I work in the middle of one of Europe’s high-tech clusters, in Cambridge and there are endless delegations coming to the area, particularly from Europe and the far east that want to know what makes Cambridge tick and how they can replicate its success in their corner of the work. Although its had an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem for maybe three of four decades, there is nothing magic about what happens here. I can report that it is exactly the formula that you describe above: smart people who are allowed the freedom and funding to explore their wacky ideas and business people and VC/Angel investors who are smart enough to spot opportunities and not afraid of risk.

Some friends of mine had a small unit there and said they were done no favors. Rent was high and The Guinness Enterprise centre wanted to make as much money as possible from them.

Housing – I just want a roof over my head to raise a family, thank god the market is crashing.

Philip/MK,

I agree that it is solid strategy to “add value” and to elevate Ireland’s core industries. Food and all things related to it has become an international passion. The middle classes around the world are aspiring to have the most sophisticated taste buds and there are markets developing to meet their needs. People with disposable income are “trading up”. They will pay double and treble for the gourmet cheese. In NYC there is hotdog stand selling Kobe beef hotdogs. Ireland’s great agricultural legacy can tap in to these trends. There is great potential to capitalize on both the aspiring gourmet trends and the search for “natural” organic products.

That does not mean that other industries/concepts/ideas should not encouraged /explored. The bias against technology startups seems irrational to me.

“Someone mentioned Skype…not a penny made out of it and usage seems to be falling”
- $500 Million revenues prejected this year. Not small change. Now the expected synergies that eBay were expecting may not have materialized but that is a different story. Cannot dismiss the brilliance of the technology and the market potential.

“It is small potatoes and has its own particular nuances, with perhaps a lot down to chance. It is also something that probably could only be succesful in the US. As I said before, the guys are very intelligent and I wish them all the best. Maybe they will start a ‘real business’ in Ireland some day.”

“I am not interested in the few Collison “Auctomatics” who make a few bob selling geek delivered web apps to a few guys on the make.”

Yes Auctomatic has its own nuances like all companies but the point is, if Ireland wants to tap in to “soft power” these are the people the country should be retaining. What did the Canadian company who bought Auctomatic want? the technology or the people behind it? How do you define a “real business”.

I am hard pressed to understand why this could be only successful in the US. We live in a global economy. There is no reason why technology developed in Ireland cannot find a global market. Once upon a time in the era of “hard products” you needed to develop a local market before exporting. This was a handicap for Ireland. In this global interconnected market it is no longer true. Anyways, the biggest loss was the talent and probably not this particular application.

Was Overture a real business when they started selling ads against search results. The back lash at the time was huge and noone had the 2 geeks developing Google as a PHD project in their sights. For that matter the whole Internet thing as a business model was suspect for many years.

There are many strategies/roads/business ideas to a successful national industrial policy. Dismissing technolgy or ideas because they are “not real” or “its just a few guys on the make” does not a sound strategy make.

Point of clarification – I am not complaining the points are too low in Science – that point refers to the fact that BECAUSE the points are low, and the standards in the University ARE being maintained, there are many people failing 1st year science thus wasting a year of their life because of a fault in the system. And yes, raising the points will not attract more but will prevent the problem I stated.

I like the argument MK about the supply of courses, that makes sense on a countrywide basis but the numbers for Science and Engineering are falling countrywide and I also have to believe that there is a mindset that would prefer a degree in Science, say, from UCD, UCD or Trinity than other colleges because of reputational issues.

I also don’t agree that getting A’s in science subjects are easier than others – the sheer length of the Biology and Chemistry courses in the leaving cert turns students off. Granted for Maths, Applied Maths and Physics the answers are more binary and the logic of doing these to get an A is rational. The points system is far from fine if it forces such a skew in the directions people take and is primarily based on a number and not the underlying quality of the education, i.e., I can get into a course which has a heavy, say Geography component, without ever having covered the basics of Geography, or I could get into Medicine without doing Chemistry.

MK – I am far more worried about the unwillingness of the graduates I have hired to do a tap of work than I am about their education.

Dont forget and apply basic economics to this, points are determined by supply. The reason that many science and technology courses have dropped in points required (and indeed many places are not filled) is that the number of courses and places on courses has ballooned over the last 10-15 years.

Meanwhile, the places in several areas are resticted and due to the vested interest and participation of the professions in those courses, areas like medicine, law, etc, have high points. The underlying problem is that they have lack of supply. Indeed, in the case of RCSI, many places are taken up by foreign (non-EU) students. The Irish government is in other words funding the education of doctors who will work in other countries. That doesnt make sense. (this has been recognised and is being alleviated to some extent I understand).

The supply of courses and education needs to be looked at. Granted, its relatively easy to roll-out an IT course or engineering course. Medicine is hands on – getting a new Dell laptop is a lot easier than getting a cadaver!

We were in a situation where Ireland had 70,000 leaving cert students and 10,000 3rd level places. Now the situation is something like 60,000 leaving cert students and 50,000 3rd level places. We have effectively dumbed down (other countries have done likewise), and a graduate is no longer what a graduate used to be. Some of the graduates who I have employed with so called ’1sts’ would in days not that long ago probably not even have qualified to go to University. We have created this conveyor belt but at the end of the day, the quality of the ‘product’ we are producing has not risen on average, and has indeed gone down.

There are no easy solutions …..

MK

The points system is fine. You are complaining that the entrance level to science courses are too easy, and yet less people are doing them. That is to mix up cause and effect, and the low numbers doing science is hardly going to be alleviated by artificially increasing the points, now is it? Nor should science courses be dumbed down at university – what would the point of that be, it would make these graduates unemployable, or their bridges unsafe.

“Ronaldo deciding to play right back in Alex Ferguson’s team.”

Ronaldo would do that if the wages for playing right back were much higher than playing forward.

“We must encourage our most talented to develop and utilise their talents to full extent”

Given the general nature of the leaving cert. people who do pharmacy, law, medicine, and veterinary studies are probably going to be pretty good at science – they would at least have had to do mathematics, and probably physics. Many would have done the full sweep of science subjects – where an A is “easier” ( in the sense of being less subjective) than in English if you have the aptitude. The students could be very good at IT. The reasons to work in the other industries is to earn five to ten times what they could earn in IT, in industries which cannot be outsourced. There is nothing you are going to be able to do to stop this.

Pay peanuts. Get monkeys.

You hit the nail on the head. Our best and brightest are gravitating to the “demand for security” professions. Isn’t this marvellous! This attitude must be challenged. Its like Ronaldo deciding to play right back in Alex Ferguson’s team. Ronaldo could say he can’t be criticised anymore for not beating his opponent everytime and creating a scoring opportunity (we know he only has to beat his opponent a few times in the course of a 90 minute match to win the game). Do you think Fergie would allow him play at right back? And what has our manager been doing? Well, Ahern has rewarded our best to play right back, season after season. He doesn’t want to see any creativity rewarded. And the youth team coming up behind? They know rewards favour the cautious. So Ireland’s best team is a team full of right backs.

Obviously points are driven by demand. So can you now see what is driving the demand? We must encourage our most talented to develop and utilise their talents to full extent. Seeking caution is the antithesis to this.

One thing that must be pointed out is that Engineering and Science numbers are dropping in EVERY developed country – this is not an Ireland specific problem but it is magnified by the policies we have in place to dissuade people from these areas.

As long as our universities fill their law, vetinary and medicine courses with our best and brightest, we will never be able to compete in technology. Introducing fees for those courses is an excellent idea as long as you keep engineering, technology and science courses free. The engineering, technology and science courses are viewed as being too difficult by most students. They want to enjoy themselves at university and do as little as possible but yet embark on careers after graduating which offer excellent salaries. Do you blame them? Its time they started paying for it.

Has anyone asked why training to be a vet requires such high points? I think it must be unique to Ireland. I work as a civil engineer, which requires early starting times on site, getting dirty and getting wet. Aren’t people prepared to make any sacrifices these days? Seems to me we have a very cossetted school leaving population who never want to go beyond their comfort zone. Do our vets really need to be genuises?

God Help Ireland!

Colin