Innovation was guest of honour at ' The Irish Times'InterTradeIreland awards during the week, writes MICHAEL McALEER
EVER FIND that your internet connection, particularly to video feeds on smartphones, is increasingly slow at busy periods of the day?
Irish company InTune Networks believes it has the answer and for their work so far they have been given The Irish TimesInterTradeIreland Innovation of the Year 2011 award.
The amount of data on the internet is doubling every 11 months, causing severe bottlenecks, particularly in areas concerning major events. InTune Networks has come up with one solution by developing advanced optical networking products that give carriers and internet service providers the capacity to meet growing demands for bandwidth.
The InTune solution is what founders John Dunne and Tom Farrell describe as “the holy grail of networking”.
For 30 years, laboratories and universities had identified optical packet switching technology as the way to ease the bottlenecks but it took Dunne and Farrell to come up with a clever piece of technology that made it commercial and scalable.
In simple terms, the InTune solution allows network operators to dynamically deliver bandwidth to where it is needed, whenever it is needed in real time. So, if there is a sudden surge in demand in east London as a result of people using their smartphones to access the internet during the Olympics next year, the network capacity can be ramped up instantly to deal with it.
Current network infrastructure perpetuates the existing architectures that cannot meet the requirements of dynamic networks and only addresses the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem.
The Government has recognised InTune’s capability in this space and has chosen the company to build Ireland’s Exemplar Network, the first step in creating a next-generation smart and green communications infrastructure for Ireland.
InTune is an ambitious company and aims in five years to have multiple major international deployments in Europe, North America, India and Africa, and hopes to have created thousands of jobs in the process.
More than 120 companies entered the competition and 21 of these were shortlisted, before the final winners were selected across the various categories. The shortlist was selected by an initial judging panel before the 21 entrants were invited to make presentations to a final judging panel last month.
In the other categories, the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin, incorporating the National Children’s Hospital won the public service innovation award for its new content-rich patient information system that aims to dramatically reduce the paperwork involved and reduce errors in prescriptions. Kilkenny-based FitzGerald Nurseries won the organisational systems and processes award for its remarkable success in gaining international markets for its work in horticulture.
The research and development innovation award went to Celtic Catalysts and its work on developing catalysts that allow pharma firms to formulate drug molecules without unwanted or potentially harmful traits. The firm is a UCD spin-out company from the school of chemistry and chemical biology and has its headquarters in NovaUCD.
Dundalk IT firm Vennetics won the North/South collaboration award for its Mozzler telephone technology that lets users swap between phone, computer or other devices without interruption during a call.
A new one-stop donation point for charities and non-profit organisations, created by Ammado, took the service innovation award. The system allows users to donate to a growing list of charities and handles 75 currencies, 12 languages and 30 global payment methods.
Finally, in the green tech innovation category, the winner was Kingspan Renewables for its new modular vacuum-tube solar energy collector called Varisol.
Speaking at the awards in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, in Dublin, on Wednesday night, Liam Kavanagh, managing director of The Irish Times, said: "The macro-economic situation is impacting adversely on every business and on every member of society. The challenges are enormous. And yet amid the gloom, we hope this competition serves as a beacon of hope for the future.
“The 21 shortlisted finalists demonstrate that, despite enormous obstacles and challenges we face, good ideas can still lead to success. Innovation is alive and well can still flourish on this island. We sometimes get caught up in the finer points of policies and strategies at a national level without appreciating the people who are putting all the fine words into practice. That’s what this event – and indeed our monthly Innovation magazine – is all about.”
John Fitzgerald, vice-chairman of InterTradeIreland, said: “A very noticeable characteristic of all entries was the extent to which they were market-led and market-focused.
“Not only are they strong ideas and innovative processes but they are clearly focused on answering the need and demands of the marketplace and supported by admirable business plans.”
Overall innovation of the year: InTune Networks
Product innovation:
InTune Networks
Application of RD:
Celtic Catalysts
Organisational systems/process:
FitzGerald Nurseries
Service innovation: Ammado
Green tech: Kingspan Renewables
North/South collaboration: Vennetics
Public service innovation: AMNCH (Tallaght Hospital)
