fintech

Nordic Countries Offer Opportunities as Irish Fintech Grows

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As a source of growth in both the Nordic and Irish markets, the fintech sector has become an important focus for innovation initiatives. Over the past five years, Stockholm attracted 18% of all European fintech investment, second only to London. When the organisers of Money 2020, the world’s largest financial services event, came to Europe, they chose to locate in Copenhagen.

Significant fintech growth predicted in Ireland

Ireland has become a fintech powerhouse with potential to grow significantly in the next decade. The government’s IFS2020 strategy aims to showcase fintech providers and increase market awareness of the domestic financial services offering. At the end of 2015, Enterprise Ireland counted 8,800 people specifically employed in fintech, up 40% from 2008, with over 100 client companies active in the area.

Showcasing fintech innovation

To capitalise on these growth prospects, Enterprise Ireland expanded the team that supports fintech and launched a sector-specific fintech Competitive Start Fund. The agency fosters fintech innovation through world-class acceleration programs organised with partners including the NDRC and Accenture. The Fintech Innovation Showcase held in Dublin gave ambitious Irish businesses, including Vistatec, Kyckr and Solgari, the chance to explore partnership opportunities with top players from Denmark including Nordea Bank, Danske Bank, Saxo Bank, Nets, SDC, Financial Services Union, Copenhagen Fintech, BEC and Festina Finance. Visitors learned about the capabilities of Enterprise Ireland clients in rapidly developing areas like artificial intelligence, data analytics, payments, cybersecurity, and regulation and compliance.

The opportunity for Irish companies in the Nordics is significant, an attendee explains, “We’re primarily interested in solutions that we can bring to our 10 million retail customers and 700,000 SME and corporate customers. We would like to partner with Irish start-ups that have banks as customers. Potential areas include open banking, solutions leveraging opportunities created by PSD2, like financial aggregators, and AI and machine learning. Inputs on the fintech initiatives of tech giants residing in Ireland are also of interest.”

 

Researching new markets

One challenge clients experience when expanding overseas is to understand the market’s business culture and customers. Attending events like the Fintech Showcase gives Irish companies an opportunity to learn about practical aspects of doing business in the target market. In the Nordics itself, the Copenhagen Fintech hub connects leading companies in the space in Denmark and can be a great starting point for Irish companies keen to see what Denmark can offer.

Before committing to expansion, Irish companies should be aware that the Nordic market is extremely advanced and has many indigenous global players, making competition fierce. Unless your company has a unique solution, it can be difficult to succeed. Fintech businesses in the region want a reliable, trusted, and secure supplier. An attendee describes their ideal Irish partner, “We like to collaborate with global fintech accelerators that provide a consistent pipeline, are highly verticalised within payments and adjacent services, and agnostic to geography. We are particularly interested in connecting with fintechs with IoT-knowledge, especially Internet of Payments. Value-added services connected to retail are of major interest if the technology can be exported to the Nordic context, for example start-ups that collaborate with a merchant to demonstrate a practical solution in the Irish market that can be easily exported overseas.”

In addition to attending events like the Fintech Innovation Showcase, there are a range of supports you can access to realise plans in the Nordics. Enterprise Ireland offers R&D, Innovation and Competitiveness funding to help companies identify and fill knowledge gaps. Local offices can connect you to specialist Market Advisors in the region. Taking time to learn about the realities of the Nordic market will give your plans for growth every chance of success.

Cartoon Saloon draws audiences with creative magic

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“We have a creation and design part, but we also have a production and commercial part. Those things must marry and live side by side.”

– Gerry Shirren, Managing Director, Cartoon Saloon

Key Takeouts:

  • International recognition early on set the course for success.
  • Creative talent went hand-in-hand with strong business practice.
  • Feasibility funding from Enterprise Ireland facilitated the exploration of new platforms and market opportunities.
  • Joint venture with a Canadian company set to promote expansion.

Case Study: Cartoon Saloon

An animated fairy tale provided an unexpected twist in the story of Kilkenny-based animation studio Cartoon Saloon. The company’s 2009 film, The Secret of Kells, in which the unfinished Book of Kells is imperilled by Viking invaders and entrusted to the hands of a young hero, was nominated for an Academy Award – a remarkable achievement for the studio’s first production.

“The nomination was a surprise to everyone and it broke completely new ground,” says managing director, Gerry Shirren. He attributes success to the studio’s uniquely strong visual style. Since then, Cartoon Saloon has garnered another Academy Award nomination for its feature Song of the Sea and enjoyed commercial success with productions such as Puffin Rock. Two seasons, totalling 39 episodes, of the seven-minute cartoon were first screened on pre-school channels RTÉjr and Nick Jr in May 2015, and subsequently picked up by Netflix for worldwide streaming the following September.

The studio clearly has outstanding creative talent but it’s also a for-profit business. “We call it a creative enterprise,” says Shirren.

“We have a creation and design part, but we also have a production and commercial part. Those things must marry and live side by side.”

It’s been a successful pairing. Puffin Rock was launched in China by a leading streaming service in August 2017 and has since had a streaming rate of more than one million views per day.

Cartoon Saloon has always innovated, creatively and technically. “We moved really quickly to digital delivery about five years ago when broadcasters were still looking for physical delivery. Now digital is the norm,” explains Shirren.

Early on, the company received RD&I grant assistance from Enterprise Ireland to evaluate and implement a digital management pipeline. This proved essential for efficient production. “We were looking at customisable software which needed to be heavily modified for our own processes,” says Shirren.

“The funding brought us into the realm of digital management systems which we hadn’t used before.”

It was another step on the path to a more professional, streamlined production process. “When funds are in short supply, that sort of support makes a difference. I don’t think we would have got through the implementation of the visual system without it,” adds Shirren.

More recently, the studio received a grant from Enterprise Ireland to embark on a small feasibility study, a sort of voyage into the unknown. “We wanted to find out whether we could port over to a virtual reality environment,” explains Shirren. A showcase piece was created, based on a virtual reality world inspired by Song of the Sea, and is now available for VR and Gear VR mobile platform, both free to download from the Oculus Store.

“It was a speculative project and we couldn’t have done it without support,” Shirren continues. “We learnt an awful lot from the process.” Anyone who has an Oculus Rift headset can now experience the studio’s creation.

Cartoon Saloon’s latest film, The Breadwinner, was launched at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017, and a new film, Wolfwalkers, is currently in production. The studio has also formed a joint venture, Lighthouse Studios, with Canada’s Mercury Filmworks to do third-party service work which may involve animations for big hitters such as Amazon and Disney. “In about twelve months, Lighthouse could be as big as Cartoon Saloon,” says Shirren. “That means Kilkenny could have two animation studios with perhaps 100 employees each, making the city a magnet for talent.”

 

Learn how Enterprise Ireland can support your R&I ambition with dedicated innovation funding.

Asavie

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“Enterprise Ireland have enabled us to take bigger bets and scale the company faster. And we’re really seeing the benefit of that today.”

Keith O’Byrne – Director

Who

Asavie are a technology company developing and scaling Internet of Things applications from prototype to production.

How

Funding from Enterprise Ireland has allowed Asavie to hire a team of developers instead of hiring one by one.

Result

Working with Enterprise Ireland allowed Asavie to accelerate their work, scaling far quicker than they would have without help.

See How We Helped Asavie

Dawn Farms Meeting Customer Expectations Through Innovation

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“We have had a long-standing positive and proactive relationship with Enterprise Ireland and currently avail of its R&D support programme”

– John McGrath, Head of Business Development

 

Case Study: Dawn Farms

Established in 1985, Dawn Farms is a family-owned company and the largest specialist supplier of cooked and fermented meat protein ingredients outside of the USA. The company currently supplies world-leading food brands across more than 40 markets, including the UK, the wider EU, the Middle East and Africa, offering a “one-stop shop” to customers in the pizza, sandwich, snacking and ready meal categories.

Named Irish Food and Drink Exporter of the Year in 2016, the company employs over 1,000 staff based in state-of-the-art facilities in Naas, County Kildare, and Northampton, England.

According to Head of Business Development John McGrath, a holistic relationship-based service that puts the customer’s brand first – with product, process and service innovation playing a central role in its total value proposition – is at the heart of the company’s success.

“We have identified a number of key trends, based on consumer insights, that drive our product development pipeline”, he explains. These include the “quest for health and wellness” and “sustainable lives”.

In line with these trends, all Dawn Farms products are free from artificial colours, hydrogenated fats and MSG, while also meeting the latest standards on salt.

The company’s new Streetfood Collection, born out of its extensive investment in consumer insights, combines a bespoke cook and sear process to produce a range of Mexican, American and Korean-inspired street food cooked meat products to allow their customers meet growing demand in the hand-held snack and food to go markets across Europe. Cooked “low and slow”, this new range brings all the flavours of street food alive and comes in vacuum-sealed pouches for better and more consistent recipe and flavour delivery in store.

“Today’s consumers are seeking out authentic and better tasting food experiences”, says McGrath. “The Street Food Collection delivers on that need for Dawn Farms customers.”

 

     

    The company’s Texan BBQ Beef Burnt Ends sandwich filling is another example of this consumer-led innovation in action. “Consumers today are becoming more discerning about barbecue food and this is evident in the different types of regional barbecue sauces offered in burger chains as well as the broad choice of restaurants seeking to deliver authentic American barbecue experience and tastes”, McGrath points out. “It also taps into the ‘back to basics’ food trend – a return to primeval cooking methods such as grilling, barbecuing and fermentation. The burnt ends’ concept also fits the sensorial trend towards charring, blackened and burnt textures in ingredients from meat to ice cream.”

    Similarly, the company’s Italian-Style Porchetta product was inspired by traditional Italian street food. “The rationale behind this ingredient is to give food-to-go consumers an authentic Italian food experience. This fits in with the Borrowed Nostalgia food trend, where people are looking for traditional food experiences from other countries. Porchetta is a traditional Italian roasted pork delicacy, typically sold from a cart or a truck, sliced to order and served in a sandwich as a quick treat at the market or at a fair.”

    “We have had a long-standing positive and proactive relationship with Enterprise Ireland and currently avail of its R&D support programme”, he adds. “This has allowed us develop a range of product and process improvements across the business that underpin our commercial strategy and foster new growth opportunities in a very demanding marketplace.”

    APC

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    “Enterprise Ireland has the knowledge and understanding of the various industries and markets and is very willing and supportive in passing on the information and advice.” – Sharon Davin – R&D Grants Manager

    Who

    APC are a pharmaceutical and biotech process research company based in Dublin.

    How

    Development Advisers from Enterprise Ireland were able to help APC rapidly access global pharma and biotech markets.

    Result

    Support from Enterprise Ireland allowed APC to create processes that are robust and portable. This allows their partners to have flexible supply chains, speeding up delivery to end users.

    See How We Helped APC

     

    CustomerMinds makes digital communications API ever after for major clients

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    “Creating the new API interface was a great experience for the team because the developers knew they were building something that was core to the business in the near term. Almost as soon as they were building it, it was being used commercially.”

    – Jonny Parkes, CEO, CustomerMinds

    Key Takeouts:

    • Enterprise Ireland’s RD&I grant transformed capabilities and opened up a clear path to additional exports.
    • Their forward-thinking approach won major new projects in the UK.
    • Partnerships with third parties are set to drive further international expansion.

    Case Study: CustomerMinds

    “Helping big companies communicate better with their customers is at the heart of what we do,” says Jonny Parkes, CEO of CustomerMinds, a Dublin-based enterprise software company. “Think large banks or utilities, which have hundreds of thousands – or, in some cases, millions – of customers. They want to communicate more effectively with those customers but often have large legacy platforms or different systems bolted on to deal with their core business.”

    Such companies could benefit from a streamlined digital communication capability – and that’s what CustomerMinds offers. Over the past ten years, it’s built a platform to help clients switch from traditional communication channels to digital ones.

    “We give them a centralised platform that picks up feeds from their different systems and then triggers relevant communications that are personalised and targeted,” explains Parkes.

    In 2015, the company received an Enterprise Ireland’s RD&I grant that transformed its capabilities. Parkes, who is chairperson of the Learnovate Centre at Trinity College Dublin, foresaw that APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) were the way of the future; APIs are clearly defined methods of communication between various software components. The funding allowed CustomerMinds to hire an experienced API developer and dedicated business development person.

    “When Google Maps came along with their API, it became very simple to include their maps on websites. All a web developer had to do was pop in a line of code and Google did the rest,” Parkes explains. “Our APIs give similar ‘out of the box’ functionality, allowing our clients to easily access our services.” The CustomerMinds API project yielded immediate rewards, winning the company a number of major new financial services projects in the UK.

    “They wanted to replace all their existing customer communications, which were mainly paper-based with emails and SMS, but their platform wasn’t able to do nicely branded, personalised responses,” Parkes says. The new API allowed them to do just that, quickly and easily, by linking directly to CustomerMinds, where all their content, reporting and analytics now reside.

    The roll-out took a matter of months, when the client had originally estimated that it would take years and cost significantly more. On the heels of that success, CustomerMinds has begun another five projects with the same UK client, all leveraging the new API. For every message sent, the Irish company earns a small fee, as well as receiving licensing revenue for the core platform. “If they are communicating more effectively with their customers, we are benefiting from that as a business,” says Parkes.

    The Enterprise Ireland grant was key to this success, with Parkes describing the funding as ‘special’ because of its combined focus on technology R&D and business innovation. “The new online process streamlined our application and made life easier too,” he adds.

    “Without the grant, we would probably have built an API slowly, while focusing on client projects or billable work,” reflects Parkes.

    Thanks to the grant, however, return has been rapid, with CustomerMinds already securing significant six-figure deals on the back of the new technology.

    According to Parkes, “It was a great experience for the team because the developers knew they were building something that was core to the business in the near term. Almost as they were building it, it was being used commercially.”

    Parkes is now looking to build partnerships with third parties who provide systems to banks and utilities so that they can wrap their systems with the communication layer that CustomerMinds offers. The third parties’ platforms might be running the business for their clients, but without a dedicated communication platform. “The UK and Ireland are our home markets,” says Parkes, “further international expansion will likely be driven by these partnership approaches.”

    Click here to learn more about Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation supports.

    Game-changing brewing technology boosts brand value for Marco Beverage Systems

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    “People sometimes see an R&D grant as something to get a product to market, but a reputation for innovation also increases your brand value and drives sales all by itself.”

    – Paul Stack, Operations Director, Marco Beverage Systems.

    Key Takeouts:

    • Enterprise Ireland’s funding helped drive culture of innovation.
    • Leading-edge technology transformed brand awareness and opened new markets. R&D for one product generated platform technologies that could be used in others.

    Case Study: Marco Beverage Systems

    “It’s important as an SME to be able to afford to continually innovate,” says Paul Stack. “In our business, we generally get about a seven-to-ten-year product lifetime, so innovation is key to replacing and renewing products.” Stack is Operations Director at Marco Beverage Systems, a hot water delivery systems company, headquartered in Dublin.

    The company, which provides systems for coffee and tea brewing in the food and beverage industry, is a recipient of Enterprise Ireland’s RD&I funding.

    Its range of products includes water boilers and coffee brewers. Marco has manufacturing plants in Dublin and China, and distribution offices in America, Europe, the Middle East and China, giving the company global reach.

    80 per cent of Marco’s products are exported: an increase from 68 per cent only three years ago. It has just under 100 employees globally, with approximately 60 based in Ireland, and its products can be seen in significant coffee, tea and catering locations, including familiar names like Starbucks, Bewley’s and Costa Coffee.

    The company’s success is fuelled by its emphasis on innovation. This focus, and a desire to expand it, led the company to apply for RD&I funding from Enterprise Ireland back in 2004. “The main considerations for our design team are energy efficiency, beverage excellence and design excellence, incorporating user experience and aesthetics,” says Stack.

    “Energy efficiency has been a major success for us in terms of cutting-edge design. Over 50 per cent of the energy footprint associated with a cup of tea or coffee is in brewing it,” Stack points out. “Our R&D department has significantly reduced the amount of energy our products use, and one of our products is 70 per cent more energy-efficient than anything else on the market globally, which is a great selling point.”

    One example of a product that has benefitted from the Marco Beverage Systems R&D program is the Uber Boiler, launched in 2009. This one-cup coffee brewing station has replaced more traditional bulk coffee systems in many cafés and restaurants. It allows baristas to have more control over a recipe and brings them closer to the front of the shop to interact with customers.

    The Uber Boiler and similar systems are now a common sight in coffee shops, but when the company first developed this product it had a big effect on the industry. “The product completely changed how our brand was seen in the marketplace as it was so innovative. It opened doors for us, especially in new regions like America. People came to us because of the popularity of the technology,” says Stack.

    The company has also found that R&D for one product can generate platform technologies that can be used in others. A separate research project for a different product resulted in innovations that contributed to an automatic version of the Uber Boiler, the SP9, demonstrating the types of cross-pollination that an R&D program can produce.

    “People sometimes see an R&D grant as something to get a product to market, but a reputation for innovation also increases your brand value and drives sales all by itself. R&D drives a whole culture of innovation in your business, which keeps you relevant and sets you apart from competitors,” explains Stack. “I wouldn’t just suggest that other Irish SMEs conduct R&D – I consider it absolutely critical. Enterprise Ireland’s funding can really drive this forward.”

    Supporting female entrepreneurship benefits everyone

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    When women play a smaller role in growing the economy, we all lose out. Women make up 50% of the population and the female employment rate is over 55%. Yet until a few years ago, female-led companies comprised 7% of Enterprise Ireland’s High-Potential Start-Ups group, just like the international average. Fewer female entrepreneurs meant fewer ideas, less innovation and export potential. Over the last number of years, Enterprise Ireland developed a range of supports specifically designed to encourage female entrepreneurship, including a dedicated Competitive Start Fund for women entrepreneurs, offering €50,000 in start-up funding. The inaugural initiative drove the highest ever number of female-led companies backed by Enterprise Ireland. In addition to accessing those supports, here are six areas you can focus on to develop as a female entrepreneur.

    Fuel your ambition – Women have high levels of ambition for their businesses, setting clear targets and goals. But women can also lack confidence, particularly in financial areas. Aversion to debt and a conservative approach to risk-taking can hamper ambition. Men often apply for the maximum amount awarded in Competitive Start Funds run by Enterprise Ireland. When the first dedicated Competitive Start Fund was launched for women entrepreneurs to help address known barriers, no one applied for the full amount!

    Build your skills – Accelerator programmes, like DCU Ryan Academy Female High Fliers, supported by Enterprise Ireland, target challenges facing female entrepreneurs and help women to fast track business development and leadership skills. By joining a programme, you become part of a supportive group of like-minded female founders. The long-lasting relationships these programmes foster in the female start-up community have helped achieve big improvements in just a few years.

    Ask – No business owner knows all the answers or has all the skills it takes to succeed. It can be difficult to work alone or as part of a small team when starting a company. Women can be especially reluctant to seek support. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice when you need it. It is important to step outside your comfort zone and remember the adage – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

    Perfect your value proposition – Be completely clear about your value proposition and the problem you are solving. Be clear on your differentiator. You don’t have to use highly technical or scientific language; you need to be understood. Clodagh Cavanagh from Abbey Machinery says that your product or service must have value for the end user. Know their needs, not what you think they need.

    Perspective changes attitude – The way you look at something alters your approach and attitude. Thinking about perspective allows you to understand investors and customers better. When meeting an investor, imagine what your business looks like from their perspective. Alison Cowzer from East Coast Bakehouse advises asking: How much do I want? How will I use it? How much will I return? Thinking about answers from an investor’s perspective helps you to understand the value of your business to them.

    Above all, persevere – Perseverance doesn’t mean sticking with your idea at all costs or doggedly pursuing a start-up that doesn’t meet the needs of the market. Perseverance means recognising that you are on an entrepreneurial journey. The start-up space can be tough but also rewarding. Aim high and keep going.

    While there is still a lot to do, supporting female entrepreneurship is paying off with continued growth of women-led start-ups. Enterprise Ireland will continue to support ambitious businesswomen because diversity drives performance, and that benefits everyone.

    Two Irish Medtech Companies with Global Ambition partner with Northwell Healthcare

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    The largest healthcare provider in New York State, Northwell Health, signed and sealed two new partnerships with Irish Medtech businesses. Northwell Health is using solutions from Irish companies to enhance customer experience and improve efficiency and productivity, thanks to a partnership signed with Enterprise Ireland.

    Northwell Health has 22 hospitals and 600 outpatient facilities, and cares for more than 1.8 million people a year in the New York area, and beyond. President and Chief Executive Michael Dowling is highly focused on continuous innovation in what he views as a fast-changing and increasingly more competitive market.

    Northwell Health reviewed over 50 Irish companies and agreed deals with two – Technopath Clinical Diagnostics and Salaso Health Solutions.

    Technopath developed a first-of-its-kind, consolidated immunochemistry testing product. Consolidation is attractive to companies like Northwell Health because it enables clinical labs to significantly reduce handling requirements, reclaim storage and minimise waste, leading to a more efficient quality control process.

    “The solutions Technopath has developed have dramatically helped us to improve the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of our laboratory quality control processes.”

    Northwell Health has signed a 50-50 joint venture agreement with Technopath, with a view to promoting the Irish companies’ offering to labs all over the US. It owns one of the biggest labs run by a health system in the US – performing more than 30 million tests and analysing 200,000 surgical specimens a year.

    Salaso Health Solutions is based in Kerry. The company has developed a platform which allows patients to use their smartphones or tablets to access and interact with high-definition video exercises prescribed by their clinicians.

    The deal expands on the company’s existing contract with Northwell Health to provide online care management services to stroke survivors and patients with movement disorders and other neurological conditions.

    Under the agreement, Northwell Health will invest in Salaso Health Solutions to enable the company to further develop the solution, expanding the scope of online rehabilitation care to patients with cancer, COPD [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder] and other medical conditions.

    “We are always interested in solutions that can improve clinical outcomes. Salaso’s app can improve what a patient does at home after they have been treated by a doctor so they don’t have to come back to the hospital and are more knowledgeable,” said Dowling.

    Until two years ago, Dowling didn’t appreciate the scale of the entrepreneurial developments that have been built in Ireland. “I spent a couple of days going around to a lot of companies with Enterprise Ireland and I was completely blown away,” he says. “The capabilities and competencies that exist in Ireland, especially in areas such as Medtech, are phenomenal. In my view, this is down to the education system and the innovative spirit, personality and knowledge of the people.”

    One of the areas where Irish Medtech companies are particularly strong in is digital health, according to Dowling.

    “Everything is becoming more democratised because of the access consumers have to mobile phones. We do business with other countries, but there is nothing as expansive as what Irish companies are doing in the whole digital health and customer experience space. The consumer is the biggest change agent in healthcare. We have to deliver what the consumer wants. The innovations coming out of Ireland fit right in with that.”

     

    Learn more about the Irish companies adding value to the North American health systems and key information on doing business in the USA.

     

     

    Medtech Innovation in Full Health at Med in Ireland

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    Deirdre Glenn, Manager of the Lifesciences Sector at Enterprise Ireland, discusses key trends emerging from this year’s Med in Ireland event.

    Pierre Chauvineau, Vice President at Boston Scientific, described Ireland as “a small country with a strong economy, where collaboration and values matter”. As a number of the event’s other speakers noted, the latest research shows that Ireland’s medical technologies sector is in full health.

    Enjoying exponential growth from 50 to 350 companies, Ireland has emerged as one of the world’s top five medical technology hubs over the last 20 years. 13 of the top 15 global medtech companies have bases in Ireland, showing that the country has become internationally recognised as a preferred location for the development and manufacture of high-tech medical products. The sector now counts over 350 medical technology companies, of which 152 are indigenous and generate over €600 million in sales and €400 million in exports, employing more than 6,500 people.

    The figures for exporters based in Ireland look just as strong. With significant growth year on year since 2012, Ireland is the second largest exporter of high-tech medical products in the EU. The objective of Med in Ireland is to support further growth by enabling companies based in Ireland to build partnerships with buyers from 42 countries that attend. A number of announcements illustrated the potential of these initiatives.

    Meditec Medical announced that it successfully tendered for a contract with the international Boston Children’s Hospital to manufacture and supply Mediflex pressure relief mattresses to its entire hospital. Irish technology company Kastus announced the launch of an antimicrobial solution which can be used on devices, door handles and sanitary fittings in hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacture to prevent the spread of micro-organisms such as MRSA and E. Coli. Seabrook Technology Group, the Irish-owned manufacturing software specialist, announced a partnership with Toolroom Technology to provide an end-to-end offering for orthopaedic manufacturers.

    Innovation is a key theme of Enterprise Ireland’s Irish Advantage campaign, which supports diversification and export growth by encouraging global buyers to ‘source their Medtech advantage’ and buy Irish. As Kevin Sherry, Enterprise Ireland’s Executive Director of Global Business Development, commented at Med in Ireland, “Our exports and employment are built on Ireland’s world-class innovation system.” This year’s event included its first dedicated Medtech Innovation Showcase to highlight these strengths.

    Ireland’s medtech advantage is supported by investments in Research, Development and Innovation. 60% of medtech companies in Ireland are engaged in R&D and in 2015 companies spent over €205m on such activities. Enterprise Ireland has introduced a range of innovation supports to further foster the development of medical technologies, help clients to win more research funding through the EU’s €80 billion Horizon 2020 fund, and encourage knowledge and intellectual property-sharing. Technology Gateways leverage industry-focused expertise in Institutions of Technologies across the regions. Health Innovation Hub Ireland partners clinicians, academics, and entrepreneurs that work together to accelerate commercialisation. BioInnovate Ireland is a technology training programme in which academia, clinicians and industry collaborate to develop novel medical technologies. Shortly before Med in Ireland, the launch of another such initiative was announced; the BioExcel Medtech Accelerator Programme at NUI Galway, to support our pipeline of innovative start-ups.

    The announcements at Med in Ireland demonstrated the commercial potential of these initiatives. Ireland’s innovation advantage is driving global market penetration for Irish exporters and supporting partnerships with reputable institutions, including Northwell Healthcare and the Cleveland Clinic. Med in Ireland showcased companies that are taking full advantage of these opportunities, building partnerships that secure business wins on a global scale. Medtech companies in Ireland are not only growing sales in traditional export markets but diversifying into new, higher growth markets. Notwithstanding Ireland’s competitiveness in medtech, these companies continue to face uncertainty generated by Brexit. To support them to succeed, we must continually innovate and showcase Irish innovation across the world.

    Get with the Programmers

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    “We try to instil a workplace mindset from the beginning, to better prepare students for the real world of work,” said Cassidy.

    Any entrepreneur will tell you that the secret of a successful start-up is spotting a gap in a market and filling it. This usually involves solving a problem that prospective customers have been struggling with. For Anthony Quigley, it’s been around education, focusing on increasingly in-demand professional skills that are poorly served by more traditional training. First he did it with the Digital Marketing Institute, empowering marketing professionals with new skills for the social media era. Now, he’s tackled programming.

    In 2015, he launched the Code Institute, a bootcamp for coders that sets out to address widely recognised skills shortages, hampering the growth of technology companies. With so many multinationals located in Ireland and a healthy indigenous sector, there was no shortage of local demand but Quigley had an eye on a much bigger market that he could serve with ‘one-to-many’ online courses.

    Jim Cassidy, chief executive, takes up the story.

    “By 2020, there are expected to be 800,000 vacant ICT roles across Europe and over a million in the US. So it became clear to Anthony that the traditional methodology being used for teaching in universities isn’t fit for purpose”

    Founders of the Code Institute are not criticising what third-level technical courses teach; they’re just setting out to do something different. A computer science degree that takes four years to complete will not provide the throughput of skills the tech industry currently needs, according to Cassidy, and the sheer pace of technological change means that a lot of what students learn may be out of date by the time they graduate.

    With 48-week full-time courses and 4-month part-time, the goal is to get jobready developers into the market faster and arm them with the skills that companies urgently need. The institute has been built from the ground up to be more agile than traditional colleges and will put on courses to meet spikes in demand. Its Industry Advisory Council, made up of corporates like Accenture and Morgan McKinley, recruits graduates from the institute and provides a useful barometer of the skills in demand. “We continually update, amend and change our courses based on their feedback, which helps us make sure courses are absolutely relevant,” said Cassidy.

    Programme director Brian O’Grady is keen to stress that it’s not the aim or ambition of the institute to compete with a full degree. He describes the courses as “narrow scope, deep learning,” as opposed to universities that tend to be “broad scope, shallow on topics”. The big difference is that each course is hugely condensed. “When I did my postgraduate studies, I would have done around 49 hours of coding in a year. We’re doing 600 hours. It’s a very immersive experience as opposed to something that’s spread out over four years.”

    The other big difference is that course participants are treated more like employees than students and given projects and practical assignments on a daily basis. “We try to instil a workplace mindset from the beginning, to better prepare students for the real world of work,” said Cassidy. “That’s why it’s project rather than exam-based. When a student is being interviewed for a job, they can show work that they’ve actually done.”

    For any courses to be credible, they need to be accredited and internationally recognised. The institute’s diplomas conform to the requirements of the European educational framework and have been recognised by Edinburgh Napier University. Having identified the market and ticked the educational boxes, the focus has turned to growing the business.

    In 2016, the institute raised €500,000 syndicated investment from Kernel Capital and Enterprise Ireland, which has been used to fuel overseas expansion. The biggest differentiator from bricks-and-mortar colleges is that 90% of its courses are taught online, which is fundamental to the start-up’s plans to grow internationally.

    A number of global partnerships have been established in the UK, US and Saudi Arabia to advance overseas expansion, with more to come in Canada and Australia. “We have identified learning partners in each of these jurisdictions that have the expertise and skill sets to sell and support ICT-based courses,” explained Cassidy. “We have a 600-hour online course, so we need companies with a certain type of support capability.”

    Course content is a combination of video and printed materials with interactive elements. The chat and collaboration app Slack is also part of the online set-up. “We try to recreate the social aspect of being in a classroom, which is a very important aspect of learning. Students can interact with each other as well as a dedicated teams of mentors,” said O’Grady. “It’s like having a professional developer sitting at the desk next to you.”

    Two courses are currently running, a Full Stack Diploma that teaches the main programming languages (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and a Diploma in Tech Fundamentals. The first appeals to first-timers with no tech experience as well as people with some programming under their belt.

    “I’d say 70% of people who take it have no software development background, and they’re looking to find a new career, but we also have a good cohort of people who have been exposed to some level of software development and are now looking to upskill”

    The age range is typically 24–35, and, just like traditional computer courses, it’s still male dominated.

    The second course is aimed at C-level managers as well as business owners and entrepreneurs who would benefit from a better understanding of code and programming. “Every business is now a technology business,” said Cassidy. “Take the course and you’ll see what’s required to get a business off the ground faster.”

    Irish companies aiming high

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    Enterprise Ireland clients Gerry Mullins from pTools Software in Dublin and Paul McCarthy, Full Health Medical in Mayo have Europe, South Africa and UAE on their ambition list.

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