The Technology Gateway Network Consisting of 12 Industry Focused Technology Gateways

EI11-Draft 3 Transcription

Mark Whelan In 2011 we changed the focus to be more direct in working with industry and in 2013 when the gateway started it’s specifically about that so you can see already in 2014 we’ve already well surpassed last year’s target with about 270 projects.

The technology gateway network consisting of 12 industry focused technology gateways.

Damien English TD: This initiative brings SMEs into the institutions and in touch with the expertise they need in the success. at this stage over 1,000 innovative projects in about 450 companies over the last number of years so that’s proven in itself, but even when you talk to the companies they tell you that they find it essential.

John Adams: Nypro Healthcare is a global company and we offer solutions for product design, development, tooling and manufacture to the healthcare industry. The technology gateway programme allows us to collaborate with SEAM closely on some of our development projects. They’ve rapidly increased the time that we get from concept to full device testing, response time, quality of the communication that they give us, very much what you’d expect from a professional consultancy service.

Kevin Mull: We basically saw the gap in the market, we’ve gone to the technology gateway, they’ve worked with us closely as we teased out the ins and outs of what can and can’t be done and the result of that now is we have a product that’s ready to go to market. It’s really a driver safety and customer care programme. We’ll be able to give you real-time feedback as to how you’re driving on a particular day.

Eric Robson: When we work with industry they’re facing real problems, real problems that they have customers willing to pay money to actually solve. We can leverage those problems, leverage our links with industry to help further our research, help direct our research so it is more relevant to the industry of today and the industry of tomorrow and in the future.

Suzanne Hamiltion: There has been 17 Applied Research Enhancement Centres and of those, 10 have progressed to the New Technology Gateway Programme, so that’s already a testament to the ability to link with industry. There’s lots of fantastic examples of how industry have benefited through increased turnover, profits, employment, and those are just early indicators at this moment in time.

Alan McNamee: We’ve been working with the Athlone Institute of Technology in the Command Gateway. What we’ve found useful is the collaboration and the mixture of the skillsets that actually has helped leveraging our products but also taking some new ideas and new thoughts from outside of the company.

Suzanne: Industry now look towards IOTs as much as they look towards universities to do Applied Research which is a real positive to benefit from the programme and something that Enterprise Ireland did set out to do in the early days, and actually its helping Ireland move forward in terms of that.