EirePreneur

We could build the Holodeck tomorrow

I got kind of excited when I suddenly realized how close we are to realizing a rudimentary version of Star Trek's Holodeck, so I duplicated our latest post on Daynuv below.

Though some of these technologies are in the early stages of development none of them are in the realm of science fiction. Now all we need to do is put them together - 

Cybercarpet / Cyberwalk / omni-directional treadmill

 

PLUS

Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display

 

PLUS

Project Natal

 

PLUS

3Dvisor

 

PLUS

Opensim

EQUALS

World Builder

Of Grand Plans and smaller bytes 'n pieces

1) Congratulations to Ger Hartnett of CoClarity on winning the Innovation and Market Entry award at the LEAP Programme Showcase. And a big fat cheque!

2) The same Ger Hartnett started colating Startup Ireland Ideas based around the debate ensuing from the publication of Patrick Collison's Irish Times article - The Grand Plan. My own modest little proposal went as follows - 

What I’d like to see too is more €6,000-ish grant schemes like the level 1 awards made by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland each year. I was one recipient of such a grant last year and it gave me the opportunity to invest a lot of time getting my project off the ground.

Keith Kennedy is after announcing on Twitter that he is to receive a level 1 award through this year’s scheme. And I know that’s going to make a big difference to him in terms of the commitment he can give to his project idea. 

In some ways there’s not a lot you can do with €6k but in other ways there is. As many other alumni of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland have proven over the last few years. And access to the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland network is invaluable. 

I often wonder why us Tuesday-pushers don’t create a similar but crowdsourced grant scheme using Pledgebank or other crowdfunding service to fund (non-social) business ideas IQ-prize style by the group of people donating to the fund… and I do mean donating. We could then provide advice/feedback on an on-going basis in the same way Social Entrepreneurs Ireland do, through an on-line forum / network / twitter. I for one would be happily pledge €60 to such a fund as I’m sure would 100 others canvassed through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. In fact I’d be happy to make such a donation every couple of months. Anyone want to help make it happen?

3) Speaking of the IQ-prize, the shortlist has been announced. Congratulations to all who've made it this far and best of luck in the final round.

4) Coworking / hotdesking is an ongoing interest so when I came across a rather grand coworking space located in London, under the label of 'Private Members Club' I asked my twitter followers if there are any comparable locations in Ireland. And got surprising answers.

5) Alex O'Connor says - "These guys are helping Irish business think their way out of recession. Its a 'not for profit' initiative". I hate to be cynical but I don't like the focus of the seminars on one particular book and 3 hours of personal exercises.

Limerick Open Source meetup was great, next up July 1st

We (at Daynuv) attended our first Limerick Open Source meetup on Thursday evening and had a great chat with a 'different' bunch of people to our usual circle. I guess I've been going to so many Barcamps and OpenCoffees for the last few years and mingling with like-minded entrepreneurs that it was a nice change to talk with a group of (mainly) employees on Thursday night.

I don't know whether it's due to the recession or what but Limerick OpenCoffee has taken on a somewhat less relaxed tone lately so the Open Source meetup in the Marriot Hotel hit the right notes with me and I'm not just saying that because we were invited to demonstrate our Virtual Europe opensim.

So thanks again to Tim Bunce and here's looking forward to the next meetup on the 1st of July. If you're in the mid-west region I thoroughly recommend going along.