Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs in Ireland and DCU Ryan Academy will pool their respective innovation and entrepreneurial strengths for new Open Innovation Bootcamp in Dublin
Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs in Ireland has set up an initiative to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship using a boot camp concept. The company is tapping into DCU Ryan Academy’s entrepreneurship expertise for its new innovation model.
Originally pioneered by Bell Labs in Belgium as an internal incubator, boot camps aim to bring together people with ideas and people with know-how. Alcatel-Lucent’s first entrepreneurial boot camp in Ireland will be hosted by Dublin City University (DCU) Ryan Academy.
The Open Innovation Bootcamp model is unique in that for the first time, participation was invited from researchers working in the eight Irish universities and colleges that agreed to participate in the scheme.
The Open Innovation Bootcamp at a glance:
- The boot camp will be set up in Dublin until March 2012, supported by DCU Ryan Academy
- Intensive, specialised training and guidance available as part of the boot camp process to accelerate the development and launch of the best ideas
- Six teams will progress to the face-to-face training sessions – three from Alcatel-Lucent UK and Ireland and three from Irish academic institutions.
DCU Ryan Academy
DCU Ryan Academy will provide face-to-face training on modules such as feasibility, finance and cash flow, marketing and sales. Staff at the academy were also involved in mentoring the teams through the initial stages of the programme.
Two recent innovations that started their lives as boot camp projects are Mobile Wallet and video analytics service, AppGlide. Both products are now part of Alcatel-Lucent’s solutions portfolio.
Speaking today, the Minister for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock described Alcatel-Lucent’s Open Innovation Bootcamp as a great initiative.
“There is no shortage of good ideas coming out of our academic research centres but the steps towards commercialisation can be very daunting. This ‘bootcamp’ partnership between industry, academia and Irish entrepreneurs has all the right ingredients to mentor promising projects through to market launch. Building a successful knowledge economy is at the heart of the Government’s strategy for growth,” said Sherlock.
Dr Sam Samuel, executive director of Bell Labs Ireland, said: “This announcement underlines our commitment to the Government’s call for greater co-operation between academia and industry. Having industry and academia work together to help translate academic technology research into viable enterprise via the boot camps could eventually make an important contribution to the Irish economy.”
