Cork,15 November 2012: Ireland's leading technology organisations were recognised today by it@cork, European Tech Cluster. Now in it's 6th year, the Leaders Awards acknowledge innovation and excellence across a number of categories spanning different sectors.

This years's winners included YouGetitBack.com (High Growth), PFH (Sustained Excellence), Crest Solutions (Research & Innovation) and Alanya Animal Health Monitoring (High Potential Start Up). HIQA, the Health and Information Quality Authority, received an award for the leading IT Department, while Scoil Mhuire na nGrast (Belgooly) was awarded the Excellence in Education Award.

"More than previous years, the indigenous sector performed extremely well this year in the Leaders Awards, and clearly demonstrates the calibre of innovation and technological distinction in Ireland. The Leaders Award winners are driving progress and excellence in the industry, and it@cork is delighted to recognise their achievements over the past year. Our IT Hub is thriving and making a significant contribution to the economy - we must continue to cultivate the IT industry to get us on the path to growth", said Denis Collins, Chair of it@cork, European Tech Cluster in his address to the 250 strong audience in the Maryborough Hotel & Spa.

John Wall, Chair of the Leaders Awards Committee added "There were some very exciting nominations to the Leaders Awards this year, and it is hugely positive to see exceptional progress in early stage companies as Alanya Animal Health and YouGetitBack.com as well as sustained excellence in well-established technology companies such as PFH".

In particular Scoil Mhuire na nGrast, who is also enrolled in it@cork's Adopt a School programme, was lauded for the way the school has embraced technology at every level. From interactive whiteboards, wireless networking in all classrooms, the establishment of an internet portal for students and their supporters, to the cloud computing solution used to streamline school administration processes, the school was complimented on it's progressive IT strategy. The school also provides laptops for usage by students to complete assignments in non-IT areas and is teaching it's students how to programme using the MIT SCRATCH system.

The it@cork team thanked the media partner, The Irish Examiner, and the event sponsors, Berkley Recruitment Group, CAVS, Enterprise Ireland, EMC, IBM, Trend Micro, KPMG, Maryborough Hotel & Spa, McKesson, Laya Healthcare, Smarttech.ie, Asystec and CAMEO Communications.

END

it@cork Leaders Awards Winners 2012
High Growth Leaders Award - YouGetitBack.com
High Potential Start Up Award - Alanya Animal Health Monitoring
Sustained Excellence Leaders Award - PFH
Leaders Award for IT Department - HIQA
Leaders Award for Research & Innovation Project - Crest Solutions
Excellence in Education Award - Scoil Mhuire na nGrast, Belgooly

Caroline O'Driscoll, Tax Partner, KPMG, Cork

Caroline is a tax partner based in KPMG's Cork office. She has over 15 years experience of providing tax advise to Multinational companies particularly on inward and outward investment in the sectors of Pharmaceutical, Technology and Food/Drinks.

She also advises on a number of high growth indigenous Irish companies, particularly in the technology sector, as they rapidly expand their business within Ireland and into International markets.

Caroline sits on KPMG's national technology steering group which leads the firms strategy for this sector and is a member of KPMG's global international corporate tax team.

Caroline will provide insights into the various tax incentives and reliefs available to start up companies and share some practical tax hints and tips for SME's expanding into overseas markets.










John O'Doherty, Regional Director, AIB Bank Cork Central

John has been Regional Director for Cork Central Region for the last 2 years with responsibility for 25 branches across Cork City and County.

Previous roles include a period of 4 years as Regional Director in Kerry, 5 years as Branch Manager in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, 3 years as Area Sales Manager for AIB Area South and 3 years as a Lending Manager across a number of AIB Regions in Munster. AIB has the largest market share of all Financial Services companies operating in the Cork area covering the Personal, SME and Corporate market.

John sits on the evaluation panel for the Anual Genesis Awards at the Rubicon Centre. He has seen first hand the entrepreneurial ambitions and innovation of Cork based companies through his involvement with this programme. In addition, for a period of 5 years up to 2006, John was a member of the Limerick County Enterprise Board Evaluation Committee responsible for accessing grant applications to the Limerick County Enterprise Board. These grand applications were generally from early stage entrepreneurs.

The above, allied to his extensive Banking experience gives him an insight into challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs as they face into the market.










Kieran Moynihan, CEO Coach & Management Consultant

Kieran is a dynamic experienced entrepreneur and global executive with an outstanding track record over his 21 year career. Kieran is an executive coach for a number of CEOs of high-growth companies. Kieran is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Cork Institute of Technology and Rubicon Centre with significant experience in nurturing early-stage high-potential companies.

Kieran co-founded Comnitel, a telecoms software company in 1999 and led the company as CEO from initial start-up through a 30 million-dollar series of fundraising with leading international venture capitalists. Over the period 2003 - 2007 Kieran performed the role of Chief Technology Officer for Vallent (a combinatoin of 3 telecoms software companies Comnitel, Metrica and WatchMark) driving the company's product and go-to-market strategy leading to the acquisition of Vellent (450 staff) by IBM in February 2007.

Kieran took on the role of Vice President and CTO for Telecoms for the IBM Tivoli division and has also been a key strategist and visionary for IBM's overall telecoms business worldwide.

OVERVIEW

Leading a Scrum team is radically different to traditional project management. Rather than plan, instruct, and direct, the leader of a Scrum team (called a ScrumMaster) facilitates, coaches, and leads. In this ScrumMaster Certification Course, you will learn essentials of working as a ScrumMaster or Scrum team member. You will learn how to assume the responsibilities of a ScrumMaster and to guide the development team, a project, or an organisation into Agile practice by fostering the adoption of new attitudes, collaborative processes and working to remove institutional barriers.

While the Scrum Alliance provides a list of core concepts that must be covered in the class, each instructor creates his or her own material, allowing courses to differ based on the strengths, interests, and experiences of the instructor. Martine's interest, research and experience has focused on planning and estimation techniques and as such this ScrumMaster Certification course covers Agile Estimation and Planning techniques in particular depth.

Upon completion of this ScrumMaster course, you will know how to use Scrum to maximise value creation, improve customer and employee satisfaction as well as engineering practices and tools. Additionally, upon successful completion of the course, each participation is enrolled as a Certified ScrumMaster, which includes a one-year Scrum Alliance membership, where additional ScrumMaster-only material and information is available.

OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

Upon completion of this ScrumMaster course, you will know how to use Scrum to maximise value creation, improve customer and employee satisfaction as well as engineering practices and tools. Additionally, upon successful completion of the course, each participant is enrolled as a Certified ScrumMaster, which includes a one-year Scrum Alliance membership, where additional ScrumMaster-only material and information is available.


-Assume the responsibilities of a ScrumMaster.
-Remove the barriers between development and the customer so that the Customer/Product Owner directly
 drives development.
-Improve employee and customer satisfaction.
-Improve accuracy of estimation and planning.
-Improve the engineering practices and tools so each increment of functionality is potentially shippable.

For course content and further information please contact julianne@itcork.ie

You don't have to do anything wrong to be sued! Some examples below highlight that all IT firms have an exposure. Sometimes this is because of errors in their business and other times it can be due to percieved errors or simply competitors trying to put them out of business. As technology, media and telecoms insurance specialists, much of our time is spent keeping on top of these dynamic sectors. We listen and talk regularly with clients, lawyers and industry experts to get the insight we need to continually refine our products. You can feel supremely confident our cover is thorough, adaptable, realistic and ultimately more effective.

Large Experienced Firm - Multi Million Claim

• IT firm contracted to supply and implement customised software. $7 million project value.
• Client claimed there were fundamental flaws in the software.
• In spite of working through fixes, a large number of critical flaws remained.
• A letter of claim was then received claiming $9 million in damages.

Small Technology Business

• Case where the firm probably would have become insolvent without the assistance of insurance.
• A larger competitor made an offer to purchase - "you can become our best friend or worst enemy".
• The offer was declined.
• The competitor then issued legal proceedings alleging copyright infringement, trade mark infringement, passing off and breach of confidence. The motivation was to put this small firm out of business.

Data Breach

• Privacy leaks have a habit of going from bad to worse in a short space of time. The adverse publicity this brings is a redictable feature of this.
• Being aware of this risk and dealing with it quickly and effectively can make a huge difference to the 
  eventual outcome for the effected customers and the business that leaked the data.
• This business is one that scans and indexes documents, including medical records.
• A broadcaster contacted this business to advise it had obtained confidential medical records.
• The business used their insurance policy to manage the PR and press coverage arising from the issue.
• No claim was subsequently brought.

VOIP Supplier

• VOIP system to consumer. Successfully installed and client was happy.
• Customer received an unusually large bill from the telco (€50,000) instead of their usual €3,000). The majority of costs related to calls made to Nigeria, Cuba and Mexico by unauthorised third parties.
• Investigation showed that a firewall port was left open in error and enabled third party hackers to defraud the customer. 
• The port was closed and the customer blamed the supplier. Our claims team was in the position to pay the outstanding fees and the insured was saved a bill of €50,000.
   
  For further information please contact Miriam Casserley at O'Leary Insurance Ltd, by email technology@oli.ie or by telephone at 021 4536800.

O’Leary Insurances Ltd. is regulated by The Central Bank of Ireland.   Registered in Ireland, Company Registration No. 18930, Registered Office: Lough Mahon House, Blackrock, Cork.   Telephone calls are recorded for training quality and verification purposes.

Tel. 021-4802118
aidan.forde@examiner.ie

Members of it@cork, European Tech Cluster enjoy the following exclusive benefits:

 Events & Conferences

• Free attendance at our monthly information and networking events. it@cork, European Tech Cluster runs more than thirty events and conferences throughout the year.
• Discounted registration fee to the it@cork, European Tech Cluster Technology in Business Conference and other events.
• Meet and interact with the industry from all sectors at events.

  Raise your Profile

• Members are invited to submit their latest news items and press release for publication in our new monthly e-newsletter, and for a limited time on the website.
• Member presence in the online directory on www.itcork.ie.
• Member listing in the it@cork Annual Review circulated to thousands of members and contacts.
• Presenting at future events, it@cork encourages members to submit event proposals for consideration.
• Sponsorship opportunities for member companies.
• Promotion of your business through member to member offers.

Keeping you Informed

The it@cork website www.itcork.ie has now become a valuable resource for technology professionals. We are relaunching our new and improved web portal in the coming weeks.

Connect with it@cork members

it@cork members are invited to join our LinkedIn and Facebook groups and follow us on Twitter @itcork

We also welcome suggestions/feedback from our members on any activities they would like to see. If you require any further information please don't hesitate to contact us at admin@itcork.ie

CCoC is the largest college of further education in Ireland and offers a huge array of courses and qualifications designed specifically to meet the requirements of industry, those seeking employment and students who wish to progress to higher education. CCoC caters for the needs of over 2,000 full-time day students every year.

Helen Ryan, Principal, and Jer Crowley, Deputy Principal, have been responding actively to Colaiste Chriost Ri's information technology needs. They have already organised the donation of 18 reconditioned computers in 2012 and are planning to provide programming classes for Colaiste Chriost Ri students in 2013, with a view to ensuring that this successful "match up" will continue to deliver a strategic impact for students at the school well into the future.

"Cork College of Commerce is fully committed to helping as many schools as possible through the it@cork Adopt-a-School programme as it wishes to ensure that students are provided with the opportunity to acquire the IT skills that will help them in the development of their future careers in the region and beyond, " said Jer Crowley.

Colaiste Chriost Ri is an all-boys school which was founded by the Presentation Brothers in 1960. It's student population stands at 640, the students coming from the local area as well as from futher afield. The school seeks to promote full participate in all aspects of school life, bringing about the balanced development of each person. Principal Sean Culhane said "we are delighted to be participating in the it@cork Adopt-a-School programme and the donation of the computers by CCoC greatly enhances our capacity to provide IT opportunities to our Students".

Michael Loftus, Chairman of the Education Subcommittee of it@cork, European Tech Cluster, said "it is heartening to see organisations such as Cork College of Commerce take an enlightened approach to the provision of support for schools as they seek to provide their students with opportunities to learn how to use IT in creative ways".

He continued "many benefits will accrue directly to the students which will, in turn, contribute to the economic and social development of the region, a core goal of it@cork, European Tech Cluster".

Dear Colleague,

it@cork, European Tech Cluster continues to make a positive impact on a regional and national basis. This is due to your support and commitment, thank you.

We've cultivated an independent, industry led organisation which successfully integrates government, public sector and academia, providing tangible member value, with a view to a longer term goal of globally recognised, premier IT Hub and Ecosystem.

Our efforts are being recognised across government, media, industry and our opinion is solicited regarding important matters on an ongoing basis. We're making a difference.

This is a robust vision, and we've aligned key leaders in this journey to support the IT industry, an economic engine that can drive growth across the entire ecomony.

There are many streams in progress to support our robust vision - Tech Tuesday, Workshop Wednesday, Innovation That Matters, Smarter Sences, Adopt a School, Custom Skillsnet Courses, Digital Platform and the it@cork Annual Conference.

We will also release a comprehensive IT Industry Paper for the Government detailing a short-term, mid-term and long-term plan on how the IT industry can specifically help valued IT Clusters, close the budget gap, and further fuel job creation.

You are an important part of this vision and success. I encourage you to participate in our journey.

Together, we can make a difference!

Denis Collins

Chairman, it@cork (Twitter @itcork @denisjco)

it@cork, European Tech Cluster would sincerely like to thank all of the above sponsors for the support provided for our Leaders Awards held on November 15, 2012, in the Maryborough Hotel, Cork.

Thanks to your generous sponsorship, we were able to recognise some of the leading companies and individuals in our community that are driving progress.