Tag: cork

IT@Cork

"Education only hampers learning"

Last Wednesday I had the very great pleasure of collecting Prof. Hans Rosling from the airport to bring him to the it@cork conference (where he kicked off the day with an inspirational presentation).

In the car, on the way to the conference though Prof Rosling made a comment which I thought was extremely unusual for a university professor. We were discussing someone he knew who has been successful despite not having finished his formal education when he said “Education only hampers learning”!

I think it is safe to say this is quite an unconventional view for a professional educator!

Blogging, blogs, Conference, IT@Cork

Conferences can be fun!

I am back in Cork after the Eventoblog conference in Seville over the weekend.

Now I am helping with last-minute preparations for the it@cork conference. It is on this coming Wednesday and it is going to be a real ‘wow!’ event. Apart from the incredible speakers that are lined up, the delegate list is like a who’s who of the techosphere in Ireland. The networking opportunities are going to be superb.

If you plan on going and you haven’t registered yet, do it asap in case you unwittingly miss out!

The Eventoblog conference was great. I didn’t understand most of the talks (my excuse is that they were in Spanish!!!) but I had a fantastic time meeting the Spanish blogging community and the social events which were laid on were excellent.

I’m slightly less terrified about moving to Spain now!

[Disclosure – I’m the Chair of the it@cork conference organising committee]

cix, cork, data centre

CIX open day

Cork Internet eXchange (aka CIX) are having an Open Day on the morning of November 29th at 10am.

This will be your final opportunity to have a gander around the innards of a data centre in the making. After the 29th, ducts will be closed and off-limits areas will be off-limits!

If you are interested in having a look, drop me a mail so we have an idea of numbers (tom@tomrafteryit.net).

See you there.

[Disclosure – I am a director of CIX]

UPDATE – edited to correct my email address – thanks James

IT@Cork, Technology

Cubic Telecom wins an it@cork Leader Award

A big congrats to Pat Phelan and the Cubic lads on Cubic Telecom’s winning the it@cork Leaders Award in the Emerging Company category.

Pat was up against some very stiff competition and I am glad I wasn’t involved in the judging ‘cos I know Tom Keane of Nitrosell and Paul and Frank from YouGetItBack as well as Pat and any of them would have been a great choice for the award.

The Awards night was a fantastic success and I think I can safely say that this is set to become an annual event.

Other winners on the night include Treemetrics, TCH, and Abtran.

John Collins did a really professional job as MC – his look back over the last 10 years brought waves of nostalgia.

If I had to criticise anything about the night it would be that the talks dragged a bit in the middle of the evening but this was due to the fact that it was a double celebration, the Awards and the 10th anniversary of it@cork’s inception. As such this is unlikely to be an issue in the next nine Awards nights!

[Disclosure – I am on the Steering Committee of it@cork and Pat is a client of mine]

IT@Cork

it@cork conference program announced

As Chair of the organising committee for this year’s it@cork Technology in Business Conference, I’m delighted to announce that the program has been announced and registrations are now open.

The conference is on the 28th of November in the Radisson, Little Island. This year’s theme is Connect and Innovate and we have a spectacular line-up of speakers including

  • Hans Rosling, who’s presentation at the Le Web conference last year was the best I have ever attended, bar none
  • Graham Whitehead (the renowned futurologist who works for BT Exact, the research arm of BT), and
  • Anthony Williams, co-author of the award winning, bestselling business book Wikinomics.

Early registrants will have their name entered into a draw for free copies of Wikinomics.

cork

Can anyone help Keola?

Apologies fi you have read Keola Donaghy’s story already but I felt bad for him so I just had to post about his story to see if anyone could help him.

Keola was coming to Ireland with his family to do a PhD in University College Cork. Unfortunately immigration officials at Dublin airport didn’t let them enter the country and deported them despite Keola having satisfied all the documentation he had been asked to bring.

It is not like they were going to be a financial burden or overstay their welcome as Keola says:

To cover the financial side, we brought with us a bit over $4,000 Euro in cash, a bank statement showing a balance of over $10,000 US that we would be able to wire to an Irish bank upon arrival, and a bank statement showing a credit line of over $55,000 US available to us. We did this to be able to demonstrate that we had the financial resources to live in Ireland without being a burden to the state.

and:

I don’t need to be in Ireland for the sake of my job. I had many options when I began researching my options for doctoral research, both within the US and outside. My own college offers a Ph.d. in Indigenous Language and Cultural Revitalization – the only such degree in the world that I am aware of. As a faculty member, I could have pursued that degree at nearly no cost to myself. I was offered a spot in the Ph.d. program at Otago University in New Zealand, where the exchange rate is much more favorable to people from the US, but after searching my soul I knew I wanted to return to the land of my ancestors

If anyone has any advice for Keola, leave a comment here, or more directly email Keola at donaghy@hawaii.edu or keola@nahenahe.net

Blogging, blogs, cork

Donncha in Photo exhibition

Mallow Camera Club are holding an exhibition of photographs in Mallow Town Library for charity for the next three weeks and fellow blogger, photo blogger and WordPress lead developer, Donncha O’Caoimh will have one of his photos in the exhibition for sale – well done Donncha.

Head along if you get a chance, it is for a good cause.

Podcast, Podcasting, PodLeaders, video

Intruders.tv launches in Ireland

In case you haven’t come across it elsewhere already today, Conn O’Muineachain has launched a channel on Intruders.tv focussing on Irish startups.

From the About page:

Our main objective is to take you to the major conferences and events around the world, interview entrepreneurs and investors, visit exciting startups and give you a first look at the hottest technology.

We will meet face to face with the major players in our industry and have open conversations with them about their work, current projects, entrepreneurship and whatever else comes to mind!

Intruders TV Ireland is operated by Edgecast Media Ltd. If you would like to contact us with suggestions, comments, corrections, please email conn(at)intruders(dot)tv.

That’s excellent news, congrats to Conn and the Intruders team for getting this off the ground. Conn, you’ll have to come along to the it@cork conference this year to get some footage – the speaker list hasn’t been published but I can tell you it will blow your socks off!

Like my own first video podcast, Conn’s first interview is with (the normally shy and retiring – not!) Conor O’Neill. Am I imagining it or is Conor wearing the same Twitter jumper in both?

cix, data centre, hosting

Views from the CIX mast

We are erecting a 24 metre mast outside our CIX data centre in Cork.

I was curious to know what the visibility would be like for our mast’s customers (we will be renting out space on the mast) so yesterday when we had a cherry picker onsite I had the driver lift me 10 metres and I took some photos.

I posted the photos on the mast’s page but, for example, looking East-South-East from 10m above the mast’s site you can see the former IFI plant on Great Island (8 miles as the crow flies)!:
View from CIX Mast

Remember these photos were taken from a height of 10m and the mast, when erected later this month, will be a full 24m!

[Disclosure] – I am a director of CIX