A TECHNOLOGY company whose chief executive attended the F.ounders conference in Dublin is set to announce it is opening an Irish office.
The company will announce that the move will see the creation of about 25 jobs.
Some 150 entrepreneurs attended the conference, which has been called “Davos for Geeks” due to the opportunities it provides for networking. The invite-only conference, now in its second year, ran from Thursday until yesterday and brought together the founders of some of the world’s biggest internet businesses including YouTube, LinkedIn, PayPal and Angry Birds, as well as newer companies that are seen as having the potential to emulate them.
This year the event attracted some of Asia’s leading entrepreneurs, including Beerud Sheth, chief executive of SMS GupShup, India’s leading social network with more than 50 million users.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton held private meetings with some of the conference attendees. Mr Gilmore met a number of executives from Asia as it is seen as a region from which Ireland can attract more inward investment.
On Saturday, delegates turned their minds to charity, with a number of speakers discussing social entrepreneurship and asking the business people to consider how they could help.
The wealthy and potentially wealthy techies seemed as interested in hearing about a plan to create jobs for one million people with autism, or providing clean drinking water in Africa, as they did on getting advice on cracking the Asian market.
Organiser Paddy Cosgrave said he was extremely pleased an IDA Ireland executive had told him the agency had made three new contacts with people at the conference who are interested in bringing their business to Ireland.
A spokesman for IDA Ireland confirmed it had “a lot of good engagements with potential investors” at F.ounders and that it was in discussion with a number of companies before their attendance at the conference.
The conference has a strong social and cultural element and the group attended a dinner in Dublin Castle on Saturday night hosted by Mr Gilmore, while Riverdance impresario John McColgan brought along a troupe of his dancers to provide after-dinner entertainment at the Guinness Storehouse on Friday night. U2 lead singer Bono joined the group for a dinner in Trinity College Dublin on Friday night.
Mr Cosgrave said F.ounders and the Dublin Web Summit, the public event that runs in parallel with it, would be held again next October but his organisation is “committed to doing events in London, Berlin and New York in 2012”.