
Limited and Roadstone Limited, when O’Mahony came on board
in 1971.
“These were two major companies in Ireland, but minnows
on an international scale. They set up a small development centre
to look at non-core activities, at how the company might
expand and diversify, and this is the section I joined in 1971. It
was an exciting place to be.”
O’Mahony moved into the operations side of the business in
1977, and later ran the Ireland and Europe business. He subsequently
ran the US arm of CRH for six years, before being
appointed Group CEO in 2000. “I got the opportunity to work
in many parts of the organisation with great teams of people,
and got to help grow the business – and myself – in the process.”
When CRH was formed in 1970, the sales had been just €26m.
By the time O’Mahony retired that figure was €20bn, and CRH
was employing over 100,000 people in 40 different countries.
“Not that I was the person who made all this happen,” he characteristically
hastens to add. “But the scale of growth was simply
enormous. Just to participate in that and be a part of that
team was terrific.”
GREATEST ASSET
It has left O’Mahony with an abiding certainty as to where the
strength of an organisation lies, he says. “You can talk about
assets and you can talk about investment, and they’re all very
important, but ultimately it’s the people who make things happen.
One thing CRH put great emphasis on always was in having
great people, and giving them the opportunity to express
themselves within an overall framework of governance.”
CRH was also a highly acquisitive group, but this too brought
strengths, says O’Mahony. “We got tremendous people in
through the companies we acquired, and many of those people
went on to run major parts of the organisation. It was a
very vibrant organisation because the growth meant the internal
people had a chance to grow, but we were also bringing in
new people, some of whom would have been owner entrepreneurs
in their own right.
“It was always sobering to sit down at a meeting and to know
that, while I might have been the most senior guy there, I’d be
looking around the table at guys with net worth 10 times mine,
because they had sold their family businesses but subsequently
stayed with us,” he recollects.
“We created a space for them to bring their own kind of wisdom
and perspective,” says O’Mahony. “When I say ‘we’ it wasn’t
Liam O’Mahony; it was the culture of CRH, which was really
set by Tom Roche and Jim Culliton in the early days, to recognise
the talent of people that came from different areas and give
them space and encourage them to fulfil themselves, not as an
end in itself but for the benefit of the organisation.”
That said, there was little tolerance for prima donnas at CRH,
says O’Mahony. “It wasn’t personality driven, it wasn’t around
individual egos. It was always about the strength of the team -
strong players but within a disciplined team. That is a very powerful
formula.”
A STRATEGY THAT WORKED
O’Mahony attributes much of CRH’s success to the strength and
simplicity of its strategy. “In the early Seventies the management
came up with a strategy that probably still informs what
the group does today, even though it is a very different organisation
in a very different world.
“And it was this: stick to the knitting, which was building
materials, so no flights of fancy; invest as a first priority in the
existing businesses to make them strong so you have a strong
foundation; and then use that as a springboard to go and
expand overseas through acquisition.
“That’s what we started out doing back then, and as we grew
bigger we did the same thing,” he continues. “As new companies
joined us they became existing business, and they had to be
made stronger before going forward. There was nothing magical
about it, it was straightforward, but extremely effective.”
In growing from a large Irish company to a global powerhouse,
I wonder did the company’s Irishness make a difference?
“I think being Irish was a significant plus for CRH, particularly
going to the United States,” he says. “In the US, Ireland is seen
by many as an intriguing place. For a small little island of four
million people, there’s a lot more interest in us than we really
deserve, so it was a door opener for us in a sense. But that’s all
it was. We had to perform at the end of the day.
“Overall, we had to have a good strategy; we had to be able
to organise our businesses properly; we had to deliver the business
because, with all the competition in the world, nobody
cares if you’re Irish or not. I’d like to think we would have been
considered by our peers in the industry worldwide to be one of
6 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IN PROFILE »
the best – if not the best – at managing our business.”
A NEW CHALLENGE
As he prepared to withdraw from his executive role at his beloved
CRH, O’Mahony says he had time reflect on where to next. “I had
to reflect on whether there was life after death if you like,” he
laughs. “Because when you retire after 37 years with an
organisation it does feel a bit like
death!”
Far from retiring, O’Mahony was
quickly snapped up for non-executive
roles in the private sector, until
he was approached by Government
and asked might he consider the
role as chairman of IDA Ireland. “I
was a bit intrigued I suppose. I don’t
mean to sound pious, but I had the
idea that I would like to give something
back – there’s a little of that in
most of us I think. I felt if I could
make a contribution to the country
it would be a good thing to do.”
O’Mahony felt that his largely
international background might
give him a real strength in this role.
He felt his own experience of leading
a multinational too might help
him to understand the mindset of
the IDA’s client companies.
Of course, in his many years in the
US, O’Mahony had often dealt with
IDA personnel based there, ready to
help them to interface with US companies
he knew. “As a result I always
had a lot of respect for the organisation.
I always regarded it as a very
professional no-nonsense organisation.
It was a combination of things
that attracted me, I suppose.
“That high regard I had has been
not just confirmed, but I would say in
many ways amplified, since taking
up the role – that sense of professionalism,
commitment, identification,
ownership – all those things are very, very strong here, just
as they were at CRH and just as I see them in my non-executive
capacity in Smurfit Kappa and PM Group.”
O’Mahony is upbeat about Ireland’s future. “Yes, we’ve had
our challenges, but our export sector, for example, has remained
very resilient, thanks in no small part to our foreign companies
who account for €110bn of exports every year. That bodes well
for our emerging recovery,” he says.
These foreign players also play a major role when it comes to
employment, contributing around €7bn in direct payroll. “Foreign
direct investment (FDI) accounts for some 140,000 direct
jobs in this country, and some 100,000 indirect jobs.”
O’Mahony is optimistic too about our continued ability to
attract such FDI into Ireland. “The IDA has secured many new
investments already this year, with the likes of Zurich, EA, IBM,
United Technologies and Dun & Bradstreet all creating new jobs
in 2010 - to name just a few.
“Grant Thornton recently placed us first out of 36 developed
countries for access to skilled labour, while Mazars has identified
us as one of the most competitive
locations for R&D investment.
These are all key strengths we have.”
However, he cautions against
any complacency. “I think the IDA
has had great success over many,
many years. However, we have to
recognise that we live in a rapidly
changing world and a highly competitive
landscape.
“Many countries look to Ireland as
the prototype for success as regards
what a small country can achieve, so
other countries have set up their own
IDAs and they are setting up their
packages to try and attract companies
in. We can never take that FDI
or indeed the IDA for granted.
“We’ve got to get up each day and
recognise that somebody’s out there
‘We’ve got to get up
each day and
recognise that
somebody’s out
there trying to eat
our lunch. There is
no room for
complacency’
trying to eat our lunch,” he says.
“Well we want to keep that lunch for
ourselves, and in fact we might want
to get a bit of somebody else’s lunch,
or we may want to make the dining
table bigger so that there’s room for
everybody. There is no room for
complacency.”
With Ireland’s boomtime too
came some loss of competitiveness,
but O’Mahony says there’s a correction
under way. “We’ve got to keep a
tight grip on the cost side and also
on the productivity side, but I see
significant improvement already,
with property prices, salaries and
energy costs all coming down. We’re
still not where we need to be, but I’d be hopeful that we’re
headed in the right direction.
“We have a lot going for us that others do not, particularly the
great success that FDI companies have had in Ireland, says O’Mahony.
“Clearly, our well-educated English-speaking young people
eager to work, our being part of Europe, our corporate tax
rate, that’s all extremely important. But just as I used to tell
companies that we were looking to acquire at CRH, ‘Don’t listen
to Liam O’Mahony. Pick up the phone and talk to company
A, B or C that has worked with us, and hear what they have to
say about the experience’. I think that proven track record is
one of the really great things we’ve got going for us.”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 7

» COVER STORY
‘One of the critical things for Ireland will be developing
strategies and approaches that continue to harness the
creativity and innovation of the entire workforce’
Reset
The great
8 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

COVER STORY »
Academic and best-selling author Richard
Florida has long been documenting how
creativity is revolutionising the global
economy. His latest book, The Great Reset,
says our post-crash prosperity depends on
it all the more. He spoke to Ann O’Dea
RICHARD FLORIDA IS AUTHOR OF SUCH BEST-
SELLERS AS ‘THE RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS’ AND
‘WHO’S YOUR CITY?’. His new book, The Great Reset, looks at
how new ways of living and working will drive post-crash prosperity.
He begins by looking back to the previous big recessions
of the 1930s and 1870s, and examining the lessons that can be
learnt.
“Economies and societies invariably remake themselves in
the wake of a crisis,” says Florida. “It’s a necessary component
of rebound and recovery. Outmoded industries and tired consumption
habits make way for new goods and services, new
careers and forms of employment, and population realigns
itself in the landscape.”
Interestingly, he says these developments are all connected
to lifestyle changes. “Look at the Reset that took place as the
19th century became the 20th – it involved the changeover from
an agrarian economy to an industrial manufacturing economy.
The Reset of the post-war, post-Depression era had to do with
the rise of a high-powered consumer economy, in which it
seemed like every worker had been handed the keys to the
American Dream – a house and everything to fill it, cars and college
for their kids so the next generation could live even larger.”
He says both these “Resets” were vibrant periods of innovation.
“Inventors and entrepreneurs rushed to fill the voids left by
struggling industries, with new ideas and new technologies that
led to new forms of infrastructure like railroads, subways and
highways systems. All of that innovation powers economic
growth.
“The First Reset saw power and communication grids and
streetcar and subway systems spread across the country, speeding
the movement of goods, people and ideas. This was the era
of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie
and JP Morgan, after all.”
The Second Reset, says Florida, brought huge developments
in media, mass-produced consumer goods, and the role of large
corporations. “That is when companies like IBM rose to
prominence and when what was good for General Motors was
good for the nation. It also saw the rise of a suburban, massconsuming
nation.”
THE HOUSING-AUTO COMPLEX
In his new book, Florida says its time for a radical shift away
from the “housing-auto” complex where the aim of the population
is always to own that house and those car keys.
“Housing has always been a key to Great Resets,” he tells me.
“We need an even more radical
shift in housing today. Housing has
consumed too much of our economic
resources. It has trapped people who
are underwater on their mortgages
or can’t sell their homes. And in doing
so has left the labour market unable
to flexibly adjust to new economic realities.”
He believes it is time to remake and reinvent our housing system
so that it broadly supports the flexibility and mobility of our
economic system. “For example, home ownership is rewarded
by the US federal tax code, which made great sense when that
piece of the American Dream, and all the consumption that
came with it, was essential to rebuilding the economy.
“These days, however, it feels like a huge penalty to people
who want to travel light within the new mobile economy without
a mortgage to hold them back.”
Florida says the signs are already there of a shift in this area.
“Already, new forms of short-term and long-term rental housing
are popping up in some regions. You can take on a house or
apartment for a few months or even a year or two in developments
that are striving to provide critical elements of community
– schools, healthcare, social and cultural institutions – even
for people who are living there only temporarily.
“People invested in a home, mortgage or community are less
likely to move to more economically vibrant locales. That kind
of entrenchment is going to be an impediment to the coming
spatial fix,” he says.
RISE OF THE MEGA REGION
As the debate continues in Ireland as to whether to prioritise
regional development, or to concentrate on the development of
Dublin as our successful city-region, I ask Florida for his view.
“Cities and regions are likely to rise and fall, possibly dramatically,”
he says. “Places with diversified economies and high
concentrations of highly educated people and those that work
in the “creative class” have done much better in weathering the
current economic storm. Dublin has been one of the regions.
“Even as financial industries are shedding jobs, historic financial
capitals are better positioned for the future because of
the large, diverse, open economies populated by innovative
and entrepreneurial talent. The new spatial fix will be bigger
than the industrial city and mass suburbanisation combined.
“The history of capitalism is a history of the more intensive
and expansive use of land and space. It’s no longer city versus
suburb but the rise of a new and larger form of economic landscape
– the mega-region,” he says.
Mega-regions, according to Florida, are gigantic complexes of
cities and suburbs. “The world’s 40 largest mega-regions produce
two thirds of all economic output, and nine in 10 new innovations,
while housing only 18pc of the world’s population. Mega-regions
are to our time what suburbanisation was to post-war growth.”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 9

» COVER STORY
‘The world’s
40-largest megaregions
produce
two-thirds of all
economic output,
and nine in 10
new innovations,
while housing
only 18pc of the
world’s
population’
Governments now have
choices to make, Florida says.
We can either wait for these
mega-regions to take shape and
for populations to move and
then try to retro-fit infrastructure
and services to accommodate
those changes or we can
anticipate these developments,
and begin planning and implementing
the technology and infrastructure
that can enable the
spatial fix, and hasten a return
to economic prosperity.
“Dublin’s regional leaders
have to keep pushing the envelope
if Dublin is to maintain its
competitive advantage. I’m
talking about universal broadband
access, high-speed rail,
new forms of housing and so
on, which can only take shape
through a thoughtful alliance of
government action and private
development.”
THE THREE TS
And can the Dublin region adopt and replicate some of the
learnings from the likes of Silicon Valley, which has given birth
to so many innovations?
“Talent, Technology and Tolerance represent what I call the
3Ts of economic development,” he begins. “The 3Ts approach
represents a comprehensive strategy for organisations, cities,
regions and countries alike to compete and prosper in the creative
age. It’s a framework that has helped places like Austin,
San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Boston and Silicon Valley make
great innovative and economic advancements. It’s a framework
that Ireland – and Dublin – should look to as well.”
FLORIDA DESCRIBES THE THREE TS THUS:
Talent: The driving force behind any effective economic strategy
is talented people. We live in a more mobile age than ever before.
People, especially top creative talent, move around a lot. A
community's ability to attract and retain top talent is the defining
issue of the creative age.
Technology: Technology and innovation are critical components
of a community or organisation's ability to drive economic
growth. To be successful, communities and organisations must
have the avenues for transferring research, ideas, and innovation
into marketable and sustainable products. Universities are
paramount to this and provide a key hub institution of the creative
age.
Tolerance: Economic prosperity relies on cultural, entrepreneurial,
civic, scientific and artistic creativity. Creative workers
with these talents need communities, organisations and peers that
are open to new ideas and different people. Places receptive to
immigration, alternative lifestyles and new views on social status
and power structures will benefit significantly in the creative age.
REPOSITIONING IRELAND
And is a small open economy like Ireland well-positioned for
the Great Reset – can we be a hub of innovation and creativity,
in Florida’s view? “One of the critical things for Ireland will be
developing strategies and approaches that continue to harness
the creativity and innovation of the entire workforce – not just
the creative class but both industrial and service-oriented workers
as well,” he says.
“Every single human being is creative, and maximising that
creativity will be critical to our happiness and economic growth.
Economic growth is driven by creativity, so if we want to increase
it, we have to tap into the creativity of everyone. That’s what
makes me optimistic.
“For the first time in human history - and even more so since
the Great Reset - the basic logic of our economy dictates that
further economic development requires the further development
and use of human creative capabilities. The great challenge
of our time is to find ways to tap into every human’s
creativity.”
It is vital that a country like Ireland looks beyond its focus on
science and technology and focuses its efforts too on the burgeoning
creative economy, he says. “Ireland has to look to the
entire creative economy. Yes, technology and science are
important elements of the creative economy. But remember, I
define the creative economy and class to be a broader view of
knowledge creation and human capital.”
According to Florida “the creative class” is the core force of
economic growth in our future economy, and he says it includes
two groups of workers:
Creative Professionals: These professionals are the classic
knowledge-based workers and include those working in healthcare,
business and finance, the legal sector and education.
Super-Creative Core: These workers include scientists,
engineers, techies, innovators and researchers, as well as
artists, designers, writers and musicians.
According to Florida, Ireland has a good headstart here. “The
full creative workforce represents nearly 40pc of workers in Ireland,
ranking it among the top creative centres in the world.”
NEW MODEL WORKER
Whether we are talking about the US or Ireland or elsewhere,
Florida has strong views on how we can transform low-skill, lowpaid
jobs into high-skill jobs. He points to the massive shift that
took place in the way people worked in the middle of the 20th
century in the US.
“Manufacturing jobs – the bulk of employment in America –
transformed from low-paying and generally oppressive menial
jobs and became jobs that weren’t just respectable but actually
desirable. The American Dream was now within reach for the
average factory worker.
“Today, most of those great jobs have gone overseas and the
great majority of America jobs are now service jobs. We need
to find ways to transform the more than 60 million service
jobs which make up 45 percent of US employment in the same
way – rewarding workers financially, encouraging and
empowering creative participation and creating professional
communities.
“We can look to any number of new companies – from Zappos,
10 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

COVER STORY »
to Starbucks, to American Apparel – for examples of how this
idea might play itself out. We need to do more to make service
jobs into higher-paying family-supporting jobs of the future.”
THE GREAT RESET
Recessions inevitably create despair and pessimism, but Florida
sees this latest “Great Reset” as an opportunity to transform
our economies in a positive and more sustainable way.
“We will see sustainability as a common practice rather than
an added value in the future,” he says. “Many of the economic
forces – the concentration of assets, for example – will require us
to evaluate our choices and needs more holistically. Infrastructure,
for example, will have to develop and adapt to our new economic
reality.
“We need new infrastructure that can dramatically speed the
movement of goods, people, and ideas. Part of that will mean
people moving closer to where they work, working flexibility and
walking or riding a bike to work – a more sustainable approach.
It will also require new infrastructure like high-speed rail that
can speed the connection and reduce the commuting time
between far-flung places.”
Changes in consumption and lifestyle are key to Great Resets,
says Florida. “For one thing, I think we’ll start defining wealth
and success differently and develop new approaches to consumption.
Things that have always signified wealth and security
– home ownership, new cars, luxury goods – have become a
burden for many people and will be replaced by more experiential
consumption like travel and recreation, self-improvement,
and so on.
“By divesting themselves of certain big-ticket possessions that
have been keeping them tied down, people will gain a new freedom
to live more meaningful lives.” It is a lesson that many here
in Ireland are learning now.
Richard Florida is professor at the Rotman School of Management
at University of Toronto. His latest book, The Great Reset:
How new ways of living and working drive post-crash prosperity,
is published by HarperCollins.
‘One of the critical
things for Ireland
will be developing
strategies and
approaches that
continue to
harness the
creativity and
innovation of the
entire workforce’
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 11

» IN BRIEF
In brief
AMAZON CTO
VOGELS ADDRESSES
DUBLIN CLOUD
COMPUTING
SUMMIT
Chief technology officer Dr
Werner Vogels has driven Amazon’s
technology vision, and Information
Week named him CTO of
the Year in 2008 for his contribution
to making cloud computing a
reality. He was in Dublin in September
to address The Cloud Computing
Summit in Croke Park.
“Companies in virtually every
industry are taking advantage of
the on-demand, scalable and payas-you-go
benefits of cloud computing,”
he said. “We believe that
these services are rapidly changing
what tech vendors are offering
to customers and how those customers
are purchasing IT.
“The old world meant lots of capex,
under-utilised infrastructure
and wasted time and focus on undifferentiated
IT,” he said. “The new
world is no cap-ex, pay for what
you use and the ability to focus
on what differentiates your business.
CEOs, CFOs and CIOs owe
it to their shareholders to take a
hard look at their technology
infrastructure and make sure it’s
really differentiated and adding
value,” said Vogels (pictured).
James D’Arcy
IRISH STUDENT
SHORTLISTED FOR
JAMES DYSON AWARD
James D’Arcy’s oxygen-delivery
system called Flo2w has made the
international shortlist for the prestigious
James Dyson Award.
D’Arcy, who has just completed his
final year at University of Limerick,
was one of 20 shortlisted from over
500 entries from 21 countries.
The Flo2w device fits onto a patient
head using an adjustable headpiece.
“Flo2w eliminates the big, intimidating,
one-size-fits-all mask that is currently
being used,” says D’Arcy.
“The subtle design makes the user
feel as if they are not even wearing it.
The system integrates a new form of
regulating oxygen in an innovative and
easy way for both the patient and
healthcare professional.”
The James Dyson Award is an international
design award that celebrates,
encourages and inspires the next generation
of design engineers.
GOOGLE
LAUNCHES
NEW DUBLIN
OPERATIONS
CENTRE
With the establishment
of a new operations
centre in Dublin,
Google is to create 200
jobs here in Ireland.
The new centre will be
focused on the search
engine giant’s location-based
products, including Google
Local and Google Maps.
These new jobs will bring the
number of people employed in
Dublin by Google to a total of 1,700.
“Dublin is rapidly becoming the
multilingual internet capital of
Europe and Google is proud to be
leading the charge on this and further
increasing our presence here,”
said David Martin, director, Geo
Operations for Google in Europe.
Google’s Dublin base
12 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IN BRIEF »
INTEL AND TYNDALL
FORM US$1.5M
RESEARCH
COLLABORATION
Intel has signed a US$1.5m
advanced research collaboration
with Tyndall National Institute,
based at University College Cork
(UCC).
The agreement is the first of its
kind for Intel in Ireland and establishes
a direct collaboration with
Intel’s internal research group in
Portland. “Through their publications
and technology, Tyndall
researchers have demonstrated
their ability to innovate and invent
technologies that can advance the
frontiers of semiconductor technology,”
said Mike Mayberry, director
of Components Research and vicepresident
of Technology and Manufacturing,
Intel.
Under this agreement, Tyndall
and Intel researchers will investigate
next-generation materials,
devices and photonics technologies
that they say could have a major
impact on the direction of future
electronic devices.
LINKEDIN ESTABLISHES
INTERNATIONAL
HEADQUARTERS IN
DUBLIN
LinkedIn, the online professional network
with more than 60 million members
globally, is to open its new
international headquarters in Dublin,
and has already started the recruitment
of 35 international finance positions.
LinkedIn’s offices in Mountain View,
California will continue to serve as corporate
headquarters, with Dublin as the centre
for international growth.
“This is an endorsement that Ireland
can satisfy the needs of highly innovative
and technologically advanced companies
as they make critical investments,” said
Barry O’Leary, CEO, IDA Ireland.
“We now have more than 14 million
members in Europe and 60 million
worldwide,” said Kevin Eyres, managing
director of LinkedIn Europe. “As our
membership continues to grow quickly,
this is the right time for us to establish an
international headquarters.”
IRISH BUSINESS LEADERS
POSITIVE ABOUT FOREIGN
DIRECT INVESTMENT
A quarter more multinational corporations
(MNCs) with Irish operations are
considering additional investment in
Ireland compared to last year. That is
according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) 2010 CEO Pulse Survey.
The survey gives a snapshot of the views
of over 200 CEOs on Ireland’s business
environment and the challenges and
opportunities it presents for corporate
Ireland.
MNC CEOs were upbeat about the
prospects for foreign direct investment,
with 40pc saying they are considering
additional investment in Ireland, up from
32pc last year.
MNC CEOs cited improving cost competitiveness
(51pc) as a critical factor;
followed by a continued commitment
to a stable and low tax environment
(43pc); and enhancing investment in
education (30pc).
Kai Hermsen, Tineke Franssen
and Karel Vanacker pictured at
the Shanghai Expo 2010 Awards
DUBLIN STUDENTS
WIN TOP AWARD AT
SHANGHAI WORLD
EXPO 2010
The prestigious Schneider Electric
Award has been won by a
team from the CEMS Master’s
in International Management at
UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate
Business School at the Shanghai
Expo 2010 Awards.
The competition received more
than 300 projects from business
school teams from around the
globe. The team’s ‘SC Tree’
project was designed to enable
slum inhabitants to become
entrepreneurs by providing them
with an ecological, technological
and social business model that
would make their environment
more sustainable and a better
place to live.
The students were awarded
with a €3,600 cash prize, an
all-expenses paid three-night stay
in Shanghai (including access to
the World Expo) and mentoring
with representatives of leading
international companies.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 13

» IN BRIEF
€15M ENERGY
RESEARCH CENTRE
FOR CORK
A major €15m investment
involving the 17th largest
manufacturing giant in the
US, United Technologies,
will result in the creation of
37 new jobs at an advanced
energy-research centre at
Tyndall National Institute.
The proposed research
agenda is based on two main
research themes – energy and
security systems. United Technologies
is a global provider of
high-technology products and
services to the building systems
and aerospace industries.
It employs more than 200,000
people and operates in more
than 70 countries.
United Technologies also
announced that it would
become the founding member
of the International Energy
Research Centre (IERC) – a
new initiative that will be
jointly funded by the Department
of Enterprise, Trade and
Innovation and the Department
of Communications, Energy
and Natural Resources,
as well as industry sources.
“As a catalyst and founding
member of the IERC, our Ireland
operation will be the European
hub of our network of
global innovation,” said David
Parekh, UTC vice-president,
research and director, United
Technologies Research Center.
“We look forward to working
with our Irish partners to
grow our respective leadership
positions in clean-technology
research.”
The IERC will work with
leading Irish, European and
international research groups
in the sustainable energy field.
Matthieu André with Michael Gregg,
joint managing directors of AXA Global
Distributors
AXA TO ESTABLISH
GLOBAL INVESTMENT
PRODUCT DISTRIBUTION
OPERATION IN DUBLIN
AXA Global Distributors (Ireland), a
100pc-owned subsidiary of AXA, is
establishing a global life product
distribution and servicing subsidiary
in Dublin, creating 200 highvalue
employment positions over the
next three years.
The business will provide distribution
services for variable annuities and other
investment products and provide back
office services to product underwriting
entities in the AXA Group, notably for
AXA Life Europe.
Matthieu André, joint managing
director of AXA Global Distributors,
attributed the decision to locate in Ireland
to “the track record and success of
our other operations in Ireland, the
availability of highly educated graduates
with language skills and the access
Ireland provides us to EU markets”.
BROWN BAG FILMS LANDS
DISNEY CONTRACT
The twice Oscar-nominated Irish animation company
Brown Bag Films has landed a major contract with Disney
to produce a new children’s television series.
Brown Bag Films will produce a 52-episode series entitled
Doc McStuffins for Disney, which will be screened on the US
cable TV channel Disney Junior.
Brown Bag chief executive Cathal Gaffney said the company
would be taking on an additional 14 staff over the next two years
to cater for the new contract. Gaffney founded Brown Bag Films
in 1994 with Darragh O’Connell, the studio’s creative head.
HP GALWAY
OPERATION SECURES
GLOBAL CLOUD
COMPUTING DEAL
Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) Galway
facility has announced it will be
spearheading a major cloudbased
recall service that traces
and removes harmful food products
from the global supply chain.
The Galway facility, which began
life 40 years ago as part of Digital
Equipment Corporation, will work
with the Canadian arm of GS1 – a
global not-for-profit organisation –
to deploy the service.
HP country manager Martin
Murphy said the deal was a major
breakthrough for Ireland at the
dawn of a new computing age
where cloud-based services will
impact on decisions consumers
make in the supermarket.
“This initiative will be lead out
of HP’s Galway operations and will
be the first step towards the creation
of a major cloud computing
research facility that will bring jobs
to the area,” said Murphy.
Cathal
Gaffney, CEO,
Brown Bag
Films
14 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IN BRIEF »
ELI LILLY TO ESTABLISH EUROPEAN FINANCIAL
SERVICES CENTRE IN CORK
US pharmaceutical giant Eli
Lilly is to set up a European
Financial Services Centre in
Cork, creating up to 100 new
high-skilled finance positions
at the operation.
Headquartered in Indianapolis,
Indiana, Eli Lilly employs some
40,000 people worldwide. The
European Financial Services
Centre, to be located in Cork
City, will support Lilly’s European
operations, providing general
accounting, order-to-cash
and purchase-to-pay activities. It
is planned that the centre will be
fully operational in 2011.
“The announcement fits neatly
with IDA Ireland’s, Horizon 2020
strategy - IDA Ireland places a
strong focus on winning servicesbased
investment and assisting
companies to win new international
mandates for Ireland,
strengthening their strategic
importance to their parent company,”
said IDA Ireland CEO
Barry O’Leary.
Peter Marshall,
MD, Fi-Tek
FI-TEK CHOOSES
DUBLIN FOR
EUROPEAN HQ
150 NEW JOBS FOR
EBAY’S EUROPEAN
CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
eBay, the online marketplace, is creating
150 new jobs at its European
Centre of Excellence in Blanchardstown,
Dublin.
eBay, which already employs over
1,600 people at its Blanchardstown site
together with PayPal, its online payment
system, has created the new permanent
positions in customer service,
personal account management and
process enhancement.
“The decision to expand eBay Dublin
is a reflection of our confidence in the
standard of the skilled workforce within
the Irish market,” said Andrew Pease,
site director for eBay Dublin. “The roles
created are in areas that will support
the execution of our Global and European
strategy, which include positions
for specialists with strong technical
skills in business analytics, content
management, project management and
account management.”
D&B TO
ESTABLISH
OPERATIONS
IN DUBLIN
Business information supplier
D&B, formerly known as Dun &
Bradstreet, is to establish a
business operations centre in
Dublin, initially creating up to
100 high-skilled new positions
by mid-2011.
D&B’s Dublin-based operation
will serve customers through a
range of technology and operations
functions, and will be
responsible for the collection and
processing of data on subject
companies.
D&B said the centre will
in-source operations roles from
existing offshore arrangements,
with many of these roles now
being filled in Dublin.
“D&B is the world leader in
quality business-information services,”
said IDA Ireland CEO Barry
O’Leary. “Its decision to choose Ireland
for this strategically important
and knowledge-driven activity
is a tremendous addition to our
global business services base.”
US financial solutions
provider Fi-Tek is to
establish its European
headquarters in Dublin,
creating some 50 jobs over
five years. Fi-Tek develops
and provides specialised
software products and
solutions for the alternative
investments, trust, asset
servicing and securities
processing industries.
The company’s HedgeTek
product is used by many of
the leading hedge fund
administrators, accounting
firms and fund managers
responsible for over 3,500
funds with over US$400bn
in assets under management.
“Ireland is the largest
hedge fund administration
centre in the world with
almost half of all global
alternative investment
funds operated from here,”
said the Minister for Enterprise,
Trade and Innovation,
Batt O'Keeffe TD, at the
announcement, adding that
more than half of the
world’s leading financial
services firms now have
operations in Ireland.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 15

» IN BRIEF
An Taoiseach Brian
Cowen TD with
Danuta Gray, CEO,
Teléfonica O2 Ireland
IBM ESTABLISHES
SMARTER CITIES
TECHNOLOGY
CENTRE IN IRELAND
IBM’s first Smarter Cities
Technology Centre is to be
located in Dublin. The centre’s
cross-disciplinary team
aims to help cities around the
world better understand, interconnect
and manage their
core operational systems
such as transport, communication,
water and energy.
The new Smarter Cities
Technology Centre will create
as many as 200 new roles
in an IDA-supported investment
of up to €66m over the
next three years.
“Researchers at the new
centre will investigate how
advanced analytics and visualisation
techniques, coupled
with solutions such as cloud,
stream and high-performance
computing, can help city
authorities make optimal use
of resources,” said Dr Katherine
Frase, vice-president,
Industry Solutions and
Emerging Business at IBM
Research (pictured).
“In today’s rapidly changing
world, no company can
afford to stand still. IBM has
been in Ireland since 1956
and continues to evolve its
presence in Ireland towards
higher-value, knowledgeintensive
activity,” she added.
NEW MSD CENTRE
BOOSTS IRELAND’S LIFE
SCIENCES SECTOR
The world’s second-largest pharmaceutical
company, MSD, part of
Merck & Co, has chosen Dublin as
the hub for its newly established
Shared Business Services Centre for
its EMEA operations. Some 150 new
jobs will be created.
“The establishment of this centre
means that the world’s two leading pharmaceutical
companies have now selected
Dublin as the headquarters for EMEA
nancial shared services centres,” said An
Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD.
The EMEA SBS Centre will support
business transactions in the areas of
finance, accounting and managed services
such as travel and meetings.
“We believe Ireland offers the best combination
of factors to ensure the success
of the centre with a strong track record in
the successful execution of complex projects
such as this and an excellent business
environment for the pharmaceutical and
financial shared services industries,” said
Stacey Gelman, vice-president, Shared
Business Services.
NEW EUROPEAN PEOPLE
SERVICES CENTRE FOR
TELEFÓNICA
O2’s parent company, Telefónica, is to
set up a European People Services
Centre in Dublin, creating 100 new
high-skilled positions by the end of
2012.
The Telefónica European People Services
Centre will be located in O2’s headquarters
in Dublin’s Docklands and
represents an investment of €25m over
five years.
Telefónica Europe, which trades as
O2 in a number of European markets,
including Ireland, is a leading provider of
integrated mobile, fixed and broadband
services to over 54 million customers.
“We were up against some very tough
competition from other countries but
Ireland took the lead in terms of Government
support and understanding of
the needs of a global organisation,” said
Danuta Gray, chief executive, Telefónica
O2 Ireland. “Another very important
factor was O2’s reputation in Ireland for
delivering superb customer service.”
DISNEY AND IRISH SCIENTISTS COLLABORATE
ON SPORTS VISUALISATION
Disney Research and CLARITY (Centre for Sensor Web Technologies), a Science
Foundation Ireland-funded centre, have launched a multi-year collaborative
research project in broadcasting and sports visualisation.
The research will explore ways in which use of multiple cameras, can enhance the highend
broadcast of major athletic events. The research could be applied widely in sports and
broadcasting and could yield new opportunities for ESPN, which is 80pc owned by The
Walt Disney Company.
“We are very excited to be working with CLARITY in this research effort,” said Dr Joe
Marks, vice-president of Disney Research. “Disney Research was created to determine
how the next generation of technologies will transform the businesses of The Walt
Disney Company. This project could lead to groundbreaking broadcast technologies
and opportunities for ESPN and The Walt Disney Company.”
16 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IN BRIEF »
JAPANESE PHARMA
COMPANY’S NEW
EUROPEAN HUB IN
TULLAMORE
Tokyo-headquartered pharmaceutical
company Freund Pharmatec has
opened its new European hub in Tullamore,
Co Offaly. The company’s
investment, which is supported by the
Government with the aid of IDA Ireland,
is set to create 25 new jobs.
The primary focus of the new jobs
created in Tullamore will be in new
drug-delivery technologies and clinical
trial manufacturing as well as a number
of positions in marketing/sales of
pharmaceutical equipment.
“The choice of Ireland highlights Ireland’s
attractiveness for the medical
technology sector and Freund is the
latest addition to a globally renowned
medical-technology cluster in the midlands
region,” said IDA Ireland CEO
Barry O’Leary.
PAYPAL CONTINUES
TO EXPAND ITS DUBLIN
CENTRE
Global online payments company
PayPal announced the creation of a
further 100 new jobs in Customer
Service and Operations at its European
Centre of Excellence in Blanchardstown,
Dublin earlier this year.
PayPal currently employs more than
1,100 people at the site, which manages
all direct customer contact for PayPal’s
businesses across Europe.
“It is a great testament to the team
here in Dublin that we are able to
announce the creation of further
jobs at PayPal,” said Uwe Heddendorp,
vice-president, PayPal European
Operations.
“PayPal’s investment represents a
key endorsement from one of the
world’s leading online companies,” said
Barry O’Leary, CEO, IDA Ireland. “This
expansion builds on Ireland’s reputation
as a global hub for the digital
media sector.”
Tánaiste Mary Coughlan TD; Sam
Samuel, executive director, Bell Labs
Ireland; and Dr Jeong Kim, president
of Bell Labs
ALCATEL-LUCENT
EXPANDS BELL LABS’
RESEARCH CENTRE IN
DUBLIN
Alcatel-Lucent announced the expansion
of its Bell Labs research centre in
Blanchardstown, Dublin earlier this
year, in a move that should create 70
new research jobs.
Since its establishment in 2005, Bell
Labs in Ireland has collaborated closely
with both academic and business communities
through an Open Innovation
programme in areas such as telecommunications,
supply chain and the environment.
The expansion will enable Bell
Labs in Ireland to support Bell Labs’
contribution to the Green Touch Initiative
– an open consortium of academic
and commercial research institutions
from around the world who are creating
the technologies needed to reinvent
communications networks and make
them 1,000 times more energy efficient
than they are today.
“We are looking forward to expanding
our research activities in Ireland
and generating innovative technologies
by taking advantage of the close relationships
we have developed with the
business and academic community
here,” said Dr Jeong Kim, president of
Bell Labs.
€56M INVESTMENT
IN COMPETENCE
CENTRES
The Department of Enterprise,
Trade and Innovation
provided a welcome
€56m boost to companies
determined to succeed and
grow in the smart economy,
with the announcement of
nine new competence centres
being delivered jointly
by Enterprise Ireland and
IDA Ireland.
Clusters of companies will
work together to overcome
common research challenges
and drive opportunities for
innovation, growth and jobs.
There will be 180 SMEs and
multinational companies
involved in nine universitybased
centres, five of which
are now established.
Those established cover
Bioenergy & Biorefining, IT
Innovation, Applied Nanotechnology,
Composite
Materials and Microelectronics.
Four more – Manufacturing
Productivity,
Energy Efficiency, Financial
Services and E-learning –
are at different stages of
completion.
“Companies like Intel, Xilinx,
Pfizer and Microsoft
are engaged in these competence
centres so they can
access the collective expertise
of Ireland’s top universities
and work with Irish
SMEs in partnership,” said
Barry O’Leary, CEO, IDA
Ireland.
“This sort of collaboration
is a hugely welcome development
amongst the FDI
community here that rely so
heavily on the generation of
new products and services
from research,” he added.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 17

» IINDUSTRY FOCUS
WINNING WAYS
THE LEADING EDGE
Dylan Collins, founder
DemonWare and Jolt Online
Gaming
‘I love to do things in areas that
other people won’t, don’t or can’t.
The companies we’ve been
involved with have often been
acquired by companies from a
slightly more traditional sector.
To me it’s always been a very
interesting challenge to look at
where some of these multi-billion
dollar companies are and where
they have to go next. Then I try
to position the companies that
I’m involved with in such a way
that they are going to be very
useful to those companies. It’s
given us that leading edge’
18 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IINDUSTRY FOCUS »
THIS SUMMER, RIOT GAMES,
THE CALIFORNIAN GAMES
DEVELOPER BEHIND THE POPU-
LAR LEAGUE OF LEGENDS VIDEO
GAME, ANNOUNCED PLANS TO
OPEN ITS EUROPEAN HEADQUAR-
TERS IN IRELAND. Already present
here are players ranging from Japan’s
Gala to US games giant EA (Electronic
Arts). Activision Blizzard, the firm behind
the popular World of Warcraft brand, is
creating 100 jobs in Cork. Also in Cork,
Big Fish Games, which distributes games
to one million people every day, is creating
100 jobs. Ireland is punching well
above its weight in this rapidly growing
sector.
Riot Games, headquartered in Los
Angeles, was established in 2006 and has
quickly become a leading global developer
and publisher of premium free-to-play
online video games targeted at hardcore
gamers. “We were attracted to Ireland by
its reputation as an emerging hub for online
game servicing,” said Brandon Beck,
CEO of Riot Games. “We’re aware of the
success that other gaming companies
have had in Ireland and of the highly creative,
talented workforce available here.”
It’s a reputation that must also be
attributed to the success of our indigenous
gaming industry here in Ireland.
Dubliner Dylan Collins, founder of
DemonWare and Jolt Online Gaming, is
just one of the young entrepreneurs
who has grasped the opportunity presented
by the rapidly growing online
games market.
game
Ireland’s got
Many of the world’s leading games companies
have chosen to locate in Ireland, thanks in no
small part to a thriving indigenous industry.
Ann O’Dea talks to some of the players
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 19

» IINDUSTRY FOCUS
‘A lot of people
don’t seem to
realise that
Ireland is now
one of the
major online
gaming hubs in
the world’
HOME-GROWN TALENT
“A lot of people don’t seem to realise that
Ireland is now one of the major online
gaming hubs in the world,” says Collins.
“We have companies such as Activision,
Jolt, Gala, Blizzard, Facebook, Pocket
Kings and Full Tilt here. We have the
two biggest games companies in the
world here right now.”
Collins, the 30-year-old entrepreneur
who sold his Dublin-based technology
company DemonWare to Activision for
US$15m and whose latest venture, Jolt
Online Gaming, has been acquired by
GameStop – the largest gaming retailer
on the planet – was earlier this year
awarded Ireland’s Net Visionary Award
for 2010.
He had built up Jolt Online to be one
of the most pioneering free-to-play
browser games firms in the world.
FarmVillain, an irreverent take on
Zynga’s FarmVille, co-created by Jolt
and new Dublin gaming firm Silly
Goose, has also emerged as one of Facebook’s
fastest-growing apps, with more
than half a million people using it.
DemonWare was started by Collins
together with some computer engineers
from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in
2003.
“We set up the company to provide a
piece of what’s called middleware technology
that the games companies and
the games studios can use when building
their games. So, rather than spending
time trying to reinvent the wheel
and build new technology each time,
they can take our off the shelf product,
slot it into their game and they can
focus on putting in better graphics, bigger
explosions, things like that.
“We went out and raised venture capital
at a time that was absolutely horrendous.
It was one of the several PC
armageddons that we’ve been through.
We managed to raise money, and at the
time it was considered quite a high-risk
start-up,” explains Collins.
“We spent a lot of time talking to the
games studios around the world who
were making X-Box and Playstation
games and we went to them and we said:
‘Look, here’s what we’re thinking in
terms of our technology, here’s what’s on
the table, what do you think? What
would you like?’ A lot of the early product
focus and indeed the company strategy
was based on what our future
customers were telling us. It may be an
obvious one, perhaps, in retrospect but
it was a really, really good lesson that we
learnt going forward for DemonWare
and for the other companies I’ve been
involved with since that.
“I think one of the great advantages
we had was that we were Irish and
until I went out selling and doing deals
internationally I really didn’t appreciate
how important that Irishness is
and how genuinely welcomed it is by
companies and countries around the
world. It’s one of those things that
makes you memorable.
Innovation in delivering to customers
was also key, says Collins.
“We were the first to introduce 24/7
customer support by playing time
zones, by having offices in different
parts of the world. No one had done that
before,” he says. “Again it seems like a
very, very obvious thing to do but people
weren’t thinking that way. From a
technological point of view too, we had
something that was newer, fresher, that
was more focused on the future of the
games industry as opposed to a slightly
more historic, traditional approach
which our competitors had.”
RISE OF SOCIAL GAMING
The massive global shift to social
media has also played its part, says
Collins. “The growth of Facebook has
led to the growth of social gaming; it
allows people to play together in a
much closer and more meaningful
sense than was possible before,” he
says. “The other big change is that,
whereas before gaming was very much
the domain of the console, the Xbox, the
Playstation, and you really had to be
quite a hardcore gamer to be into it, social
gaming, gaming on an internet
browser, gaming on Facebook or the
other social networks have totally
opened that market to the much more
casual gamer.
“So anyone who is on Facebook has
now probably played a game, they’ve
played one of our games, they’ve played
someone else’s games and that’s quite
new and quite different. No one really
predicted that was going to happen.
“Only 10 years ago the biggest game
in the world was something called
Everquest with just 250,000 users,”
says Collins. “About five years after
that World of Warcraft was launched,
and until about two years ago that was
considered the biggest game in the
world, with about 11 million subscribers.
“And at each point the world, the analysts
and all the industry insiders were
saying: ‘This is the peak of online gaming’.
Now you have FarmVille with 87
million online users – a phenomenon
that could only exist through Facebook.
So it just keeps getting bigger and bigger
as the market gets wider and wider.
Social media has changed everything,”
adds Collins.
DIGITAL CONFLUENCE
Dr Steve Collins, co-founder of Havok,
set up his company at a time when gaming
was barely on the radar in Ireland.
Widely viewed at home as one of our
gaming gurus, Collins has so far produced
one of the diamonds in the crown
of the Irish software industry. Havok, a
world leader in the development of realtime
physics and animation software
for the games and movie industries, was
the brainchild of Collins and co-founder
Hugh Reynolds, when they were studying
at TCD. That it was subsequently
acquired by Intel after only eight years
for US$110m is a true validation of that
effort.
Although Collins returned to work as
a lecturer in the School of Computer
20 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IINDUSTRY FOCUS »
WINNING WAYS
DIGITAL REVOLUTION »
Dr Steve Collins,
founder, Havok
‘I think it’s the confluence of art,
technology and science that
creates the digital content
revolution, and we’re extremely well
placed to take advantage of that.
We’ve got some great
companies in Ireland, like Havok,
which is really innovating in this
space. In Trinity College Dublin, Dr
Anil Kokaram got the Oscar a
couple of years ago for his work on
virtual camera tracking and his
technology was used in movies like
Titanic. And more recently we have
the great success of the Avatar
movie with a graduate from
Ballyfermot College here in Dublin
receiving both an Emmy and an
Oscar. This shows that we’re doing
the right things here in Ireland’
Science and Statistics at TCD at 2005,
and started the MSc in Interactive
Entertainment Technology course there
in 2007, he’s now back in entrepreneurial
mode. Collins has teamed up with
Reynolds again to form another gaming
venture, this time by the name of
New Game Technologies, “to develop
solutions for next generation game
production”.
Collins says that they approached the
Havok project in 1999 with a commercial
perspective in mind, and not just as
an academic end to obtain a PhD. “We
did it with a view to creating a company
and used available Enterprise Ireland
funds and the university as an incubator.”
He’s repeating this approach with
New Game.
Building a campus company that went
on to enjoy global success, ultimately
culminating in an impressive takeover,
was, Collins admits, an achievement of
which he was “immensely proud”. Significant
business-development wins
and lucrative OEM deals with companies
such as Adobe, Macromedia and
Autodesk carried Havok on to attract
further rounds of funding from Royal
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 21

» IINDUSTRY FOCUS
WINNING WAYS
REMOVING
BARRIERS
Nicolas Pajot, COO, Gala
Networks Europe
‘The micro-payment model
for online games, or so
called “free to play”, is a
very simple business model:
users can access and play
the game for free, and the
publisher offers additional
services which are
monetised usually via micro
transaction. Some (actually
most) users may spend
nothing at all and still enjoy
the game very much, while
others may spend one or two
euro per month. An analogy
would be the all-you-can-eat
dinner buffet (subscription
model) versus the à la carte
menu. It’s strength is that it
removes all financial entry
barriers’
Bank of Scotland and Trinity Venture
Capital in 2003, and again in 2005. It was
only a matter of time before a company
like Intel showed an interest.
“By 2005, investors had got to the point
where they wanted to see the exit, which
was entirely appropriate given the timelines.
Most venture capitalists have a fiveto
seven-year window on when they want
out, and Havok was hitting this stage by
2007.”
Collins was recently invited by the Government
to be a part of the Innovation
Taskforce, and he has great belief in Irish
people’s natural propensity to innovate.
“I think Ireland and the people of Ireland
have a sort of a genetic disposition
to just finding cute ways of doing things
better,” he says. “That’s something that
stands to our credit and something that
works really well in business.
“Historically, we’re well known for finding
creative ways and creative solutions to
problems, to bucking the trend, and I think
that’s exactly what innovation is about in
business, and in all aspects of life.”
One of the really big opportunities for
Ireland is digital content of every form,
says Collins. “I think it’s the confluence of
art, technology and science that creates
the digital-content revolution, and we’re
extremely well placed to take advantage of
that. It’s an area that we’ve already had
quite a significant success within. My own
previous company Havok won an Emmy
award for providing special effects for
movies and for games. In TCD, Dr Anil
Kokaram got the Oscar a couple of years
ago for his work on virtual camera tracking
- his technology was used in movies
like Titanic.
“More recently we have had the great
success of the Avatar movie with a graduate
from Ballyfermot College here in
Dublin receiving both an Emmy and an
Oscar for his work on the movie!
“This shows that we’re doing the right
things here in Ireland. We have the right
sort of people and we have the right sort
of education system to create that lovely
confluence.”
It’s not just about companies like
Havok who have demonstrated great success
in this space, he says. “Now we’ve got
other emerging companies that have set
up, we’ve got international companies
22 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

IINDUSTRY FOCUS »
that are looking at Ireland as a place to do
business in the casual gaming space, and
that’s a huge growth market right now.
“The social-gaming space is growing up
to 20pc per year now, it’s just meteoric and
it’s the area that the entire gaming industry
is trying to get into. I recently saw a
study that said the gaming industry in 2011
is going to be valued at approximately
US$60bn. When we set up Havok back in
1999 the gaming industry was estimated to
be about US$18/19bn. That’s a multiple of
three in that space of time. That’s
extraordinary.
“Casual gaming is going to define the
future of how people interact and are
entertained by online content, and that’s
a really exciting place for us to be,” concludes
Collins.
BIG IN JAPAN
Japanese gaming firm Gala Networks,
maker of the popular gPotato franchise,
employs some 100 people in Dublin, with
plans to add another 50 positions. Gala
established its European headquarters,
Gala Networks Europe (GNE) in Dublin,
in 2006, with a mandate for localisation,
marketing, customer support and revenue
collection, along with a global mandate
for licensing, publishing and hosting.
Earlier this year Hyun Hur, CEO of
GNE, announced that there would be further
expansion for the Dublin operation.
“As part of GNE’s European expansion, a
number of new mandates will be added,”
he explained. “This will include expansion
into new markets, the introduction of three
new game title releases and new language
versions and the licensing of games from
third-party game-development companies.”
He said the Irish operation provided
Gala with the skilled, multilingual workforce
necessary to increase that mandate.
Nicolas Pajot is chief operating officer
at GNE. “When Gala Networks Europe
was founded back in late 2006, the Gala
Group was already publishing online
games in Japan, where it is headquartered,
in Korea and the USA, but there
were no companies offering a compelling
offer to European players.
“We were among the very first companies
to offer massively multiplayer games
(MMORPG) localised in European languages
and relying on a micro-payment
business model instead of the traditional
subscription model,” he says.
The move to Dublin has allowed Gala to
capture a whole new market. “Back in
2006, Gala Networks Europe was operating
one game in German only. Nearly four
years later we publish eight titles in six languages
on our gPotato game portal and the
Dublin operation has nearly 100 talented
individuals from 15 different nationalities.
“Being the first or among the very first
to launch such products in German,
French, Polish, Turkish and Italian was
definitely a key success driver,” he says.
“Our talented and experienced people
here, and high-quality products, has positioned
Gala at the forefront of this booming
industry in Europe.”
MICRO-PAYMENT MODEL
The micro-payment model is one that has
been exploited by Dylan Collins’ Jolt Online
Gaming as well as Gala.
Pajot explains more about the model.
“The micro-payment model for online
games, or so called ‘free to play’, is a very
simple business model: users can access
and play the game for free, and the publisher
offers additional services which are
monetised, usually via micro-transaction.
“For instance, you can buy a nice fashion
costume for your character or items
which will save you time in the game.
Some (actually most) users may spend
nothing at all and still enjoy the game very
much, while others may spend one or two
euro per month. An analogy would be the
all-you-can-eat dinner buffet (subscription
model) versus the à la carte menu.
“The strength of the model is that it removes
all financial entry barriers. In the
previous era, especially with physical distribution,
you had to set a single price for
a game, say €40, and eventually a monthly
subscription on top, say €12. The free-toplay
model allow users to decide how
much they will spend on the product and
with enough experience, publishers of
these games can generate higher revenue.
“At Gala we believe the one-size-fits all
pricing is dying, not only for the games
industry but also for other industries,
says Pajot.
Like Collins, Pajot says social media has
been a major contributing factor in the
explosion of online gaming. “Firstly, social
‘We have the
right sort of
ecosystem
to create
that lovely
confluence of
technology
and creativity
and art’
games have made gaming more acceptable
and a more significant part of the rich
entertainment options available to today’s
consumers,” he says. “Then, the accessibility
and virality of these media has made it
easier for publishers to get their messages
across to consumers who will appreciate
their brands.”
He believes the future for the online
gaming industry is huge. “Definitely! However,
as well as growing, the market is
evolving and fragmenting as customers
look for new and different experiences
and value from gaming. Competition is
increasing across the spectrum, with
many publisher-developer partnerships
bringing new content that’s tried-andtested,
unique and innovative – and
everything in between.
“It is the publishers offering a variety
of different experiences to gamers with
different tastes and backgrounds that will
be the most successful.”
And the future for GNE? “More exciting
games to come and expansion of current
titles into new languages and more,”
says Pajot. “We’ve just launched our eighth
game, Terra Militaris, an online strategy
game, and early next year we’ll launch an
exciting, culturally authentic martial arts
game.” Watch this space.
With enthusiastic young leaders like
those we spoke to in the sector, the games
industry in Ireland looks set to continue
and grow as one of Ireland’s true success
stories.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 23

» COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Stéphane Garelli,
head of the World
Competitiveness
Centre at IMD
24 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE »
Widely considered a
world authority on
competitiveness, we
caught up with
Stéphane Garelli
of the World
Competitiveness
Centre at IMD in
Lausanne to get his
views on today’s
global landscape. He
spoke to Ann O’Dea
F
‘We all entered the
recession almost
at the same time
The first ever director-general because it was of the World Trade
Organisationtriggered in the Nineties, by the Irishman Peter
Sutherland stillfinancial has a truly crisis, global mindset. He tells
Ann O’Dea that but world countries prosperity depends on our
continuing down
around
the road
the
of
world
open trade and open
borders
are emerging with
very different
economies’
ORMERLY MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD ECO-
NOMIC FORUM AND DIRECTOR OF THE DAVOS ANNUAL
MEETINGS, STÉPHANE GARELLI TODAY HEADS UP
THE WORLD COMPETITIVENESS CENTRE AT IMD
(INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT) IN
LAUSANNE. Having pioneered research in the field of competitiveness
for over 25 years, we were keen to get his thoughts
on the new global playing field today.
When we speak in early September, I begin by asking Garelli
how the world looks today, post-financial crisis.
“Well, there have been some very fundamental changes,” he
says. “The first would be that we went into the recession together
but we are coming out of the recession totally separately, with
imbalances in the world that are quite significant.
“We all entered the recession almost at the same time because
it was triggered by the financial crisis, but what we are seeing
now is that countries around the world are emerging with very
different economies. We have some countries in Europe that
are still struggling with economic recovery, especially the south
of Europe and Ireland, and some in Europe doing much better
like Germany and France. The US too is improving, but it’s not
outstanding.
“Then we have the other parts of the world – basically Asia
and some of the emerging nations like Brazil – which are actually
doing pretty well. We are entering into a world which is far
more imbalanced and which is quite different to what we have
seen before. I think for me it is the first lesson of the crisis: the
world is no longer in sync.”
THE AUSTERITY DEBATE
Post-crash, the big debate now is whether we should continue
to help our economies recover or should we go into austerity
mode, says Garelli who points to the fact that he is now in his
fifth recession – “despite my young age”, he laughs.
Ireland has taken the austerity route, and this may be no bad
thing, he suggests. “If you look back, what is quite extraordinary
is that these recessions are happening usually within nine and
10-year intervals. If this trend continues, then the next big one
might be 2018 or 2020, and the big question for most countries
today is: ‘Will we have the ammunition to deal with the next
one? Do we have any financial reserves anymore? Do we have
the capacity to confront this cycle?’”
This, states Garelli, is why we see institutions like the European
Central Bank saying that some level of austerity is inescapable.
According to Garelli, the other big change after this crisis is
that the money is no longer held where it used to be. “Before,
we had what I call the ‘boomerang effect’, which meant that in
the US and in Europe we could have budget deficits, we could
have increasing debt, and the money used to always come back
New world order
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 25

» COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
to Europe or to the US through investment in real estate, in government
bonds, etc.
“What we are seeing today is that the money is leaving Europe
and the US but this time it’s not coming back. It’s staying in the
emerging nations; it’s staying in China, in the Gulf countries, in
Brazil and in Russia, and they are using the money to develop
their own economies. The money is piling up outside Europe and
the US, and we need this money to refinance our debt – but it’s
not coming back.
“The big revolution we are going to see during the next few
years is going to be, for the first time in economic history, the
emergence of a south/south block, which means the emerging
nations. Draw a line diagonally in the world – you would have
Latin America, the Gulf nations, Asia, a bit of Russia and those
south of this line for the first time have everything. They have
money, they have markets, they have technology, they have the
rising middle class and, very importantly, they have emerging
global brands. I think that this is going to be a major revolution for
us. The power is going elsewhere because the power is always
where the money is.”
BEST BEHAVIOUR
So what now for the traditional western economies of Europe
and the US? “Well, in the past it was very easy, we used to print
money because we knew that the money would return, as there
was no alternative for those emerging nations but to spend the
money in Europe or the US, to buy our products, to buy our land
or buy government bonds. This was the name of the game.
“Now we have to be attractive for those nations in terms of
the way we behave. If we look at who is holding our debt – and
this is I think something which is very important today – we see
that 50pc of the government debt of the US is owned by foreigners.
If you look at Portugal and Greece and Spain, more
than 90pc of the debt is owned by foreigners, it’s two thirds for
Europe overall, it’s 57pc for Germany.
“There comes a stage where the rest of the world starts to tell
you, your creditors start to tell you: ‘Now if you want me still to
give you money I would like to see if you can behave a bit better
than in the past’.
“This is going to have an enormous impact because it means
we are more and more dependent on those emerging nations,
not only to finance our economy but also to sell our goods.”
Garelli points to the UK, where he says the new coalition government
seems very aware of this problem. “They have very ambitious
plans, they plan to get below 3pc debt by 2016, which is
very ambitious indeed. But they are correct because if you don’t
do that you find yourself in a situation where, when the next big
recession comes along, you have no ammunition to deal with it.”
IMPORTANCE OF MANUFACTURING
Garelli believes that major changes are afoot. “There is no secret;
we have been living beyond our means for many years, we have
been printing money for many years, we have been borrowing
money. At the end of the day, the system is breaking down simply
because you have these emerging markets now who are
saying: ‘Actually, we don’t need you so much, we can do things
by ourselves’.”
We are going to see a resurgence of re-industrialisation, he
continues, and this is something of which Ireland must be very
conscious. “Somehow you have to manufacture, to have some
domestic manufacturing capabilities, whether it’s large enterprise
or whether it’s small or medium-sized enterprise. You have
to do things by yourself and you have to have the capability in
terms of competitiveness. You need to have local technology,
home-grown technology, home-grown companies which then
become international.
“You cannot run an economy just on finance and on real estate
and I think this is what the UK is realising. You have to go back
to the basics, and if you’re doing business with the emerging
economies they are going to ask ‘by the way what are you making?’
“Take the UK. I mean, it’s very difficult today to give the name
of a British firm which is producing something known for its
Britishness. The car companies are all gone, the Cadburys are
all gone. With the exception of pharmaceuticals, most of the
British industry is gone.”
“You cannot build an economy on only finance and real estate.
Somehow manufacturing will be back as a priority for
competitiveness,” Garelli insists.
IRELAND’S RE-INDUSTRIALISATION
And this is as true for a small economy like Ireland as anywhere
else. “In Switzerland, we have just twice your population,” he
says. “We are very small, but the economy is growing, we have
a budget surplus, we are exporting, we have low unemployment.
It’s amazing really.
“I think where you see the difference is that we have a very
strong layer here of medium-sized enterprise, which have technologies
developed here inside the country and which are export-orientated.
When you are a small nation like Ireland or
Switzerland, you only have to take a very small part of a huge
market like China, India or Brazil and it has a huge impact at
home.
“If I look at competitiveness, almost every nation in the world,
rich or poor, has some large companies at the top which are wellknown
and competitive, but it’s not every nation which has a
competitive layer of small or medium-sized enterprises. That’s
where you make the difference.”
Garelli maintains Germany is a great example of this. “If you
look at Germany, the real secret of Germany is those mediumsized
enterprises it has. They’re all export-oriented, many of
them are family-owned, there are a lot of entrepreneurs and
that’s where they make the difference – it’s not only about Mercedes
and Bayer, it’s those other smaller companies as well.”
NEW MODEL IRELAND
Garelli concedes that in Ireland major manufacturing is essentially
going to come through foreign investment, but he says the
medium-sized companies will also be the key to prosperity, and
he is confident that we are well-placed to grasp that opportunity.
“The innovativeness of the Irish people means that you have a
lot of entrepreneurs,” he says. “That entrepreneurial spirit is
26 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE »
there, and I think that the government should put strong industrial
policy in place to sustain the development of these enterprises,
because this is very doable. And in the world of today a
company can become global without being necessarily gigantic.”
Garelli believes Ireland may have been somewhat a victim of
its own success with its strong place in Europe and as an attractive
location for foreign direct investment. Sometimes success
can come from a level of adversity, he says – when Switzerland
voted to remain outside the European Union in 1992, it focused
the country on diversifying. “I think it is one of the reasons we
are successful today, that our enterprises started to look outside
Europe, to Asia, Latin America. People here said: ‘Well
maybe if Europe is not 100pc our future then we should look
elsewhere’.
“Perhaps the good thing about this economic crisis is that the
Irish Government will realise more that you have to walk on two
legs – one which is direct investment but the other the development
of your own home-grown industries, competences,
NEW AFRICA
When it comes to rising economies, Garelli says it is not just
about the Asias or the Brazils. “The next big thing which is
really interesting for us, and which is just at the beginning, is
Africa. I think Africa has the potential to do something quite
extraordinary in the coming years.
“We are starting to see some home-grown companies in
Africa, and not only in South Africa but in the rest of Africa. We
are starting to see investment going back to Africa. Today there
is about $100bn of foreign investment in Africa, and this compares
with $120bn in India. Chinese companies are all over the
place of course – there are 700 Chinese companies operating in
Africa today – but Africa is growing. I mean last year it grew by
4.9pc, in a period of recession!”
This presents extensive opportunities for small economies like
Ireland, among others, according to Garelli. “It’s a big market,
900 million people, it’s a continent that is developing quickly,
and it’s a continent where you will need new business models.
‘What we are seeing today is that the
money is leaving Europe and the US
but this time it’s not coming back. It’s
staying in the emerging nations’
technologies, knowledge. And I think Ireland has everything it
needs to do that. You have some of the best universities in the
world, you are a very competent people and you have that entrepreneurial
spirit.”
The ecosystem of innovation that has built up through the
presence of the big tech companies in Ireland will here be an
advantage too, Garelli continues. “The big advantage of foreign
direct investment, especially the big technology players like the
ones you have, is that they are spreading knowledge to the local
suppliers.
“The big trap would be to remain just as a supplier. Remember,
the Chinese were assembling for foreign companies like the
cell phone industry, the toy industry etc, and then one day the
Chinese companies decided that actually they could make it
themselves and with their own brands.”
The shift in mindset is needed here in Ireland too, he adds,
and the big advantage of having these smaller companies is that
they diversify the economy. “That means that when the next crisis
occurs you are not hit so hard because one sector brings
everything down. Everybody talks about the banking industry in
Switzerland, but when you look at it we have leaders everywhere
except the car industry. I have the feeling that that could be one
of the blueprints for Ireland’s development.”
“You need a model for a people that is not yet middle class,
but is no longer so poor, a people that is starting to enter the
world economy. They need new products, which is why you see
the success of things like microfinance, mobile money - where
people pay with their mobile phone – or very cheap cars like
those that Tata is making for something like $2,500.
“Just look at Ireland’s Denis O’Brien [Digicel]. He has done
something remarkable because he has built his business model
on smaller, so-called poorer nations like Fiji, like Haiti, and he’s
been very successful. It’s a great example because many of these
smaller countries may prefer to deal with a smaller nation as a
partner. He has become a player in a market where normally
only the very big players succeed.
“The emerging world is full of these smaller opportunities
that the big players may not see as a priority,” says Garelli.
“There’s plenty to be done by the entrepreneurs we have here
in smaller nations like Ireland and Switzerland. There’s a lot
of money out there, and even grasping a relatively small part
of a big market can have a huge impact on your domestic
economy.”
The global landscape has changed, and if the money has
moved to the emerging economies, the economies that prosper,
will surely be those that follow the money.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 27

» THE IRISH MIND
The first ever director-general of the World Trade
Organisation in the Nineties, Irishman Peter Sutherland
still has a truly global mindset. He tells Ann O’Dea that
world prosperity depends on our continuing down the
road of open trade and open borders
A global view
PETER SUTHERLAND NEEDS LITTLE INTRODUC-
TION. Currently chairman of Goldman Sachs International,
the EMEA arm of the investment giant, and first
ever director-general of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), his CV also includes stints as Attorney General
to the Irish Government, and European Commissioner,
among many other distinctions. He is a truly global figure
and an unapologetic advocate for globalisation, despite the
bad press it has received in light of the financial crisis.
“Contrary to many of the prophets of gloom and doom,
and left-wing ideologies, the reality is that globalisation has
worked massively to the advantage of the disadvantaged,”
he says, when we meet in London in September. “It has
brought one and a half billion people out of abject poverty.”
Of course he is quick to concede that some parts of the
world have not been so positively affected by globalisation,
sub-Saharan Africa being a case in point. “This is not so
much that globalisation has damaged sub-Saharan Africa.
It has simply passed it by. Sub-Saharan Africa has been
unable to participate because it has neither the human nor
the physical infrastructure to allow it to do so fully. But in
the context of opening markets, of opening opportunities,
of opening of borders to people, globalisation is something
which is both economically effective and morally correct.”
28 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

THE IRISH MIND »
‘In the context of
opening markets,
of opening
opportunities, of
opening of borders to
people, globalisation
is something which
is both effective
economically and
morally correct’
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 29

» THE IRISH MIND
BENEFITS OF GLOBALISATION
As former director-general of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), open trade and open borders is something about which
Sutherland remains passionate, and he is a long-time critic of
any form of national protectionism. He expresses frustration
with the failure to conclude the Doha round of talks to progress
global trade agreements which, he says, is indicative of some
residual difficulties politically with free trade. However, overall
he is pleased that the fears of growing levels of protectionism
he had previously articulated do not seem to have been realised.
“I think that the resilience of the global system, which is so
obviously now inter-dependent, has been strong,” he says.
“Although I’ve been very disappointed with the failure to conclude
the Doha. I think that the United States and India were the
primary blockages for the failure of the last real attempt to conclude
the Doha round. It’s not about ascribing blame, but I don’t
think Europe was responsible – Europe is usually blamed for
everything, particularly in regard to the Common Agriculture Policy
(CAP).”
Overall though, he believes there has not been extensive evidence
of protectionism, with some exceptions. “I mean Mr Putin’s
recent announcement of increasing tariffs in respect of the
import of motor vehicles is itself a slap in the face to the negotiations
for membership of the WTO. And Russia’s not the only
country in the world doing this.”
So where to now after the failure of the Doha round? “I still
think that we have to conclude it, and I think that there is
enough on the table already agreed to allow that to happen. We
just have to find a new spur to push it in over the line. We’ve
been here before. When I took over as secretary-general of the
GATT (General Agreement on Tarriffs and Trade) in the
Nineties, there’d been eight years of procrastination in the
Uruguay round but it was very close to being concluded, thanks
to much hard work by my predecessor, Arthur Dunkel.
“I think we’re in a somewhat similar situation today. Pascal
Lamy is very close to concluding it. Now we need a new political
dynamic and leadership from some of the world’s leaders, particularly
the United States. Their trade figures are so bad that one
can understand a certain level of protectionism, but the US has
always had the capacity to transform itself when it has to in the
face of challenges, and I’ve no doubt it will do so again.”
OPEN BORDERS
Sutherland today spends a great deal of his time on his role as
special representative for the secretary-general of the UN on
Migration and Development, and the opening of borders to people
is a key element of his philosophy on globalisation. With countries
like the UK talking about caps on immigration, I ask him is
there a danger of countries tightening borders in difficult times.
“What is increasingly apparent is that the linkage between
migration and development isn’t merely about the development
of the countries of origin who get economic advantage; it is also
part of the development paradigm for countries of destination.
“It’s quite clear that the developing debate in Germany for
example about migrants, having regard to the demographic
challenges that they are facing, is an essential element in this,”
he says.
“The fact is that
growth is in significant
measure related to
growth in population, and
if you have a declining
population and an increasingly
elderly population,
then your growth
prospects are more limited.
It’s one area where a
country like Ireland still
has an advantage.
“I think that immigration
is a challenge to the
sense of one’s nationality,”
continues Sutherland.
“We tend to believe our
nationality is related
solely to where we were
born, and where our people
come from. But we’re
going to have to broaden
that definition and bring
people into a sense of
being Irish who are not
and do not look Irish. We
have to do that.”
“All over the world the
same thing is happening.
Even in the United States
the white post-European
nationality of Americans
is no longer real. You’ve
got 12 or 13 million legal
immigrants whose provenance
is Latin America
there, who don’t even speak the same language. We all have to
learn to grapple with that, yet it’s constantly pushed under the
carpet. People have to recognise that we should live in a more
open world, not a more closed world.”
GLOBAL OUTLOOK
When Sutherland last spoke to Irish Director in Spring 2009, the
world was still gripped in the midst of the financial crisis. When
we meet in September 2010, I’m keen to get his thoughts on where
the world is now.
“We’re at an interesting point,” he begins. “I think global growth
at the moment is tracking at 4 to 4.5pc quarter-on-quarter annualised
[measured on the purchasing power weighted basis]. This
is something of a slowdown from the figures reached in April
when it was consistent with a 6 to 6.5pc growth, but it remains
above the pre-recession trend rate of 4pc. It’s fragile but it’s not
quite as negative as people think.
“Of course, when you discuss growth today in the world you
really talk about two entirely differentiated phenomena,” he says.
“Asia is still powering ahead, slightly less than previously, but
both India and China are showing remarkable resilience. They
30 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

THE IRISH MIND »
‘I think that the
resilience of the
global system,
which is so
obviously now
inter-dependent,
has been strong’
become truly manifested by the budgets that are coming, but they
have given very clear signals of their intention, and they also have
a reform agenda which I think is interesting.”
find it difficult to comprehend the negativism that is so evident
in Europe and the United States.
“Germany’s growth figures have also been very good in
Europe,” he continues. “And I think that Britain, having gone
through a very difficult financial crisis and still facing residual difficulties
in terms of budgetary policy, has a less constantly negative
public discourse than is taking place in Ireland.”
The United States remains the worry, says Sutherland. “I
think that there are difficulties there which haven’t gone away,
and I don’t have a sense of a strong underlying growth there.
So all in all you would say that the world is not in a very strong
position. But there is not, I think, evidence to show a likelihood
of a double dip – although one would have to concede that risk
remains.”
These days Sutherland spends much of his time in London
and he is reasonably impressed with the performance of the new
coalition government so far, which seems determined to tackle
the UK’s public finances. “I think they’re giving a more positive
impression, and I think that they have been performing well
since they got into government. They seem to be absolutely
determined to tackle the deficit,” he says. “Of course that will only
HOME FRONT
Closer to home, Sutherland is cautiously approving of how Ireland
has tackled its economic crisis to date. “I think we moved
rapidly to address the crisis when it became absolutely apparent,”
he says. “One can argue about how much earlier we might
have moved. But when we did move we moved with a determination,
and that gave a very positive impression to the external
world. It moved us out of the category A of eurozone economies
in difficulty.
“This has become somewhat frayed because of the constant
drip-feed of bad information about our banks,” he warns. “The
need now is to reinforce confidence – as it should be possible to do
– rather than to constantly undermine it. The latter is something
which we’re pretty good at doing in terms of public discourse in
Ireland.”
Finally, Sutherland says it is time for the stakeholders in this
country to pull together, and to leave the negative discourse
behind. “Ireland should have a huge advantage here in having a
small society where the players should be able to relate to each
other in a constructive way, in a way which is not corrupting but
which is about gathering the best ideas for going forward.”
We haven’t been a great economic success as a country. We’ve
only had a brief moment in the sunshine, but that brief moment
should have told us that we can do it if we want to, it’s a matter of
will. We’ve got young Irish people, and not-so-young Irish people,
all over the world who have been enormously successful. There’s
nothing wrong with what we are producing as people. It is time to
stop badmouthing each other and ourselves.”
This is an edited version of an interview that first appeared in Irish
Director magazine, Autumn 2010.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 31

» RESEARCH
‘Irish people, for
example, have escaped
what Richard Kearney
calls the Greco-Roman
tradition, that sort of
linear thinking’
Innov
32 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

RESEARCH »
A tendency toward right-brained
thinking, tolerance for ambiguity,
and a strong people-focused
approach – these are just some of
the characteristics of the Irish
manager, according to recent
research from the Irish Management
Institute. Grainne Rothery spoke to
one of the authors,
Andrew McLaughlin
WHILE WE MAY HAVE LONG SUSPECTED THAT THE
IRISH THINK AND DO THINGS A BIT DIFFERENTLY,
RECENT RESEARCH FROM THE IRISH MANAGEMENT
INSTITUTE (IMI) SEEMS TO CONFIRM THAT THIS IS
INDEED THE CASE. Published earlier this year, Innovation
and the Irish Manager also finds that those differences, specifically
the fact that the Irish mindset has many of the characteristics
traditionally associated with innovation, put this country
in a very strong position to compete internationally.
A key finding of the research was the that the Irish have a clear
tendency for right-brained thinking, which includes characteristics
such as intuition, the ability to make seemingly unrelated connections,
and tolerance of ambiguity. This cognitive style, says the
IMI’s Andrew McLaughlin, who led the research, may well be a
differentiating factor in a concept-dominated innovation age.
The research focuses on how the Irish are different to the
rest of the world and, within that, how the entrepreneurial
mindset is different to that of the executive. In conducting his
study, McLaughlin managed to persuade 117 people who had
undertaken various programmes in the IMI to engage in what
he describes as “a fairly large-scale analysis of their personality”
through a rigorous series of psychometric tests and other
instruments.
Split fairly evenly between executives and entrepreneurs,
the latter were chosen on the basis of having started their own
companies, with several having set up a number of different
enterprises.
While the research clearly has a strong analytical aspect to it
through the psychometric tests, McLaughlin also tried to take a
holistic view of his subject. For example, he examined a range of
other influences that might impact on entrepreneurialism, such
as Irish history and culture. “Irish people, for example, have
escaped what Richard Kearney calls the Greco-Roman tradition,
that sort of linear thinking,” he says. “Kearney makes a very
compelling argument that because of that the Celtic mind would
historically have evolved with a more right-brained approach.”
McLaughlin also considered the Irish mind in terms of artists
like Samuel Beckett, James Joyce and Louis le Brocquy.
ative
by nature
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 33

» RESEARCH
‘The particular
type of ambiguity
that I found was
handled well by
the entrepreneurs
in my study was
insolubility –
the problems
that just didn’t
seem to have
a solution’
“I was looking at using modern
psychological scientific
instrumentation, but also
examining this in a very holistic
way, and asking what is our
historical, cultural context
and how could all of those
things result in a thinking
style that would be more
wholegrained and more conceptual,”
he explains.
HIGH CONCEPT, HIGH
TOUCH
“Author Daniel Pink said that
the successful people – and I
guess countries – in the future
would be those who had what
he called high concept, high
touch,” says McLaughlin.
“High concept people are
those who think in original or
innovative ways, or maybe
connect things up in different
ways – which is incidentally Steve Jobs’ definition of innovation.”
“Some of the high concept characteristics identified in the
sample include being right-brained, holistic, intuitive, putting
things together in unusual ways and having a high tolerance
for ambiguity,” McLaughlin continues.
“The particular type of ambiguity that I found was handled
well by the entrepreneurs in my study was insolubility – the
problems that just didn’t seem to have a solution. They were
comfortable with that type of ambiguity, which is perfect for an
entrepreneur. They look at a world that doesn’t seem to have
any answers and say ‘I can do something about this. I’ll find a
way’.”
The study also found that Irish entrepreneurs favour originality
over tradition and find personal inspiration through
innovation. They prefer to think freely and openly about things,
without restrictions or barriers. They are more likely to be
individualistic and self-reliant when compared to their international
peers.
Overall, the Irish sample was characterised by a rapid decision
style and a reliance on speeded up rationality or intuition,
traits that are obviously particularly useful for managers. A
clear preference for an intuitive approach was found in both the
entrepreneurs and the executives.
The study noted too that Irish entrepreneurs are less concerned
than the executives with maintaining harmony, and less
likely to seek advice in decision-making. In addition, Irish
entrepreneurs were found to be more comfortable with competition
and to prefer dominance in social interactions.
All of the sample displayed a clear preference for intuition.
“One of my findings is that Irish people are more intuitive than
other populations studied and that comes from the historical,
cultural background,” says McLaughlin. “We tend to be quite
individualistic, which is in accordance with other cultural surveys
that have been done. Individualistic people tend to be better
entrepreneurs. The most individualistic people in the world
are Israelis, second are Americans, and they are two of the top
entrepreneurial nations.”
That said, the executives in the study demonstrated a more
collectivist orientation, appropriate to their roles. “Collectivist
people are better at working together in an organisational setting
to implement things,” adds McLaughlin.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
While Irish entrepreneurs and executives both scored highly in
the high concept stakes, McLaughlin says they also tend to be
very high touch, which Pink also rates as vital for success. “The
psychometric instruments that I used consistently showed the
whole population of executives, but especially the entrepreneurs,
as having a high emphasis on people and connection with
people.
“So you’ve got the two things going on there: you’ve got the
ability to think in a different way; and also the ability to create
networks of trusting relationships and putting a high value on
that.”
That the entrepreneurs demonstrated such a high touch tendency
was somewhat surprising to McLaughlin. “A lot of my
experience around entrepreneurs is that they had this reputation
for having a huge drive and determination, which also
comes through in the research, that bias for action and getting
things done, but that was often seen anecdotally to be at the cost
of relationships. In fact, I found that a high priority – just in
terms of their psychological orientation – seemed to be towards
networking and connection.”
He adds that while the Irish in general have tended to have a
reputation in multinational corporations and multiracial settings
as being people who create very strong relationships and
prioritise the creation of those, it has generally been assumed
that entrepreneurs lacked this inclination. “To my surprise they
did seem to have that as well. That seemed a signature strength
to me.”
The ability to network successfully is one of the characteristics
that could stand the Irish economy in good stead going
forward, according to McLaughlin. In the research he quotes
Professor Ronald Burt, a leading expert on networking, who
talks about the phenomenal earning ability and success of people
who network well in his book Brokerage and Closure.
“There’s good scientific evidence that good networking skills
result in positive economic, commercial outcomes,” explains
McLaughlin. “Being people-orientated has scientific backing
as a really good approach to being successful commercially.
“The rest of the findings pretty much lined up with what I
expected and with the literature as regards entrepreneurs,” he
says. “The entrepreneurs continually shaded the executive population
in the directions in which you’d expect them to.”
UNDERSTANDING THE OUTCOMES
McLaughlin maintains that it’s vital to understand both the Irish
mindset in general and the particular characteristics of the Irish
entrepreneur to ensure that the right structures can be put in
place to support them in the future. He points out that entrepreneurs
may have a low tolerance for authority or a low need
to be controlled. “As a result of that, they could be people who
would be rejected very easily, either by organisations because
they’re a maverick, or in a school system where they’re just not
34 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

RESEARCH »
toeing the line,” he says.
So identifying and understanding potential entrepreneurs
from a very young age is vital. “I believe this must start early
rather than later as people can be well discouraged by the time
they get to their Leaving Cert,” he advises. “If career guidance
people knew about the type of personalities, then rather than
saying ‘you’re an unusual character or a bit of a maverick’, they
would say ‘do you realise you have some of the primary capabilities
or competencies of an entrepreneur?’. That gives somebody
pride in their difference.
“Inside organisations entrepreneurs are very likely to be
rejected because they’re people who are full of ideas but maybe
have more of an issue with implementation and completion,” he
continues. “Organisations could realise that their true strength
lies in the conceptualisation of things, so maybe other members
of the team could come in to support them.”
It’s also important at Government support level, he says.
“When people are being assessed for venture capital, I think
understanding the nature of the character you have in front of
you would be quite useful. Otherwise you could stereotype
them or misunderstand them. Often our primary mistake is
that we try to calibrate entrepreneurs in relation to our own
orientation.
“At the end of the day, our economy depends on innovation,”
says McLaughlin. “That’s absolutely and completely obvious and
critical at the moment. If we look at the sheer muscle power and
even the analytical power of the competitor economies – China,
India and other Eastern European competitors – where can we
differentiate ourselves?
“Really, it’s about thinking differently. Everybody knows that
a Japanese person is different to a German who’s different to an
Irish person. But the question is, what is the difference and how
do you support, nourish, understand the essence of what it is to
be Irish?”
As we enter into a into a more conceptual age where the ability
to think differently is key, this nature of the Irish entrepreneur
or manager may offer us a very strong selling point indeed,
concludes McLaughlin.
‘Being peopleorientated
has
scientific backing
as a really good
approach to
being successful
commercially’
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 35

» SMART IRELAND
Leaders’
ONE THING THAT STANDS OUT
WHEN I SIT DOWN TO INTERVIEW
SOME OF THE LEADERS OF IRE-
LAND’S MULTINATIONAL TECH-
NOLOGY COMPANIES IS THEIR
PASSION FOR THEIR INDUSTRY,
THEIR COMPANIES, AND THE
FUTURE PROSPERITY OF THE
ISLAND ON WHICH THEY OPER-
ATE. Without exception, they all seem
to find time in their busy schedules to
partake in a wide range of initiatives to
further the latter goal.
PAUL RELLIS, MICROSOFT
If Ireland wants to truly become a smart
society, cloud computing is something
that must be embraced with enthusiasm,
says Microsoft Ireland managing director
Paul Rellis. This year Microsoft,
which employs 1,500 people in Ireland,
celebrates its 25th year in the country.
The company’s journey through the
years is a fitting metaphor for the
changing digital landscape in Ireland.
When Microsoft first started operations
in Ireland it was effectively all
about packaging boxes of software
with disks and shipping them around
the globe. The media used to joke about
stock-option millionaires manning the
assembly lines.
Today Microsoft’s Irish operations
are sophisticated and globally focused,
impacting 131 countries worldwide. All
software created here is exported digitally
via the internet, and last year the
company built a €500m data centre in
Dublin. It will handle all of Microsoft’s
internet services, from Hotmail and
Bing right up to the Azure platform,
which will be Microsoft’s Windows operating
system for the cloud revolution.
The centrepiece of Ireland’s digital
revolution must be cloud, says Rellis.
“The whole concept of cloud computing
and the power of the internet is key. It is
all about giving you the consumer services
on demand, when you want and
with whatever device you want.
“If you look at IT, the whole IT industry
is founded on app development,
and the app is back in vogue. We could
take a really big leap by helping kids in
secondary school and in third level get
a lot more focused and learned in apps
development. This is not just about new
technology. If you look at the amount of
apps out there today – if you look at the
iPhone apps out there – a lot of them
aren’t new technology. They are business
processes. How do you calculate
invoices and VAT and do whatever you
do as a business?”
Rellis joined Microsoft in January
2000 from The Coca-Cola Company,
where he held a variety of senior positions
in finance, marketing and operations.
He was president of the American
Chamber of Commerce in 2008 and
continues to sit on its board. He is a
member of the governing body of IBEC
(Irish Business and Employers Federation),
a member of the board of the
Today eight out of 10 of the world’s
leading technology companies have
a presence in Ireland. John Kennedy
VIEW
speaks to just some of their local leaders
36 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

SMART IRELAND »
Paul Rellis, Microsoft
Martin Murphy, HP
Kim Majerus, Cisco
Graham Sutherland, BT
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 37

» SMART IRELAND
‘If Ireland
wants to
truly become
a smart
society, cloud
computing
is something
that must be
embraced
with
enthusiasm’
‘Imagine
Ireland as a
hotbed for
educational
excellence
that could be
transported via
technology
such as
telepresence
or Webex?’
Irish Management Institute and of the
National Digital Research Centre. He is
chair of the Joint Implementation Group
set up by the Department of Education
under the €150m plan for ‘Smart
Schools’. He is also the chair of the steering
group that is looking at the development
of a new national strategy for
higher education in Ireland.
Rellis believes that the €500m data
centre at the heart of Microsoft’s global
cloud vision is an obvious signal for the
direction Ireland can go in. “I feel very
proud that we’ve got this data centre
here. It’s an asset that countries all over
the world want; we can bring developers
and students out there and show them
the 88 racks of servers and the scale of
efficiency that we can get. It really
brings the power of the internet and the
cloud home to you when see that scale.
But the challenge will be around building
the application development mindset
in the education system to get
people developing apps.
“In Ireland we have 400 companies
right now developing Azure, which is our
Windows in the cloud. We’re saying to
customers if you’re going to develop on
Windows, don’t do it on-premise. Do it
by Azure, develop the cloud and take advantage
of the savings you can make.
Having 400 up there is not bad, but
there’s no reason why we cannot have
4,000 companies going to the cloud. It
significantly reduces the barrier to
entry.
“High-end computing used to be the
preserve of big companies that could
afford it but actually the cloud breaks
that and makes it available to everybody.
I think it’s a big miss in Ireland
that we’re not putting enough focus
behind this.”
Rellis says he is inspired by the number
of entrepreneurs with great ideas in
the Irish market and he believes that as
well as venture capital and proximity to
the who’s who of technology multinationals,
we should be making it easier for
young start-ups to get off the ground.
The presence of internet giants such
as Microsoft, Google, eBay and Amazon
as well as technology stalwarts
IBM, Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard
can truly position Ireland to become
the internet capital of Europe, he maintains.
“I don’t see why Ireland couldn’t
become one of the leading cloud and
web-app development centres in the
world. I don’t think it should just be
Dublin; I think it could be the whole country.
Because what technology does is
break down barriers: regardless of your
health or your wealth, technology allows
you to participate in the economy.”
KIM MAJERUS, CISCO
Cisco Ireland managing director Kim
Majerus believes Ireland stands at a
nexus point where smart ideas must be
joined with smart actions. Above all,
she feels Ireland must start believing in
itself again.
Chicago native Majerus refuses to
buy into the defeatism that often pervades
Irish society and media coverage.
She also heads up the Irish operations
of an organisation that pretty much sets
the template for what Ireland can
achieve with its innovation path.
Cisco was started by a husband-andwife
team – Len Bosack and Sandy
Lerner – at Stanford University, who
used the campus computer network to
send each other messages about dinner,
she recounts. Today it is the company
that pretty much enables the internet,
employing 65,000 people worldwide
and achieving annual revenues of
US$36bn.
Majerus, who has 20 years’ ICT
industry experience and has been with
Cisco for the past seven years, believes
Ireland needs to be a more innovative
economy, where wealth is created by
ingenuity and business endeavour.
“To be a more innovative economy,
you have to realise that innovation
comes from several different sources,”
she says. “It’s not just the business that
is brought in from multinationals but
also the local economy that can drive
innovation outward. It’s all about driving
and changing the way Ireland is
viewed on the innovation scale.
“Innovation could come from anywhere,
anyone and at any time: it could
be in the hills, the cities, the shores of
the south – it doesn’t matter where it
comes from, it is here. It’s just capturing
it and more importantly enabling
38 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

SMART IRELAND »
people to take that innovative idea
they’ve got and give them a platform to
drive it.”
Cisco employs 200 people in Ireland
and has a cutting-edge R&D operation
in Galway. The company engages with
local universities and sponsors local
PhD researchers to develop the technologies
of tomorrow. One initiative saw
the it invest €400,000 to sponsor PhD
researchers at the Digital Enterprise
Research Institute at National University
of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) to create
the technologies that will shape
tomorrow’s working world.
This, according to Majerus, emulates
the Silicon Valley model of turning universities
into future wealth generators
that could spawn new jobs and new
companies.
“Take a look at what we’re doing with
NUIG. We’ve invested €400,000 in two
professors who are developing enterprise
work solutions. That is what
Cisco is putting back into the universities
because we do see the value of what
is being created out of Ireland. The
question is how do we create that idea,
give them the platform and work in collaboration
with a multinational like
Cisco to drive that success for Ireland?
“There are ideas right here, right
now, but how do we embrace them, how
do the Government and multinationals
get involved to support and invest and
bring that to the next level? We could be
our own Silicon Valley per se if we just
look right here in Ireland at what’s
available.”
Technology too is key to a greener,
more sustainable future, says Majerus.
“For example, how do we take technology
and enable remote working, so that
we can take more cars off the road and
have people working from their home
environment and not having to travel or
fly. It’s an adaptation of workforce practices
in terms of trust, enablement in
the employees you are hiring and just
modifying the way we think about how
successful workers work.
“I think it is investment in the
national infrastructure and the support
of the private sector and service
providers that can help enable that
access to everyone everywhere on the
island of Ireland.
“Applications on the internet are
becoming more data intensive. Within
the next year, video will account for
more than 60pc of all traffic on the
internet as videoconferencing and
newer forms of media expression take
centre stage.”
Cisco chief John Chambers is
adamant about the power of the internet
to enable equal education opportunities
for any child in the world.
Majerus explains: “One of the things
we need to say first and foremost is it
doesn’t matter what social class you are
in or what district you live in, education
should be consistent and should enable
every student regardless.
“There are some initiatives that Minister
Eamon Ryan is working on for
100Mbps broadband to schools. I think
that’s an amazing idea that needs to be
funded, supported and actually rolled
out to help enable those students.”
Once the infrastructure is in place,
Majerus thinks education could be
exportable from Ireland to the rest of
the world, creating a tantalising economic
opportunity. “I think there’s a
huge opportunity – the quality of the
education that someone could gain
from the Irish institutions is transferable.
It is an opportunity.
“Imagine Ireland as a hotbed for
educational excellence that could be
exported via technology such as telepresence
or Webex to Saudi Arabian
nurses or to children in South Africa or
to other countries that are looking
because they can’t seem to get the right
level of quality that Ireland obviously
has in abundance.
“Cisco’s story shows that entrepreneurship
and innovation is the driver,”
says Majerus. “The company just celebrated
25 years. It’s an amazing story
but it goes to show what can be
achieved.”
MARTIN MURPHY, HP IRELAND
Hewlett-Packard Ireland managing
director Martin Murphy believes Ireland
is already a more competitive
nation, but says now’s the time to keep
up the momentum.
“While there is a correct focus on
‘Opportunities
for enterprise
arise across a
broad range of
disciplines
and are not
limited to
science and
technology.
We need to
widen the net
for innovation
investment’
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 39

» SMART IRELAND
‘We believe it
would also offer
real value for
multinational
companies to
provide routes
to international
markets for
Irish companies’
the amount we need to save and the
spending we must curtail, we must also
plan for the jobs of the future. We need
to stimulate the economy as well in
order for recovery to occur,” he says.
Ireland is the 10th highest exporter of
services in the world (financial services,
technology, engineering, etc), Murphy
points out. We provide 5pc of the world’s
services. The country has a target of
70pc of exports being service-based by
2020.
“The ICT industry is set to continue
to grow at three times the rate of other
industries. That is why it is vital Ireland
plays to its advantages, harnessing not
only the presence of ICT giants but also
developing next-generation broadband
networks and supporting scores of
high-potential start-ups to generate
thousands of new Irish jobs.
“Over the past year the Irish Government
has focused its attention on putting
in place key components to support
the development of a digitally-enabled
smart economy. If implemented, these
plans have the potential to actually
deliver the digital dividend of jobs, foreign
direct investment (FDI) and economic
recovery.”
Exports will always be the key for Ireland,
he continues. “We’re too small to
be anything else. The dynamism of the
global market drove the success of Ireland’s
industrial model and our economic
growth from the mid-Nineties.
It will drive it again. But only if our
national strategy and vision capitalise
on both new as well as traditional global
opportunities for enterprise, expertise
and international trade.”
And the good news is that this great
global recession will end, he says. “That
is the only certainty. It may not end this
year or next, or even for a further two or
three years. But it will end. And when it
does, the world will have changed. Those
infamous green shoots that politicians,
macro-economists and financial analysts
scurry around looking for in the undergrowth
may be found in quite different
places to where economic convention
dictates they should appear.
“Irish exports generally have been
holding up remarkably well throughout
this crisis vis-a-vis other EU countries,”
says Murphy, “but we need to stay
focused on strategic policy.
“Understandably, there hasn’t been
much room to focus on industrial policy
in view of the gravity of our other problems.
But our vision of the industrial
policy that will shape a new, prosperous
Ireland for the 21st century is just as
great a priority as anything else.
“Ireland’s future wealth rests on
becoming an export-driven centre for
the global economy. What we have to do
is to integrate a strong enterprise culture
into our national strategy for
recovery and put the elements in place
now that will make it work.
“We need to be far more ambitious in
our thinking, in our approach, and in our
vision of what we can create for Ireland
in the 21st century. Because we are a
small, open economy on the periphery of
Europe, excellence has to be our trademark
– both to attract further investment
to this country and, crucially, to
build an indigenous, internationallytrading
enterprise culture of our own.
“Across a range of economic highvalue-added
trading activities, Ireland
already has a proven strength and an
international track record of achievement
– from agri-business and food to
the creative arts to pharmachemicals to
IT,” says Murphy. “We must build on
what we have already to generate new
export-oriented companies that will
create wealth and jobs for Ireland.
“And the capacity for innovation is
not restricted to the IT sector,” he adds.
“Innovation is a business, and opportunities
for enterprise arise across a
broad range of disciplines and are not
limited to science and technology. We
need to widen the net for innovation
investment.”
Murphy believes that a great opportunity
for Ireland to actualise itself as a
digital nation is to look at the area of
intellectual property (IP) in terms of
how we commercialise it, and link that
back into successes like the IFSC (International
Financial Services Centre).
“The IFSC has played a key role for
Ireland Inc and key roles around IP.
What I think would be a major opportunity
would be to blend that going forward
and make it a reality for companies
40 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

SMART IRELAND »
to trade and monetise IP.
He is upbeat about Irish businesses’
capacity for innovation. “Every company
has to innovate and one of the
great things I’ve seen in the past year is
Irish companies doing just that. They’re
going out there and competing on the
global stage and working with companies
like HP, which has activities in 170
countries.
“While I talk about the need to
expand on these, we still have a good
number of people doing that today,
people who are paving the way to being
the next Glen Dimplex, the next CRH
or Kerry Group.”
GRAHAM SUTHERLAND, BT
Graham Sutherland this year took over
the reigns from Chris Clark as CEO of
BT in Ireland, having held the role of
chief financial officer at BT Ireland
since 2006. He joined BT from NTL
Communications where he was managing
director in Ireland for four years.
Prior to that, Sutherland also held a
number of senior roles in the likes of
Bombardier, Maydown Precision Engineering
and Alex M Hamilton & Company.
He too believes know-how will be
key to our recovery.
BT sponsors the annual BT Young
Scientist & Technology Exhibition
and, says Sutherland, it is through fostering
innovation and turning talk of
the smart economy into action that we
will set Ireland’s future generation on
the road to productive careers.
“Firstly we should look at this positively
– there are lots of great things
happening and it would seem everyone
is now on the same wavelength, which
is pivotal,” he says. “And organisations,
both private and public, are collaborating
more and more to get results and be
more strategic.”
He is proud of BT’s involvement in
the BT Young Scientist & Technology
Exhibition, and says it demonstrates
this coming together.
“It is a year-long grassroots campaign
into every school. We receive
funding and support from the Government
and other major organisations.
And now we are tapping into our business
partners and customers and
leading Irish figures to extend it into a
mentoring programme.
“This is an ecosystem that works: it
has proven that ideas can be turned
into wealth creation.” Sutherland gives
the example of Restored Hearing, a
company that has evolved out of an
award-winning project at the exhibition.
“In terms of a national framework,
the Government Innovation Taskforce
report, into which BT has had input, is
a strong starting point, but its recommendations
must now be prioritised
and acted upon.”
FOSTERING INNOVATION
He believes that entrepreneurship in
the Irish economy must continue to be
encouraged if the country is to field a
vibrant community of thriving, productive
enterprises. BT has been taking
a number of steps to foster
entrepreneurship early, he says, by
sponsoring offshoots of the BT Young
Scientist & Technology Exhibition
that aims to equip young people with
business skills and savvy.
“The Business of Science & Technology
Programme was launched by
BT this year because we believe that
scientific innovation on its own is
tremendous but it is not enough. There
should be equal focus on the business
application of the ideas generated, and
support to help them become commercial
opportunities.
“We are providing leadership where
we can by evolving our annual exhibition
to bridge the gap between business and
science, and enabling students in their
formative years to engage with today’s
business leaders and gain business skills.
On a much wider level, however, we
would advocate that a module on business
skills should be inserted into the
curriculum of secondary schools.”
Some 53 students from 13 counties
were invited to take part in the programme
as they were winners of intermediate
and senior categories, the
overall top four performers and the winners
of merit from the BT Young Scientist
& Technology Exhibition 2010.
The students were mentored by
leading executives and professionals
from BT, Bank of Ireland, Bombardier
Aerospace, Bord Gáis, Engineers Ireland,
IBM, Intel, IP Innovations and Innovation
Delivery.
“We also believe that Enterprise Ireland
is already focused on and delivering
the critical success factors for Irish
enterprise, ie internationally traded
services that can be created, sold and
supported from Ireland, and Science
Foundation Ireland is nurturing key
technology research projects in photonics,
nanotechnology, microelectronics,
bioengineering and biochemistry.
“We believe it would also offer real
value for multinational companies to
provide routes to international markets
for Irish companies,” he says.
Ultimately Irish talent, Sutherland
says, will be the key to the economic
opportunities on the island north and
south and he thinks the Smart Schools
= Smart Economy strategy, while overdue,
is still a good starting point.
“While there have been a number of
positive recent initiatives such as the
schools broadband programme and the
Smart Schools plan, it is clear that even
more needs to be done in terms of funding
for new technologies, systems integration
and training.
“We need to graduate more engineers
and scientists than today at degree, master’s
and PhD levels. We need to imbue
engineers and scientists with entrepreneurial
and commercialisation skills as
they progress through their education.
Greater ICT investment in schools and
classrooms is conducive to these learning
outcomes.
“Engineers Ireland’s recent call for
unemployed engineers to be given tax
incentives to become maths teachers is
good, and could be applied to scientists,
business executives etc. It makes sense
for those people with practical experience
to be driving the curriculum,”
Sutherland concludes.
A fundamental building block to Ireland’s
recovery must surely be the presence
of business leaders who are willing
to put their time and intellect into supporting
our aspirations for a ‘smart’ Ireland.
Speaking to the leaders of some of
the county’s tech multinationals would
suggest it’s one block that is firmly in
place.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 41

» DIGITAL WORLD
Irish
ingenuity,
From research that began in an Irish university to
a potentially global multinational, Intune Networks
looks set to be a leader in the next phase of the
digital economy, writes John Kennedy
42 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

DIGITAL WORLD »
‘We have the right
technology before
anybody else. We
are in a very unique
leadership
global
position’
potential
IT WOULD BE HARD NOT TO GET CAUGHT UP IN
THE GIDDY EXCITEMENT THAT SURROUNDS IN-
TUNE NETWORKS, A DUBLIN-BASED COMPANY
THAT HAS DEVELOPED A UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY
FOR HANDLING THE TV AND TELECOMS NEEDS
OF THE FUTURE.
As Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune and a seasoned US telecoms
executive, puts it, he was cornered several years ago
at a major US trade event by a group of earnest young
Irishmen who wanted to show him something. Fritzley,
who was head of TV at Microsoft at the time, was blown
away and by 2006 he had left the cosy corporate world behind
and embraced the start-up life again.
Intune, formed in 1999 by a group of ex-UCD photonics
researchers led by John Dunne and Tom Farrell, was
selected by the Irish Government to define the future of
broadband in this country, and its technology is about to be
exported to a multi-billion dollar communications industry
desperate for an answer to a question players such as
Cisco and Bell Labs have been trying to solve for 30 years.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 43

» DIGITAL WORLD
Right: Tim Fritzley, Intune
Networks with Communications
Minister Eamon Ryan TD
Below right: John Dunne, Tim
Fritzley and Tom Farrell, all of
Intune Networks
Intune opened its first overseas office in Boston earlier this
year, and is about to begin the commercial rollout of its Optical
Packet Switch and Transport system, which can enable a
single strand of fibre to move from carrying one signal from
one operator to carrying data from 80 telecoms and TV companies
all at once.
The Government has invested €5m in creating the Exemplar
Test Bed that will provide a proof of concept for the technology
and will create 80 new jobs. The technology could potentially
replace the thousands of silicon chips used in internet switches
today. Financier Dermot Desmond and other investors, including
Balderton, Amadeus, Spark, Enterprise Ireland and Invest
Northern Ireland, have all in the past year invested €25m in the
company.
As well as the Irish Government, Intune has been awarded a
major EU contract as part of a consortium involving telecom
players Telefónica and PrimeTel under the EU 7th Framework.
“We’re working towards full commercial release of our technology
to the world and will have major customer wins to reveal,”
Fritzley explains.
“We really believe that a variety of carriers are looking at this
as their next-generation network for carrying data like video
and TV services. Our technology replaces old telecoms transport
systems.”
The reality is that most telecoms networks are unable to
keep up with the growing data rates that sites like YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter are driving. By next year, over 50pc of
all traffic on the internet will be video and while users happily
share videos and photographs, traditional networks are crumbling
under the weight and are experiencing what Fritzley
terms ‘brown-outs’.
SILVER BULLET
Is Intune’s technology the silver bullet? “We are convinced it is.
Whether it’s Intune they use or not, all carriers around the
world will have to invest in a dynamic optical transport system.
Even mobile carriers will be affected. Look at what the iPhone
has done to mobile backhaul. The data demands are going to get
worse. We have the right technology before anybody else. We
are in a very unique leadership position,” says Fritzley.
Intune currently employs 100 people between Dublin and
Belfast. I ask him about the employment potential for Intune if
it achieves its goal of being a technology multinational born out
of Ireland. Fritzley falls back on his own experience of running
the voice over cable business division for Tellabs, which grew
exponentially under his guidance.
“It’s interesting and people in Government and investors are
amazed at this but you always have your smallest staffing levels
during your most difficult time. Once the first commercial release
has been achieved, staffing starts to grow exponentially.
“You start to hire sales and account managers, invest in customer
services, that’s where the job growth really comes in.
When I was based at Tellabs within three years I took the voice
over cable division to a US$500m-a-year revenue position, with
staffing doubling every six months.
“Those are the kind of numbers you can hit once you get out
44 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

DIGITAL WORLD »
‘We’re providing
it in Ireland on
an open access
basis and have
had a fantastic
response from
Irish and
international
companies.
There’s a lot of
interest in it’
of product development and into scaled deployment.”
So does Fritzley believe Intune can go the distance and deliver
Ireland the breakthrough technology multinational it craves but
has yet to prove it deserves?
“It’s more than an aspiration from our point of view. We’ve
already been through the difficult times, raising cash, R&D, and
now we’re on a very good path. The only thing left now is normal
integration and testing with carriers.”
When I first visited Intune’s headquarters at Park West in
Dublin, the R&D lab was a pandemonium of cables and flashing
lights. Now those cables and lights sit neatly inside brand-new
branded boxes that telecoms and internet giants may place inside
data centres.
“All the things that carriers want before commercial deployment
are in place, the packaging, the redundancy power, the
ability to upgrade in-service. It’s all there.”
But what about the addressable market, is it ready for Ireland’s
answer to Cisco or Bell Labs? “Anybody who owns a
fibre network will be looking to invest in this technology,” says
Fritzley.
Speaking with Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD
just after the Government made its €5m investment, the Minister
told me Intune’s future was assured.
“I think they have created a serious piece of kit that will be
genuinely disruptive,” Minister Ryan said confidently.
“We’re providing it in Ireland on an open access basis and
have had a fantastic response from Irish and international
companies. There’s a lot of interest in it. It is interesting already
in the way that it may lead to future job creation beyond the
first 80 jobs.
“The real prospect is when we put it into a live working environment
on something like our HEA [Higher Education Authority]
network or other networks. It just gives Ireland a
competitive advantage and on the back of it if you have a large
data centre or a large cloud
computing operation, where
will you put it except where
you can get the fastest most
flexible network. I think
that’s the real potential
here,” he said.
“It came out of UCD and
then into an Irish company
and the Government is saying
‘let’s use that’. But it is interesting
also the fact that
the actual nodes and boxes
we’re putting into the Exemplar
Network, Intune had
them commissioned, built
and manufactured in Cork by
Flextronics. The whole thing
is Irish-designed, Irish-made,
it’s an Irish idea. And it is
drawing serious international
interest because it has
the potential to overcome one of the real key constraints on the
development of the internet,” added Minister Ryan.
Fritzley says the real achievement here is the sheer vision of
Dunne and Farrell who began this odyssey in 1994 while at university.
“If you think about it, they have dedicated their entire
adult lives to doing this. They could have done it in California
where they would have been very welcome. Now they are almost
there and it is very exciting for them personally.”
This article first appeared in Irish Director magazine,
Summer 2010.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 45

» FINANCIAL SERVICES
Citi Ireland’s CEO Aidan Brady
next
The
wave
46 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FINANCIAL SERVICES »
Citi’s establishment of a US$24m
global research and development
centre in Dublin was a world first
for the financial services giant. It
has put Citi Ireland at the heart of
innovation in the global group,
Irish CEO Aidan Brady tells
Grainne Rothery
THE OPENING LAST YEAR OF A US$24M GLOBAL
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE IN DUBLIN
WAS THE LATEST IN A LONG LINE OF INNOVATIONS
AND STRATEGIES BY CITI’S IRISH OPERATION TO
CREATE NEW NICHES AND MOVE ITSELF UP THE
VALUE CHAIN, BOTH WITHIN ITS GLOBAL GROUP AND
IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES SECTOR AS A WHOLE.
The purpose of the new Citi Research, Development, Innovation
and Learning (RDIL) Centre is to create the next wave of
financial products and systems for the financial services industry,
and specifically a next-generation intelligent payments
solution. It is Citi’s first dedicated R&D facility worldwide.
The US-headquartered bank set up its Irish operation in
1965 to provide financial services to the growing numbers of
US multinationals investing here. As well as being one of the
first foreign-owned banks in Ireland, it was the first to make
the physical leap to the IFSC (International Financial Services
Centre) in 1992, shortly after Aidan Brady took over as chief
executive.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 47

» FINANCIAL SERVICES
In the years since that move, staff numbers have increased
from 78 to around 2,100. According to Brady, that growth has
been driven by a very proactive culture within the Irish business.
The focus, he says, has always been on trying to do more
within the group, coming up with new ideas and projects, being
open to change and constantly trying to move up the value
chain.
There’s been an emphasis
on trying to create
‘Government
hadn’t thought
of financial
services as being
innovative or
requiring research
and development.
After quite a bit
of consideration,
they saw what we
were trying to do
and agreed’
high-value, high-skilled
jobs rather than jobs for
the sake of it, he maintains.
“Once we started
moving up the value chain
and got new products in, it
became obvious that those
products had to be developed.
That was the next
phase,” Brady continues.
“A huge part of banking is
transaction services, moving
money around, holding
assets, and so on, and
it’s all highly technology
driven.
“Basically we’re like a
technology manufacturing
company. One of our products,
World Link, is sold
all around the world. We
actually won the Exporter
of the Year award in 2005
for exporting this product
to 108 countries.
“So this type of banking
is very, very like the manufacturing
or technology
industries, very like companies
such as Intel or
Microsoft,” he explains. “Knowing that, we looked at what the
other multinationals were doing in Ireland and the next phase –
moving from base manufacturing to higher-level manufacturing
to developing the project – is research and development.”
FINANCIAL R&D
Seeing the parallels, Citi Ireland approached the Government
to get support for its research and development operations.
“They hadn’t thought of financial services as being innovative
or requiring research and development,” he says. “After quite a
bit of consideration, they saw what we were trying to do and
agreed. So we got the initial help with a couple of projects and
they were very successful and we committed a couple of years
ago to spending $US100m on two projects.”
One of these is the further development of the aforementioned
World Link product, which Brady says was a massive win for
Ireland and involves creating the next generation of electronic
banking platforms. Dublin won the project, he says, because of
its track record and the culture that had been built up of always
wanting to be the first to take on the next thing. “Because you’re
relatively small in a country and you know you are limited,
you’re much more aggressive in trying to get more business and
customers, so we always wanted to be the first to try the next
thing that Citi might be rolling out somewhere.”
The new RDIL centre is almost a natural progression of this
mindset and it’s something Brady believes is innovative in
itself. “The fact that we thought of it first and got it done is not
only innovative for Ireland, it’s a first for everywhere. Nowhere
else has done this.”
“One of the first jobs of the centre has been to put in place an
infrastructure around innovation that will process Citi’s own
ideas for innovation,” he continues. “So we will provide the staff,
we will collaborate with universities, with our partners, customer
partners, and our customers and different products to
work through some of these big projects and filter them out.
There’s a set of phases you put the project through until you get
to the point where you actually manufacture a new product or
a new process. All that research was done in the last two or
three years to build the infrastructure, to allow us now to do lots
more projects.”
That there is a significant presence of technology companies
close by was an important factor in getting the idea off the
ground, according to Brady.
“Their support and willingness to work with us were phenomenal,”
he says. “And that’s what’s really powerful about Ireland;
there are lots of great companies here, all in that space, in
all the spaces you want to be in technology.”
Support from government was also vital, he adds. “There’s no
country in the world like this, genuinely. I’ve been in lots of others;
there’s none as clued in and trying harder to do good stuff
in this sort of area, so you’d have to give people a lot of credit for
this.”
FUTURE OF FINANCE
As regards the international financial services sector in Ireland
in general, Brady, who is on the Government’s Innovation Taskforce
Implementation Group, believes there is a very strong
future but says it probably needs to be broadened out further
into the technology and transaction processing space. “I would
see it more as a big future for services innovation and research
and development rather than simply financial services,” he says.
“I’d see it developing into value-add areas and I can even see
some capital markets stuff coming to Ireland. It will be about
niches coming to Ireland. We have to sieve through the hundreds
of products that are out there in international services
and pick the best ones, but there’s great potential.
“But the area that we should concentrate on is where the
IFSC has been so successful, the services side; that’s all data,
flow of information and transaction banking. And then hopefully
we can try to convince financial services to set up innovation
centres here also.
“And then, why not expand it into advertising services? Any
services you can think of that involve a process or a flow, or
48 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FINANCIAL SERVICES »
servicing customers worldwide
with a platform, are the sort of
things we should be looking at
attracting in.”
The key challenge Brady sees
for the sector is increasing competition.
“We’re now competing
on both sides of the equation.
Places like Poland and India have
been getting so much experience
and moving up the chain as well,
and now have big populations of
very well-educated, very clued-in
people. At the other end we’re
trying to eat away at London and
New York and other financial
services centres. We just have to
be very, very good at everything
we do, and we have to make an
Ireland even more attractive
place to live.”
‘The fact that we
thought of it first
and got it done
is not only
innovative for
Ireland, it’s a first
for everywhere.
Nowhere else has
done this’
He does not believe that any changes in EU regulation will
have a major impact on the financial services sector here. “I’m
not really worried about that,” he says. “As long as it’s the same
for everybody. The worst thing is where it’s selective so you have
one country competing against another. I think strong regulation
full stop, certainly in the financial services side, is hugely
beneficial. I wouldn’t say it’s a competitive advantage but for
people to know that the place is well organised and controlled is
something we need to get our reputation back.”
He thinks it is vital that Ireland’s business leaders go for
innovation when they spot an opportunity. “For years I was
going on about technology in financial services. I saw that as
being obvious and nobody listened to me. So, I’d say if you’ve
passion for something, go for it.”
Based on his experience with the Innovation Taskforce, Brady
says he has been impressed with the commitment and support
from all involved, including Government and the public service.
“And I didn’t think I would be,” he admits. “They’ve put a huge
amount of work into this. And the amount of work done by the
people who were co-opted onto the first taskforce has been
enormous. They probably did too much work! There are probably
too many ideas, but they’re wading through them one by
one. And the support is there from the Government – you don’t
see any other country doing that.”
“And when you look at the quality of the people in the public
sector and the various departments and the universities, they’re
very good people, they really are, and that’s encouraging,” he
says.
“Okay, you need a bit of luck and you need a bit of commerciality
around some of this, but I believe that the innovation
process is almost more important than the innovation. Just getting
that right, that process that allows you check out whether
an idea can go to the next level, and the next level after that.
That’s vital.” This applies as much to Ireland as it does to Citi’s
operations here, Brady concludes.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 49

» FINANCIAL SERVICES
Former taoiseach John Bruton is
back in Ireland after five years as
the European Union’s ambassador
to Washington. His latest challenge
is as chairman of the newly
established IFSC Ireland, where he
will serve in an ambassadorial role
for the financial services industry in
Ireland. He spoke to Ann O’Dea
Solution-oriented
mentality
W
WHEN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY GOT
TOGETHER TO ESTABLISH IFSC IRELAND EARLIER
THIS YEAR, THEY QUICKLY SPOTTED AN OPPORTU-
NITY AS FORMER TAOISEACH JOHN BRUTON WAS
NEARING THE END OF HIS FIVE-YEAR TENURE AS EU
AMBASSADOR TO WASHINGTON. They approached him to
see if he might consider taking on the role of chairman.
IFSC Ireland is a private sector initiative, developed and
funded by the Irish Funds Industry Association, Financial Services
Ireland, the Federation of International Banks in Ireland,
the Institute of Bankers and the Irish Association of Investment
Managers, among others. Its purpose is to to promote Ireland’s
international financial services industry. Bruton’s international
relationships and extensive experience overseas seemed
an excellent match, and he accepted the challenge.
50 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FINANCIAL SERVICES »
“Well, having worked for 35 years as a politician, working
hopefully for the public good, and then for five years representing
Europe in the US, I was delighted to be offered the opportunity
of doing something that might support job maintenance
and creation in my own country,” he says.
“And I was flattered and pleased that the industry itself asked
me to take on this role. It’s rare enough indeed that industry
comes together to do something that, on the face of it, involves
bringing in more competition for themselves, rather than simply
pursuing their own interests. Yet in this case that is exactly what
they have asked me to do; to help bring other financial services
firms into Ireland. Of course my role will also be to help those that
already have a presence here, and to present their case in the
world, so that they can encourage their head offices to place more
responsibility on their Irish management.”
It is a dynamic sector in Ireland, Bruton continues. “It’s huge,
I think it’s often underestimated, and it’s not just in the industry
in itself, but also in all of the accounting and legal and other sectors
that service the industry here. It has literally regenerated
the eastern half of the city of Dublin.
“Without the financial services sector you’d be looking at a
very different city to the one you see today, and it’s not just the
capital. It has had an effect on Carrick on Shannon, on Navan,
on Kilkenny – in any number of towns and cities you will see
financial service activities taking place that have been attracted
here as part of the overall IFSC endeavour.”
Bruton points also to the resilience of the international financial
services sector during the global financial crisis. “The sector
has been almost impervious – not entirely – to the downturn
in the economy,” he says.
“A lot of people think financial services and they think of the
domestic banks, and yes the domestic banks have major problems
– although they will recover from them. The international
banks in Ireland, on the other hand, have a very different story
to tell, as have other financial service entities here – insurance
companies, non-financial companies who are conducting their
corporate treasury activities here, the Stock Exchange, the
funds industry. These all have very positive stories indeed to tell
about the inventiveness of the Irish people.”
It is this inventiveness that is Ireland’s key strength, believes
Bruton. “To understand the financial services industry in Ireland,
you need to think not so much about money, but rather
about Irish people finding solutions for problems that people are
encountering all over the world, and enabling those people to
implement those solutions through one location here in Ireland,
rather than through multiple locations.
“The operations here are not only coming up with the solutions,
but they are implementing them in a cost-efficient way,
helping people to manage their money wherever they live in
the world. That’s essentially what we’re doing. We’re in the
business here of finding solutions to problems, rather than
financial activities in the narrow sense of that term.”
Regulation will always be a key factor in attracting international
financial services to this country, and Bruton thinks the
powers that be will get the balance right.
“In the past, when it came to regulating the industry, the
regulators had to both make sure that the industry remained
solvent, but also that they attracted more jobs here,” he says.
“That’s now being changed and the regulators are being asked
to do one task only, which is that of ensuring the operators here
remain solvent. I think that’s sensible enough because if you are
asking individuals to pursue two different objectives simultaneously,
the risk is that they will do neither of them very well.
“On the other hand I think that while the regulators will give
their priority to solvency, the nature of this Irish public service
is that it is anxious to be helpful to people who want to create
employment here. There’s a general attitude in this country of
wanting to help people solve problems, and of giving them
enough time to be heard. That’s not always the case in other
countries. They may have other strengths, but they’re not
‘We’re in the business here of finding
solutions to problems, rather than
financial activities in the narrow
sense of that term’
necessarily as good at listening as we are. So while the regulators
of the financial services industry will henceforth have just
that one objective, that is not going to make them any less helpful
than it is their nature to be.”
And what are the future opportunities for this sector for Ireland?
“Well, any area where money is being used as a measure
of value is one where there’s an opportunity,” replies Bruton.
“Most of the opportunities are going to come from the office
floor, in the course of people’s daily work, with somebody working
at a particular problem and saying ‘you know, maybe the
solution to this could also have an application in some other
area’.
“The opportunities are going to be seen on the office floor
sooner than they’ll be seen in the managing director’s office, or in
the office of the managing director of the IDA, or in my office for
that matter. So, we’ve got to encourage people at every level and
in every business when they see a potential application to try to
take that opportunity or encourage someone else to take it.”
Bruton is very optimistic about the future of the financial
services sector, and Ireland’s place in it. “Our biggest strength is
our solution-oriented mentality, the fact that we’re flexible and
we’re looking out for ways to help people,” he says. “I think that’s
the attitude that will help us overcome our current problems
more than anything else. The solution isn’t going to come from
outside the country, or from one inspired individual, it’s going to
come from everybody being a part.”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 51

» MANAGEMENT INNOVATION
Photo: Susannah Ireland © UPPA/Photoshot
52 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

MANAGEMENT INNOVATION »
Leading academic Vijay Govindarajan has just completed a
stint with General Electric as professor in residence and chief
innovation consultant. He tells Ann O’Dea that reverse innovation
will be vital for all global companies in the next 50 years
Turning
tables
the
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» MANAGEMENT INNOVATION
PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS AND THE FOUNDER-
DIRECTOR OF TUCK'S CENTER
FOR GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AT
DARTMOUTH IN THE US, VIJAY
GOVINDARAJAN HAS BEEN CITED
BY FORBES AND THE TIMES AS A
TOP 10 PROFESSOR IN STRATEGY.
Indeed, he was labelled by BusinessWeek
as being “among the world’s hottest business
gurus”.
His keen intellect and focus on innovation
within organisations were spotted by
General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt
who created a new role at GE to bring
Govindarajan into the group, and when
we meet in September he has just completed
a two-year stint as professor in
residence and chief innovation consultant
at the giant corporation.
PLANNED OPPORTUNISM
The role came about through a series of
opportune chance encounters – and
some planning. It’s all down to a concept
Govindarajan sees as vital to all of our
professional and personal lives – he calls
it “planned opportunism”.
“I am a very spiritual person,” explains
Govindarajan. “I come from India from
the Hindu tradition and – while spirituality
is not a religion, it is just a concept – I
originally got this spirituality from the
Hindu religion and that’s where I coined
this term ‘planned opportunism’ as the
way I think about individuals and the way
they lead their lives.
“If you look at your life and big changes
in your life, they are always the result of
chance events, unplanned, random,
chance events. That’s the opportunism
part, but how you respond to a chance
event is anything but chance – that’s the
planned part.”
He points out that in Hinduism, selfknowledge
is the highest form of
knowledge. “So planned really means
self-knowledge. Most of us don’t know
who we are. If we understand who am
I?; what capabilities do I have?; what
competencies and what passions do I
have?; what really drives me?; what do I
want to be 10 years from now? – that’s
self-knowledge. The more you are
aware of your capabilities, your competencies,
your passion, then you can take
the risk on that particular chance event.
“In one way, life
cannot be planned
because it depends
on those chance
events, yet life has
to be planned because
the planning
is what determines
which chance event
you act upon, and it
is these intentional
choices that comprise
the planning
part, and the random
events that
make the opportunism
part – that
combination is
what leads to how
individuals conduct
their lives.”
G ovindarajan
adds that this too is
true of corporations.
Just because
many events in the
environment are
down to chance
does not mean you
are helpless, he
argues. “Because,
as a corporation, if
you build the capabilities
and build
the competencies,
then you will
grab the right
opportunities.”
His appointment
at GE is an illustration
of the concept he says. “About 10
years ago, I was giving a talk at an event,
where the chief learning officer of GE
was also giving a talk. I was fascinated by
how she talked about GE’s leadership, so
afterwards I went up and introduced
myself and told her so. She asked me
who I was and what I was doing and I
told her about my theories on innovation,”
he explains.
Four years later, Dartmouth alumnus
Jeff Immelt was invited to speak at the
school. “Whenever great people like that
come to campus I always try to get half
an hour with them, just to see what I
can learn. His staff gave me the half an
hour so I went with a list of questions
Photo: Susannah Ireland © UPPA/Photoshot
Jeff Immelt, General Electric
and towards the end he asked me what
I was working on.”
Govindarajan’s theories resonated immediately
with Immelt who was a strong
advocate for innovation at GE where he
was attempting to create organic growth
while maintaining efficiencies.
Later, when Govindarajan co-wrote the
much-admired The 10 Rules for Strategic
Innovators with colleague Chris Trimble,
he sent a copy to Immelt, and asked
would he consider giving the book an
endorsement. “I didn’t think he would
even give me a response because he
must receive millions of requests, and I
had just met him for half an hour. But
not only did I get a response, I got a
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MANAGEMENT INNOVATION »
‘The reason
why GE should
be in Africa is
Africa will push
them to the
frontiers of
innovation’
handwritten response that said he was
going to read the book and, if he liked it,
he would give it an endorsement.” He did.
Subsequently, Immelt told his chief
learning officer – the same person Govindarajan
had met 10 years before – that he
wanted to get an academic into GE, in
order to push out thinking on innovation,
and requested she put together a list of
the top 10 names in innovation.
On a list that included the cream of
Harvard and Stanford was Tuck School
professor, Govindarajan.
“When he came upon my name all the
dots connected. It was a series of random
events if you will, but there is a planned
part somewhere because I invested in
myself, I built those capabilities, those
platforms.”
INNOVATION IN REVERSE
While today he is delighted to be back at
Tuck School of Business – “I’m an academic
at heart,” Govindarajan tells me –
his time at GE gave him an opportunity
to see his theories on reverse innovation
carried out in practice.
When we meet, Govindarajan has
just published another book with Trimble
entitled The Other Side of Innovation,
and is already working on the next, with
its subject being reverse innovation. He
explains the concept.
“Reverse innovation goes to the heart
of how multinationals innovated in the
past,” he says. “Take a company like GE.
Historically, they innovated in the US and
sold those products in poorer countries
like India or China. Reverse innovation is
doing exactly the opposite. It is innovating
in poor countries and bringing those
innovations to the rich countries.
“The really leading-edge view is to
think of so-called poor countries as a
source of innovation. The reason why GE
should be in Africa is Africa will push
them to the frontiers of innovation. This
is counter-intuitive thinking because it is
perfectly logical to see why a poor man
will want a rich man’s product. It is not
that logical to see why a rich man would
want a poor man’s product.”
Indeed, Govindarajan insists that
the changing global landscape means
reverse innovation will be a necessity for
the major multinationals if they want to
compete. Gone are the days when the
major mass markets were the US, Japan
and Europe. Today emerging markets
like Brazil, China, India and Russia represent
half of the world’s GDP and over
40pc of its exports. They now represent
the mass markets that need to be served,
and not with products designed for traditional
consumers, he says.
With many forecasting that the developed
world will see a prolonged period of
slow growth of 1 to 3pc as it emerges from
recession, and the developing markets
likely to see two to three times that rate
of growth, it is time for a major shift in
mindset among the multinationals in the
so-called developed world which have
traditionally targeted the top segment in
these markets – the wealthiest 10pc, says
Govindarajan.
OXYGEN FOR GROWTH
“The real potential lies in unlocking the
other 90pc of these markets,” he says.
“Adapting global products created for
Western customers in India simply will
not work if they are to grasp the opportunity
that is there. For multinationals,
winning in emerging markets is not a
“nice to do”. It is the very oxygen that
will fuel future growth in their home
markets.”
The key, says Govindarajan, is this
reverse innovation, the concept that has
been implemented with some success
across GE – he co-authored a cover story
on the subject for the October 2009 issue
of Harvard Business Review with his Tuck
colleague Chris Trimble and Jeff Immelt,
How GE is Disrupting itself.
Govindarajan concedes that reverse
innovation presents quite a challenge for
large multinationals who have traditionally
followed the “glocalisation” model –
glocalisation being the word coined for
the practice of combining globalisation
and localisation, popularised in the English
language by UK sociologist Roland
Robertson.
GLOCALISATION
“The historical approach of multinationals
has been this glocalisation – and
that approach implied that you developed
products in the rich world and
sent them to the poor world,” explains
Govindarajan. “The fundamental tension
between these two approaches is
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» MANAGEMENT INNOVATION
that glocalisation requires centralisation
of power and of resources. Reverse innovation,
on the other hand, requires decentralisation
of resources and of the
decision-making power.”
And glocalisation has proven a highly
successful strategy in past decades, he concedes.
“The US companies went global
right after World War II, when there was a
need to rebuild the war-torn countries.
They essentially brought their products to
Europe and Japan. The strategy worked
well in that era because the customer base
in Japan and Europe was very similar to
the customer base in the US. It was easy to
take a product from the US and adapt it to
those markets.”
He cites the recent example of McDonald’s,
which introduced a lamb burger to its
menu when it entered the Indian market,
while otherwise retaining its core business
model.
However, that has all changed in the past
five years, says Govindarajan. “We have
seen the rise of the middle class in India
and China, and of course of their purchasing
power.”
These markets present a far different
challenge, however, than did the Japanese
and European markets over the last 50
years. “They are fundamentally different as
a customer base than those traditional customer
bases. You only have to look at the
income per capita. The average per capita
income in India is US$1,000 – just US$200
in rural India, whereas it is US$44,000 in
the US. There is no product designed for
the US that you can take and adapt to
rural India where the mass market per
capita income is $200.
“Instead, you need reverse innovation,
where you start by assessing customers’
needs in these emerging markets, rather
than assuming that you only need to make
alterations to existing products. Of course,
as your local growth teams develop products
for the local markets, they still remain
connected to the global resources and technology
of the global organisation.”
BRINGING IT HOME
Govindarajan takes this reverse innovation
concept one step further, suggesting that
the innovations produced in emerging markets
can subsequently be adapted and
brought back to the home market with
great success.
Take the US. “The problems faced by
emerging markets today will be the problems
faced by the US in the future. The
whole Obama Healthcare Reform plan
was based on two principles: low cost and
increased access. There were nearly 60
million Americans who were either
under-insured or uninsured, and the cost
of healthcare has been spiralling out of
control in the US.
“Any solutions for the healthcare market
in rural India or China needs to be based
on those same two principles – low cost and
increased access,” he says. “We need to find
very innovative solutions in order to gain
access to rural China and to rural India at
a low-cost price point. One might think:
what can a $200 per capita consumer
teach a $44,000 per capita consumer, but
it is the very same problem you are trying
to solve.
WORLD CLASS
Govindarajan is quick to emphasise that a
low price point does not mean inferior quality.
“On the contrary, you have to employ
world-class technologies if you are to come
up with great, technologically-advanced
solutions at low price points. And here too
lies the opportunity in the home market.”
He illustrates the point with the PCbased
ultrasound machine that GE developed
for the rural Chinese market, and
which has now been adapted and is selling
in the US for $15,000 – a fraction of the
bulkier premium products found in sophisticated
hospital imaging departments.
“In the US they sold large, bulky ultrasound
machines for as high as $350,000.
In China, 90pc of the population could not
afford that kind of machine, and the bulk
of the Chinese population are living in
rural areas with no hospitals, so they
56 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

MANAGEMENT INNOVATION »
needed the hospital to come to them. So
GE created an ultrasound machine that
was portable at a low price point of just
$15,000. That’s the kind of dramatic innovation
you have to do if you want to unlock
these markets.”
The interesting thing is the new markets
that this has unlocked back in GE’s home
base.
“Guess what? That $15,000 ultrasound
machine is transforming the US market for
GE because it has created new applications
in rich countries. For instance, if there is an
accident on a highway, you can’t put the big
$350,000 ultrasound machine into an ambulance,
whereas you can put a little
portable laptop machine in there.
“So it has opened up new applications
because the machines are small and
portable and low cost. It has really transformed
GE in the US. That’s what reverse
innovation is – it is not about just helping
India or China, it is really about how India
and China can help you.”
THE ORGANISATIONAL
CHALLENGE
Not that Govindarajan believes glocalisation
has become obsolete. “It is still valid
for rich countries and for rich consumers
in poor countries like China and India.
Where it falls down is for the mass markets
in China and India, which are fundamentally
different. Glocalisation will continue
to dominate strategy for some time to
come.
“There are deep conflicts between glocalisation
and reverse innovation, he says,
but they need to not only co-exist, they
need to co-operate within the organisation.
This presents a major organisational
challenge because those very centralised,
product-focused practices that have made
the multinationals so successful in glocalisation
will actually get in the way of reverse
innovation, which needs a decentralised,
local-market focus.
“There will inevitably be a tension that
needs to be managed, and that is where the
role of the CEO is vital. At GE, Jeff Immelt
himself has seen the need for that change
and that’s why he is taking a lead here.
“A multinational that wants to do reverse
innovation has to come up with a new
organisational structure that involves what
we call ‘local growth teams’, and these are
anchored in some key principles:
■ Local growth teams must have local
resources, like product development,
manufacturing, marketing, selling and
distribution
■ The local growth team must have the
right to draw from the company’s
global technologies and resources.
Take GE: the biggest advantage of
GE is its global world-class Global
Technology Centre in Milwaukee.
The ultrasound team in China was
fully connected to the centre
■ The local growth team has to take
an experiment and learn approach
because innovation endeavours are by
nature uncertain. These teams have to
learn quickly by testing assumptions,
so you cannot apply the same metrics
as for the established business
■ Ensure your local growth team
reports to someone high up in the
organisation. They will need strong
support from the top.
Not that Govindarajan is suggesting that
different local teams work in isolation, all
solving similar product needs. “A healthcare
product created for rural China may
be able to solve a problem in rural India or
rural Africa. So the local growth team in
China will be designated to develop that
product which can, with some adaptation,
then go to other countries with similar
product needs.”
So does this reverse innovation model
apply only to large multinationals like GE?
“It is worth remembering that there are
products in developed countries too that
require innovative solutions, so the reverse
innovation model is by no means exclusive
to global companies.
“It may be a matter of looking at underserved
or unserved markets in the home
country. You can innovate in one customer
segment and then bring that innovation
back to the top segment. Reverse innovation
can be a powerful concept even for a
US company that only operates in the US.”
CULTURAL CHANGE
Again Govindarajan emphasises that
reverse innovation is not an easy model
to introduce into to a large established
business, with its existing reporting structures
and practices. “This is a cultural
‘We need to find
very innovative
solutions in
order to gain
access to rural
China and to
rural India at a
low-cost price
point’
change. This is not simply a strategic
change. It is vital that the CEO embraces
the concept and places it at the centre of
the organisation’s strategy.
“It is about shifting the culture and shifting
the mindset and that is why it is so hard
to do, but I don’t think multinationals in
particular have any option,” says Govindarajan.
“In my view it is those companies
that succeed and win in emerging markets
that will remain vital and competitive in the
developed ones.”
In his research to date for the upcoming
book, he has found that the concept is one
that is resonating with business leaders.
“This is something that many multinationals
are likely to do because the growth
in developed countries is slowing down and
growth is taking off in these so-called
emerging economies.
“If you step back and think about it, historically,
multinationals catered to rich customers
and, in this world of six billion, just
a billion are rich. So multinationals took
care of them, and the remaining five billion
were left to charity and NGOs and government
to take care of. That’s an outmoded
concept.
“Bringing the five billion into the consumer
base, that is going to be the opportunity
in the next five decades if you will. In
fact,” he concludes, “ if I were to define one
of the biggest business opportunities for
multinationals in the next 50 years, it’s
going to be reverse innovation.”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 57

» THE SINO-IRISH LINK
Not unlike China itself,
Dublin’s Confucius Institute
has big ambitions to make
its presence felt and
assume a more pivotal role
in its environment.
Grainne Rothery spoke to its
director Liming Wang
The
CHINA
connection
I
RELAND’S ABILITY TO ESTABLISH DEEP CON-
NECTIONS, AT BOTH MICRO AND MACRO LEVELS,
WITH THE INCREASINGLY DOMINANT CHINESE
ECONOMY COULD HAVE A MAJOR IMPACT ON
THE COUNTRY’S FORTUNES OVER THE COMING
DECADES, ACCORDING TO LIMING WANG, DIREC-
TOR OF DUBLIN’S CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE. With
China about to officially overtake Japan later this year as
the second largest global economy after the US, the implications
of forging stronger links with this market are clear.
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THE SINO-IRISH LINK »
‘There are somehow
more similarities
between the Irish
and Chinese cultures
than other European
cultures’
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» THE SINO-IRISH LINK
While the value of bilateral trade between Ireland and China
was €7.3bn in 2008 and is increasing year-on-year, there is still
plenty of opportunity for substantial growth in this area over
the next few years. Equally important will be Ireland’s capacity
to market itself as a destination for inward investment, as Chinese
companies face increasing trade restrictions with the EU
down the line.
One of the focal points for the burgeoning
business, educational and
cultural connections between Ireland
and China is the UCD Confucius
Institute, which is currently housed
in a collection of offices in the Quinn
School on the university’s Belfield
Campus in Dublin. The current setting
may be somewhat modest but,
not unlike China itself, the institute
has big ambitions to make its presence
felt and assume a more pivotal
role in its environment.
Set up in 2006 as a joint venture
between Hanban (the Office of Chinese
Language Council International),
Renmin University of China
and UCD, the institute’s remit is to
promote Chinese culture and language
in Ireland.
It works alongside UCD’s own
Irish Institute for Chinese Studies
(IICS), an academic unit also set up
in 2006 that focuses on teaching and
research, as well as student recruitment
from China and professional
consultancy services for government
and business. Synergies between the
institutes include common office
space and a shared director, Dr Liming
Wang.
While Wang believes Irish business
has immense scope to succeed
in the Chinese market, he says support
structures must be developed as
quickly as possible.
An area of particular concern to
him is the development of Chinese
language skills in Ireland, which he
thinks has to start at secondary
school level.
“The younger generation in Ireland
is going to face serious challenges
in the future doing business
with China if they don’t know much about the language and
culture,” he says.
“Whether they like it or not China will economically become
a superpower. And, ideally, to learn the Mandarin Chinese language
you should start off very young.”
EDUCATION IMPERATIVE
According to Wang, a recent survey conducted by the Confucius
Institute and the IICS looking at the demand for Mandarin
Chinese teaching in secondary schools received an
overwhelmingly positive response. “The message was clear
and loud, there’s demand there. The parents, pupils, students
and the teachers in secondary schools all think it’s important
now to introduce Chinese as a foreign
language.”
‘We should
convince the
SMEs that there
are opportunities
there. China’s a
huge potential
market – how to
do it and to do it
right is not easy’
As a result of the levels of interest,
the Confucius Institute ran pilot
teaching programmes in selected
schools in the 2007/08 academic
year. Following the success of these
and discussions with the National
Council of Curriculum Assessment
(NCCA), the institute was officially
asked to design and put together a
transition year unit as a first step in
the process to getting Chinese onto
the curriculum. In September 2010,
that programme – which incorporates
Chinese language and culture
elements – was rolled out to 20
schools, with Hanban sponsoring
16 staff to get it up and running.
The course has been specifically
designed with online elements so
Mandarin language teachers will not
be required for all aspects of it.
“At the end of the next academic
year we should get a revised version
of the transition year unit and
hopefully the NCCA will promote it
to all secondary schools in Ireland,”
says Wang, adding that the next
step would be to make it a curriculum
subject and introduce exams
around it.
While Wang also expects Mandarin
Chinese to be introduced as a
third-level subject in the near future,
UCD currently offers a BComm with
Chinese Studies, interest in which
has increased dramatically over the
last couple of years. First preference
CAO applications for the
course, which currently has 20
places and includes a year’s placement
in Remnin University in
China, increased by 80pc in 2010,
he points out.
Launched in 2006, the first tranche of graduates were conferred
in September of this year and Wang says all have already
secured jobs or internships or are involved in postgraduate
programmes.
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THE SINO-IRISH LINK »
BUILDING BUSINESS RELATIONS
The Confucius Institute is also involved in promoting bilateral
economic and business relations. As part of its market research
into the kind of services Irish businesses were looking for in this
area, it carried out another survey that resulted in the publication
earlier this year of the book Doing Business in China.
“We identified what kind of training businesspeople need in
their business practice and prioritised
all this together to form different
short training programmes,”
says Wang. “We are going to promote
such short training programmes
for corporates, especially
for big companies. Many SMEs
wouldn’t currently pay much attention
to China but I think in the future
we should convince the SMEs that
there are opportunities there. China’s
a huge potential market – how to do
it and to do it right is not easy.
“In all the cases of Irish companies
successfully doing business in China,
they all have learning curves. Initially
they do it without much knowledge
of China or the culture or even
the language, but all successful ones
will say you do need the understanding
of the Chinese culture and even
the language.
“The more successful the business
or company is in China the more
seriously they take the language and
the culture,” he continues. “I think a
very good example would be Declan
Kelleher, the Irish ambassador to
China, who made a lot of effort to
learn the Chinese language.”
These two key surveys have given
Wang and his team a clear view of
where they need to focus their energies
in the short term. But they are
also involved in promoting cultural
events, including the annual Chinese
New Year Festival, and running various
kinds of language and cultural
evening courses for the general public.
According to Wang, interest in
and attendance at such courses is
growing all the time.
Wang’s dream has always been for
the institute to have its own dedicated
building on campus. It is one that looks set to be realised.
The Chinese government had already committed €5m towards
the total €7.5m funding required and just days after we spoke,
An Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD told a visiting high-level delegation
from China that the Irish Government would fund the balance.
‘We have to work
out a long list of
the benefits of
why Chinese
companies would
make Ireland
their gateway
into Europe’
“I think this building should be a showcase, kind of like a window
for Irish people to come and experience Chinese culture
here,” says Wang. “Physically, it is in the Chinese style. We will
probably have a Chinese tea house, a Chinese experience corner,
a resource room and different facilities where people can
come to know China and to understand the culture better. It will
act as the centre of any China-related activities in the future in
Dublin and beyond.”
LOOKING TO INWARD
INVESTMENT
Wang believes Ireland has the potential
to attract inward investment as
China finds it increasingly difficult
to export its products over the coming
years. “My personal view is Ireland
has an opportunity,” he says.
“We have so many things, for
instance, in common between China
and Ireland. There are somehow
more similarities between the Irish
and Chinese cultures than other
European cultures. Also, we both
have a colonial history. And we both
experienced this booming period
over the past 20 years. And obviously
the English language is part of
the reason.
“But we have to work out a long list
of the benefits of why Chinese companies
would make Ireland their gateway
into Europe, apart from the tax
benefits and the language. If we
haven’t got that then how can we convince
a Chinese company to invest in
Ireland?
“In the past 15 years the booming
tiger economy mainly relied on
money from FDI from the US,” he
continues. “You cannot do that for
the next 15 years. So, for the next 15
years if somewhere like China comes
to Ireland to invest here to aim at
Europe, if the IDA or Ireland succeeds
in that, then you will guarantee
another booming economy.
“We haven’t seen big investment
from any big Chinese company into
Ireland yet,” concludes Wang. “So
how we put this strategy together
to convince the Chinese government
to encourage business to come to Ireland – I think that’s
a very important issue for Ireland.”
Clearly organisations like the Confucius Institute will be on
hand to promote that transition, if Liming Wang is anything to
go by.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 61

» THE SINO-IRISH LINK
A former Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the year, Irishman
Liam Casey was one of the early
players to spot the opportunities in
the Chinese market. Today his
company PCH International employs
1,200 people and has a turnover of
US$400m. He spoke to Grainne
Rothery
RECOGNISING THE WEALTH OF OPPORTUNITIES IN
THE CHINESE MARKET AT A VERY EARLY STAGE, AND
BEING NIMBLE AND AGILE ENOUGH TO ADAPT TO
RAPID DEVELOPMENTS IN THAT MARKET OVER THE
LAST DECADE, HAVE HELPED ENTREPRENEUR LIAM
CASEY BUILD A GLOBAL BUSINESS THAT TODAY
EMPLOYS 1,200 PEOPLE AND WILL HAVE A US$400M
TURNOVER THIS YEAR, UP FROM US$150M IN 2009.
Casey’s first foray into China was a trip to a Taipei trade show
in 1996, followed by visits to Shenzhen in southern China touring
factories and sourcing products. “From just being here on
the ground and working with some of the factories I could see
there was huge potential to take a lot of the confusion out of the
process and to try to streamline it,” he says. “We could see that
if it was a challenge for us to get it done, then it must be a challenge
for everybody to get it done. The opportunity was to simplify
that process.”
And so, PCH International (named after the Pacific Coast
Highway in California, where Casey had previously spent a few
years living and working) was born.
From 1996 to 2003, the company focused on sourcing components
and simple products from factories in China and delivering
them to end markets all over the world, starting in Ireland
and then moving on to the US.
“Then in 2003 I could see there was no future really in pure
trading in China because the Chinese factories were starting to
open sales offices overseas,” explains Casey. “And customers
were getting braver and going deeper into China. It was changing
very fast from a knowledge-based challenge to an executionbased
challenge, which is what it is today.
“It used to be about knowledge because you couldn’t find any
factories,” he continues. “Now it’s much easier because there
are so many online sites that will help you find them. Then you
had more companies actually taking products out of China. So
if we wanted to compete, we had to really be able to execute and
deliver.”
In response, the company set up a facility in Shenzhen in 2004.
While it continues to outsource all manufacturing, assembly,
packaging and fulfilment are carried out in that facility. Today,
PCH International has 850 operational staff at the facility,
‘The real
challenge to the
western world is
that this is one of
the most creative,
innovative,
entrepreneurial
places on the
planet’
while the other 350 are based between the head office in Cork,
the company’s Shenzhen office, sales operations in the US and
software development in Cape Town.
According to Casey, many other manufacturing, packaging
and printing and logistics companies have set up bases in China,
but none are in end-to-end supply chain like PCH. “It’s very hard
to bring it all together if you’re starting from scratch. Our company
has evolved over 15 years to where it is today.”
For any businesses considering the Chinese market, Casey
says it’s vital that they really understand what they want to do
there. “One thing you need to do is to focus and segment. You
can come here to take advantage of the low-cost manufacturing
or you can come here for the size of the domestic market, which
is huge. You can’t do both.”
62 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

THE SINO-IRISH LINK »
Photo courtesy of Ernst & Young
The Land of
OPPORTUNITY
CRACKING THE DOMESTIC MARKET
Looking to the future, Casey says his company is slowly starting
to do domestic business in China.
“A lot of clients are now asking us to help them make products
in China to supply to the Chinese market. The middleclass
market here in China is growing at a fast pace and
creates huge opportunities for foreign companies.”
While it was vital for Casey to be personally based in China in
the early days, having a strong team in place means he remains
there out of choice, while also travelling extensively throughout
the world for the business. “The pace and the speed of the
business, the whole dynamic of China, is phenomenal,” he says.
“With so much opportunity, you just want to be here to take
advantage of it.
“Foreign media who come here often write about counterfeiting
and copying and so on. To me, that’s not the challenge
to the western world. The real challenge to the western world
is that this is one of the most creative, innovative, entrepreneurial
places on the planet. That’s where the competition is
going to come from.”
Described as ‘Mr China’ by James Fallows in The Atlantic
magazine in 2007, Casey dismisses the moniker. “You see people
come to China and they’re here for six weeks and they’ll
write a book on China; they’re here for six months and they
might write a blog; if they’re here for six years they wouldn’t
write a page on China,” he says. “You get to know that you
know nothing about the place. There’s no such thing as a Mr
China, because even the Chinese don’t know China. It’s huge.”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 63

» LESSONS FROM BIOTECH
Effective collaborative
networks will be key to
Ireland’s fostering of
innovation, says
Professor Woody
Powell, a leading
economic sociologist
at Stanford University,
but there are pitfalls
that must be avoided,
he tells Ann O’Dea
64 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

LESSONS FROM BIOTECH »
THE
COLLABORATION
BALANCE
STANFORD’S PROFESSOR WOODY POWELL BELIEVES
IRELAND CAN EXCEL AT INNOVATION BY USING COL-
LABORATIVE NETWORKS AND DEVELOPING HIGH-
TECH CLUSTERS, BUT HE URGES CAUTION ON JUST
HOW COLLABORATION IS DEVELOPED BETWEEN
ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY.
In the course of his research, Powell has examined the transfer
of university science into commercial development by
technology- and science-based companies throughout the world.
As part of his research into the biotechnology industry in the
US, Powell studied 11 regions that were rich in resources such as
scientific knowledge, money and business skills. Each community
had the potential to form effective biotech clusters, yet only
three formed robust clusters while the other eight did not.
Powell concluded that the successful clusters were marked
by the presence of local ‘anchor tenants’ who fostered the values
of openness and transparency in the region and encouraged
exploration, a diversity of types of organisations and a
dense web of local relationships.
He was in Ireland this summer to address the InterTradeIreland
All-island 2010 Innovation Conference at University College
Dublin. Powell told delegates that the lessons drawn from his
research are transferable to other industrial sectors and could
be instrumental in the development of a robust knowledgebased
economy on the island of Ireland.
“The implication for all industrial sectors is that successful clusters
require the thorough mixing of people, ideas and resources
across the university, business and financial communities,” he
said. “Having organisational diversity and catalytic organisations
that provide the relational glue to hold clusters together
and facilitate the transfer of best practices are essential.”
We caught up with Powell after the conference to speak with
him further, and find out more about why some clusters worked
and some did not.
“This variety is hugely important for the innovation to get generated.
In the clusters that worked, you had different types of
organisations, small and large, public and private. Indeed, in the
US, non-profits played a very, very important role in the development
of these clusters – non-profit research hospitals, nonprofit
think tanks, non-profit research centres: places that were
neither public sector nor commercial; entities that initially did
a lot more of the translational work that wasn’t being done in
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 65

» LESSONS FROM BIOTECH
‘No connections
hurt you, but too
much connection
hurts you as well.
It’s about getting
that balance
right’
the universities.
“So, that variety is critical, but the variety only matters if
there’s connectivity across the types of organisations, these
multi-faceted networks in which people are linked in different
ways and in which you see job mobility across the different
organisations,” he continues.
“And then in every case where there was a success there was
– we pulled the term from real-estate economics – an ‘anchor
tenant’. But unlike the large department store that protects the
shopping mall, in this case what the anchor did was protect the
openness of the community and encourage the sharing of ideas.”
Looking at his three successful biotech clusters in the US, he
says the universities were the anchor in the Boston area, the
venture capitalists in the Bay area and in San Diego it was the
creation of what was called the Connect programme.
“In San Diego, the idea with Connect was that there hadn’t
been a community there of consultants, venture capitalists,
lawyers, etc, to be the intermediaries who would work with the
scientists and engineers. You had this population of biomedical
researchers, this group of very skilled engineers who had been
doing satellite transmission for the Navy, and neither group had
any business background at all.
“So the Connect programme was not just a networking exercise,
but the networking happened around lectures on intellectual
property, licensing, what’s needed to begin a start-up, things
like that. It became a venue in which they could come up with
ways of imagining new models of companies and new research
spaces, continually raising the bar.
“It was in those places where secrecy was more the norm, or
where there was top-down control, that you just didn’t see the
development as fast, and as a consequence they got left behind.”
INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA
Powell is the first to advocate collaboration between universities
and industry, but he warns about getting the balance right.
“While collaboration is vital, the risk is that when universities
get too tethered to performing industry R&D, the space that
they explore becomes much narrower. So they may make lots
of good tangible things that are useful, but they can also miss
out on ‘first in the world’ type results.
“The kids who were searching for an algorithm that would
annotate the web certainly never had in mind that something
would come of it. It was a purely mathematical and computing
question, yet 12 years later Google has changed the way we live.
They were completely blue sky – different, pure questions. So I
do have a real worry about too tightly linking academic research
to industry.
“We’ve done a lot of empirical work that looks at universities
that are not very well connected, and those extremely connected
to industry. What comes up time and time again is that
the quality of the science and the commercial pay-off is
strongest when it’s somewhere in the middle. No connections
hurt you, but too much connection hurts you as well. It’s about
getting that balance right.
“I also think that universities don’t make very good companies,”
he continues. “Our universities are created for a particular
reason and asking them to try and organise themselves to
be engines of economic development is not a very good idea. To
66 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

LESSONS FROM BIOTECH »
collaboration or connectivity, you suddenly start
thinking of warm fuzzies, and you have to be a little
careful here because collaboration can become
the ties that bind, but it can also become the ties
that blind.
“You do need to encourage healthy rivalry,” he
says. “If you think about the world of football or
universities or whatever, good teams, good universities
are good precisely because they have a
rival. Absent that rival and they can become lazy,”
he warns.
“So what we see in the successful clusters is this
sense of competitive collaboration. You and I may
be racing against each other on a cancer drug, but
down the road we might collaborate on a cardiology
drug. So you have to not think of your opponent
as someone you would annihilate – they may
become your friend later. Yet, at the same time,
there is this healthy sense that the game is about
getting there first, and about who can develop
something novel and new and generate the rewards
from it. It’s a tough set of rules to work out, but
there are great benefits from getting it right.”
suddenly say that we want our universities more entrepreneurial
is kind of asking the wrong person to drive the train.
“Then, there is also the danger – we’ve seen this in the US –
that when universities do become much more engaged commercially
and successful at it, that becomes a rationale for legislatures
to cut their funding and say ‘now you’ve earned your
own income, go do it’. What’s missed there is how variable economic
success is. So they’re taking sustained regular funding
on the basis of something highly variable and saying that’s going
to be your line of income.”
Finally, he cautions against stymying innovation through an
overly short-term commercial focus on research. “You see this in
some countries. Increasingly, with grant proposals they ask people
to write about the commercial implications of this research.
To the extent that this research is really novel, you shouldn’t
know what those commercial implications are, right? That’s why
you are doing the research, it’s for exploration.”
That said, there are all kinds of advantages to having sustained
contact between the academy and industry, says Powell.
“I think one of the most important is the personnel movement,
so that people experience working in two settings and become
more familiar with one another. They take lessons from industry
on how things are well managed back to the academy, and
take lessons from the academy on how people deal with conflicting
ideas to industry. These are really useful things.”
COMPETITIVE COLLABORATION
Powell cautions too that collaboration should not mean the loss
of healthy competition. “Too often when people use the word
ROLE FOR GOVERNMENT
I ask Powell what, in his experience, has been the
role of government and policy in developing these
clusters.
“There’s an enormous number of things that
government did that were quite helpful, but they were all second-
or third-order things. There’s little that we’ve seen that you
can point to that shows direct policy levers where you pull this
lever and that amount of innovation comes out.”
However, he says there are some key facilitating policies that
can be put in place by government.
“Investment in basic science is hugely important, immigration
laws that allow people and students from other countries
to come to your universities is terrifically important, funding
in biotech for disease-related work – we found that was really
critical.”
There were others, says Powell, but the key support comes
back to basic funding. “You know, every scientist in this will tell
you it was the NIH (National Institute of Health) funding of
basic research that played the biggest roles in success.
“My colleague at Stanford Paul David [professor of Economics
and senior fellow of the Institute for Economic Policy
Research] has this very simple but eloquent argument about
the stocks and flows of knowledge: ‘If you focus just on the
stocks you don’t generate any flow, but if you focus only on
flows you never produce the stocks’. It is this very difficult
equilibrium that you have to try to obtain between application
and pure knowledge.”
Woody Powell is professor of Education, Sociology, Organisational
Behaviour, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication
at Stanford University, California.
This article first appeared in Irish Director magazine, Autumn
2010.
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 67

» GREEN ECONOMY
‘There is significant
opportunity and reward
in getting it right.
The trick will be to make
sure we’ve got good
information and are
taking thoughtful
decisions on the basis
of that’
Advisor to both the UN and the UK government,
and chairman of the Sustainable Development
Commission (SDC) in the UK, Will Day visited
Dublin earlier this year, where he told business
leaders that sustainability would be the single-biggest
THE
business opportunity of the 21st century
sustainability
OPPORTUNITY
WILL DAY’S CREDENTIALS WITHIN THE CLIMATE
CHANGE DEBATE ARE PRETTY IMPECCABLE. As chairman
of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) in the
UK, he advises UK cabinet ministers on sustainability issues,
and is also special advisor to the UN Development Programme
(UNDP), and senior associate of the University of Cambridge
Programme for Sustainability Leadership. So when he came to
Dublin earlier this year, some of Ireland’s most senior business
leaders turned out to hear what he had to say.
68 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

GREEN ECONOMY »
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 69

» GREEN ECONOMY
Here to speak at a Business & Leadership Briefing on The
Green Economy, he told delegates why sustainability matters to
us all – and why it should matter to business.
The population of the Earth is now consuming 1.3 times its
available resources, he warns, but out of the chaos come opportunities.
Indeed, says Day, sustainability is the single biggest
business opportunity of the 21st century.
Climate change issues have come
to dominate the sustainability debate,
according to Day who, among other
roles, monitors and scrutinises the
UK government’s sustainable management
of its estate and of its sustainable
procurement.
“Climate change and carbon have
taken the front-runner position on
this broader sustainability issue,” he
says. “And I can understand that
because carbon can be measured,
counted, weighted and valued in a
way that some of the softer issues
don’t allow.
“However, if you string together
the impact that we are collectively
having, not just on the atmosphere,
but on soil and water and biodiversity,
on ocean chemistry, that is pretty
scary,” he continues. “It has been said
that if you want to see panic, look into
the eyes of the climate scientist. I
would argue that you might also look
in the eyes of social scientists and
ocean chemists.”
‘There is no such
thing as a free
market, markets are
regulated all over
the world. Why not
regulate it for this
purpose?’
SCIENCE AND “UNSCIENCE”
Day is concerned about the amount
of confusion that reigns in the area
of environmental issues and climate
change. “There is a hot debate
based on a mixture of science and
‘unscience’, and it has become almost
as confusing as whether or not it’s
healthy to eat butter or margarine.
You get facts and quotes all over the
place, which is a real shame because
one of the problems with the doomsday
picture is that it can be very
disempowering. You end up with
people thinking ‘oh my God I’m on
the Titanic, so I think I might stay
in first class, and not worry about
steerage’.”
We simply cannot afford to think like that, he says. “We have
to be a bit calm and cold-blooded about it and recognise that
there is an awful amount of semantics buzzing around, a lot of
vested interests that are not really interested in seeing us move
towards a low carbon economy, that are not necessarily ready
to change the rules of the game which have clearly favoured
developed economies over less developed economies.
“I think what is being missed in all of that is that there is a
huge opportunity for us to correct what we now know we have
been doing inappropriately and, in this, fortune favours the
bold,” says Day. “I think we will see companies, governments and
societies get their heads around this
stuff and set about evolving into
the kind of long-term sustainable
economies that we are all going to
need. So there is risk in getting in
wrong? There is significant opportunity
and reward in getting it right.
The trick will be to make sure we’ve
got good information and are taking
thoughtful decisions on the basis of
that.”
Originally appointed by UK prime
minister at the time, Gordon Brown,
in July 2009, Day witnessed first
hand the “disappointing” UN COP15
process in Copenhagen last December.
“I think the official word people are
using on this is ‘disappointing’, other
people are devastated by it, others in
the dark green movement are
delighted in some ways because their
view is ‘Let’s forget those big processes
and start again’.”
COLLECTIVE PROGRESS
“None of it as far as I am concerned
should impede individual and collective
progress, and I’m very heartened
by the number of individuals
and organisations that have said
‘Well we cannot afford to wait and
let’s get on and do the stuff’. Yes you
have the people who are waiting to be
told, but quite a lot are saying ‘I can
do something about this’.”
Not that Day underestimates the
importance of gaining that global
agreement at governmental level.
“It’s going to take a level playing
field, regulations and global agreements
to really bring about the
change that is needed. And the reality
is that unless China and the US,
those big economies, see value in it,
politicians are going to be under enormous pressure just to wait
for a bit longer in order to act.”
Certainty, he agrees, is “hugely important”, but the business
and investment community has a responsibility here to act also.
“You know it was not so long ago that a group of business leaders
70 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

GREEN ECONOMY »
walked into 10 Downing Street to see Tony Blair, prime minister
at the time, to say ‘Regulate us, we know that we need to make
certain decisions for the long-term health of our companies but
the rules of the game don’t actually let us do it’. We know we are
making sub-optimal business decisions because of uncertainty
on the price of carbon. These are the things that we would like
to do differently, but we aren’t able to do it’.”
CORPORATE LEADERSHIP
Indeed, many credit this kind of
corporate leadership with the UK
becoming the first country in the
world to create a legally binding
long-term framework to cut carbon
emissions by passing its Climate
Change Act, 2008.
“It’s not unique now, but it was
certainly the first attempt by a government
to make a reduction of carbon
in the economy a statutory
duty. The idea is that we reduce by
80pc on a base line of 1990 emissions.
If I was cynical – which I’m
not – I might say it’s an easy enough
thing to say to reduce by 80pc by
2050 because by the time you get to
that last 40pc it will be somebody
else’s responsibility.
“The fact remains there are intermediate
targets for governments
and individual departments to hit,
and that has driven all sorts of different
behaviours and efficiencies.
You get value for money for your
taxpayer’s pound or euro. And by
making it a legal duty it puts the
issue above party politics, which is
crucial.”
The Bill has already gone some
way to affecting behavioural change
in the business world too, says Day.
“They are all looking at the potential
increase in costs of business.
Anybody who uses energy – which is
basically everybody – will need to
look at the quality of their buildings,
their insulation, their energy bills,
the fuel they are using, the vehicle
fleet they have got, the production
techniques, what they are wrapping
their products in, everything!
Because where there is carbon, there will be cost.
‘You don’t have to be a
passionate believer in
climate change to
recognise that
governments are going
to move us down that
path. This is not going to
go away so why not
exploit it?’
“Unfortunately, the business model does not yet adequately
push them towards fossil fuel alternatives because we’re not
currently paying the true cost of that fuel. Part of the change is
going to come as a matter of course, partly as peak fossil fuels
start to bite, and things start to get more expensive. If you look
at the conversation around global oil reserves, the notion of peak
oil is certainly becoming more accepted than it was five years
ago when it seemed to be a minority sport.
“What we don’t seem to be able to do is to pre-empt that,” continues
Day. “We seem to be oddly committed to waiting until
the very tipping edge before changing, and that is a real shame
because there is a real risk that if we
will take ourselves where science is
telling us, we will find it awfully hard
to get back.”
So those companies and organisations
that are committed to lowering
and managing their carbon emissions
now will surely be at an advantage?
“Well there is the classic debate between
first mover advantage and first
mover disadvantage – many ask: ‘Do
we wait and see what the others do?’.
That is where government has an absolute
duty to recognise where there
is risk and where there is opportunity.
Tax money shouldn’t be subsidising
normal behaviour, but if you are wanting
to encourage first movers, that is a
perfectly good use of our money.
“There is no such thing as a free
market, markets are regulated all
over the world. Why not regulate it
for this purpose? It’s about building
markets, so for example you get lots
of conversations here in the UK about
using the power of government procurement
to change the way manufacturers
are producing. Government
is a huge purchaser of products. It
can shape the way in which business
responds to demand, and can do so in
a way that produces returns and
rewards for business and for investment.
So there is a very clear role for
the state to play.”
Not that business should wait
around, suggests Day.
“Business is about risk and opportunity,”
he says. “Business is pretty
good at identifying and taking risk,
and it seems to me that this move
from where we are to where we need
to be, in terms of a low carbon future,
is a no-brainer. You don’t have to be a
passionate believer in climate change to recognise that governments
do believe the science, and are going to move us down
that path. This is not going to go away so why not exploit it? Why
not in the best sense benefit from it and drive it, rather than get
dragged unwillingly down that path?”
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 71

» FREEZEFRAME
» INTO THE
DEEP BLUE
By Eleanor Cunningham,
Pablo Rojas, Dr Elaine
McCarthy and Dores
Maguire, UCD School of
Agriculture, Food Science
and Veterinary Medicine
Microscopic image of the
parasite sea lice. Sea lice live
on salmon and feed on their
mucus and skin. In high
enough numbers the sea lice
can kill the salmon. It causes
a major impact on the
farming of salmon in Ireland
Funded by Enterprise
Ireland and the National
Development Plan Marine
Programme
72 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FREEZEFRAME »
Each year, University College Dublin organises the Research
Images Competition, offering its researchers the opportunity
to submit compelling digital images created during the course
of their research. The competition aims to find the most
innovative and imaginative research images that convey the
depth and range of research taking place at the university. On
these pages we feature some of the winners from 2009
Research
in the
frame
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 73

» FREEZEFRAME
» GRAND CANAL SQUARE
LIGHTING
By Elizabeth Shotton and
James Young, UCD School of
Architecture, Landscape & Civil
Engineering
Part of an urban analysis/research
study of lighting strategies in public
environments
» WARHOL EGGS
By Dr Yolanda Alvarez and Beata
Sapetto-Rebow, UCD School of
Biomolecular and Biomedical
Sciences
Image of a zebrafish egg two hours
after fertilisation (16 cells) stained for
Topolsomerasell and PCNA antibodies
Funded by the Health Research
Board and Science Foundation
Ireland, UCD Conway Institute
74 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FREEZEFRAME »
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 75

» FREEZEFRAME
» COG FABRICATED BY
FOCUSED ION BEAM
NANOLITHOGRAPHY
By Dr Ian Reid, Dr Zsolt Kovacs,
Dermot Stratton and Dr David J
Browne, UCD School of Chemical
and Bioprocess Engineering
A focused ion beam (FIB) was
used to mill a cog of 15 microns in
diameter from a silicon wafer at the
UCD Naono Imaging and Material
Analysis Centre (NIMAC)
Funded by Enterprise Ireland
and Science Foundation Ireland
76 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010

FREEZEFRAME »
» BIOINFOMANIAC
By Ruben Bonilla-Santiago and Pablo
Rojas, UCD School of Agriculture, Food
Science and Veterinary Medicine
Bioinfomanic (noun): An eager scientist
who acts as the interface between biology
and technology
Funded by Science Foundation Ireland
and the Department of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Food
Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 77

» FREEZEFRAME
SKATE AND SPRAY
By Connell Vaughan, UCD School of
Philosophy
While documenting street art in
London, a skateboarder leapt into
the frame. Such occurrences
differentiate street art from more
institutional art forms
» CONNECTIVITY
By Dr Mark Pickering, UCD School of
Biomolecular & Biomedical Sciences
Complex patterns formed by
neurons in a cerebellar culture
Funded by MS Ireland
78 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 1 Autumn/Winter 2010