Saturday 4th February, 2012

On this week's tech special from the Institute of Technology in Tralee, presented by George Lee

Coderdojo

To begin our celebration of the geek, we dropped into a club that has been inundated with people looking to join up. It's a place for young computer programmers called CoderDojo, and in just a year since the first Dojo was organised, the club has spread right across the country, and even to the UK and US. We dropped into the Tralee Coderdojo to find out what it's all about.

The Future of Tech

We're joined in Tralee by the founder of Coderdojo, 18 year old James Whelton, and by Jerry Kennelly, who sold his Stockbyte company for over a 100 million euro a few years ago and now runs Tweak.com, to discuss what they see for the future of the technology industry in Ireland.

The Business Review

It was all over the news this week that Facebook has filed the paperwork necessary to go ahead with an initial public offering with an estimated value of between $75 million and $100 million. Alison Boardman of the Unique Voice Language Institute based in Tralee and Breda O'Dwyer from the Institute of Technology to go through that story and everything else that was in the news this week.

Venture Capitalist

One of the most important elements for any company, not only tech companies, is funding. We all know that it's been difficult for businesses to get money from the banks, but what about private investors? We're joined by two such investors, Frank Walsh of Enterprise Equity and Ian Lucey of Lucey Technology, and also by Robert Leslie of Global Butsiness Register, who's raised plenty of funds in the past, but is looking for more.

App Pitch

Our investors are well-used to deciding which ideas and businesses should get their support, so we decided to let some of the students of the Institute of Technology in Tralee try out their smartphone app ideas, and see if the investors thought that they were money-makers or money-wasters. Brian O'Connor pitched his “Back To The Future” app which could help you skive off work, while Shiela Healy pitches her “facebook for dogs” idea, called 'Fat Dog”.

Rose of Tralee

Tralee is perhaps most famous for its Roses, and we're joined by two, Muirne Hurley Goode and Brenda Highland, who after their appearances on the Rose of Tralee, went into business. They tell us how the pageant's network has helped them in their businesses.