Thirteen new high-tech and knowledge-intensive business ventures have joined NovaUCD’s 2011 entrepreneurship programme.
The NovaUCD 2011 Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP), which has just started, helps academic and research entrepreneurs at University College Dublin transform innovative ideas from intellectual concepts into strong, fully developed commercial businesses.
The programme which is in its 16th year, and is supported by Enterprise Ireland, has witnessed 170 new ventures and 260 individuals successfully complete the programme. Previous participants include companies such as BiancaMed, Celtic Catalysts, Equinome, JLizard and RendezVu.
The CCDP is a nine-month, part-time course, which provides entrepreneurs with the essential skills needed to transform their ideas into commercially feasible new ventures.
The new ventures and individuals participating on this year’s programme are commercialising research undertaken throughout the university, including research in the UCD schools of agriculture, food science and veterinary medicine, architecture, landscape and civil engineering, biomolecular and biomedical science, business, chemical and bioprocess engineering, computer science and informatics, electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering, along with medicine and medical science.
Pat Frain, director, NovaUCD, said, “These ventures will in time generate new high-tech jobs and this aspect of the CCDP is, of course, critically important in the current economic climate.”
The 2011 CCDP award winners will be awarded a prize fund of €30,000. In addition to cash prizes and six months of free NovaUCD desk space, Arthur Cox and Deloitte will provide professional services and AccountsIQ will give a free subscription to its accountancy software.
JLizard, a new software development company, was the overall winner of the NovaUCD 2010 CCDP. JLizard has developed a cloud-based product to allow organisations to cut the time needed to analyse the log data of their IT systems from days to minutes. JLizard was established by Dr Trevor Parsons and Dr Viliam Holub as a spin-out company from the Performance Engineering Laboratory in UCD’s School of Computer Science and Informatics.
New ventures participating on the 2011 CCDP
AntTweeter is developing a web-based question and answering service which utilises the power of Twitter to disseminate the questions and answers to a wide audience.
Applied Process Consulting provides process engineering consulting services to the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.
Entrepreneurshipnet.tv is developing entrepreneurship education resources and tools aimed at a global consumer base of entrepreneurs, academics, students, SMEs and venture capitalists, along with public and private libraries.
Equilume is developing a light mask which provides individual light therapy to horses in order to advance the active period of a mare’s reproductive cycle.
Fairtricity is developing a software application to provide a fair electricity bill splitting method for users in shared living environments.
ForkStream is developing a solution for telecom operators to allow mobile users to roam seamlessly between different mobile providers while using bandwidth-heavy services.
Mobifit Technologies is developing a device and associated software for monitoring exercise activity, providing qualitative and quantitative feedback of a user’s exercise performance.
Molecule Anti-Angiogenics has identified novel anti-angiogenic molecules that can be used as drugs to inhibit the formation of unwanted blood vessels which has been associated with ophthalmic diseases and cancer.
miRFUNCTION is developing microRNA protein targets to manipulate cell death in drug-resistant cancer cells. The promoter is Dr Fiona Furlong, UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science.
Novel Energy Absorption Mechanism is developing a product with a novel energy absorption mechanism which allows for impact energy dissipation in more than one direction which has multiple applications, including crash helmet design.
Ovine Genetics aims to provide a commercial semen collection and storage centre for pedigree and commercial sheep farmers in order to assist them in maximising the breeding process.
Scream Interactive is developing novel speech technologies for the interactive entertainment industry.
Sustainability in Historic Buildings is developing energy simulation software for the analysis of the energy performance of historic buildings. This solution will allow historic buildings to adhere to energy conservation demands while maintaining their artistic, historic and cultural value.
