Think Visual harvesting graphics as the Irish Data Forum takes place. Photo by Conor McCabe Photography
On Friday 22 November, Silicon Republic hosted its first Irish Data Forum in the Convention Centre Dublin, bringing together experts from business and academia to discuss how we can put the ‘I’ back into IT.
The first keynote speaker at the event was Gartner fellow and research VP Stephen Prentice, who weighed up the risks and rewards presented to business by an oncoming ‘data tsunami’.
This food for thought was followed by a panel discussion on how Ireland can become the best place for data, featuring Tanya Duncan, managing director of Interxion; Prof Stefan Decker, director of INSIGHT at NUI Galway; Maurice Mortell, managing director of TelecityGroup Ireland; and Jane Kinghan, manager of OVH Ireland.
Second up to the keynote podium was Phil Townsend, communications director for one of the most well-known sports teams in the world: Manchester United. In describing how the football club uses technology to connect with fans – all 659m of them worldwide – Townsend noted how football gets bigger as the planet gets smaller and more connected.
Townsend’s stat-filled talk was followed by a panel discussion on how we can extract value from big data (such as that collected from millions of fans engaging with Manchester United online) for the benefit of business, government and society. Joining Townsend in teasing out this question was Stephen Moffatt, cloud computing and business analytics leader at IBM; Andrew Maybin, managing director of Tibus; and Dr Tracey Lauriault, a post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) at NUI Maynooth.
Check out the infographic below summarising the main ideas generated during the event and, for more coverage on the Irish Data Forum, visit the dedicated microsite.
Infographic by Think Visual
