Tonight was Dublin Beta 15 - that, in a transient world is consistency.

I haven't been for a while and this seemed an appropriate evening to rekindle things in The Hangar on Dublin's Andrew's Lane;

Fingal Enterprise Week started today and by lunch time I'd met hundreds of people planning on starting small businesses and tonights Dublin Beta was a The Startup Gathering edition.

John O'Rourke Russell Banks and Gene Murphy make Dublin Beta happen once a quarter and although this is a mature event there's still a lovely Indie feel to it - there's a rawness and a swagger to the event that's helped it retain its audience and it has similarities  not so much to London events, but to start-up events you might see somewhere like Berlin,

So, I headed off to Andrews Lane, and found that FIntech had found its way in to Dublin Beta - food and drink, hospitality were there but the first pitch that caught my eye was Daire O'Neill's A5 Technologies……

E20 : Dublin Beta: Startup Gathering Edition

Recently I got to chat to Charly Lester for the Midland 103 Tech Special, but a  chat with Charly is more about life, society and love, than tech. 

The founder of 30datesblog.com and the UK Dating Awards, she's a regular on BBC Radio 4 and Editor-in-chief of The Guardian's Soulmates website and Global Head of Dating for Time Out - she knows dating, online and off but I think she knows you and me, and that's what makes her insights so lucid.

The first people I knew that fell in love online were a couple of CompuServe users in the early 1990s - where there was a maelstrom of unmoderated poking, flirting and propositioning across the Atlantuc. CompuServe's 'channels' were the Wild West of dating and thankfully things have matured since then - not only the interface!  So in Podcast 21, I asked Charly how she started her blog 30Dates, Tinder's pricing strategy for older users, the truth about the 'Hook Up Generation' and, if you are online looking to connect, her top tips for finding love in the wires.

Image: charlylester.com

E21 : Charly Lester on Online Dating: Business Or Personals?

Last week I wrote a piece for the International Business Times asking the question, 'Could a Brexit have been avoided if the UK had a smarter digital voting system?'. I think it could have been and I joined Bobby Kerr on Newstalk's Down To Business to tell him a little more about sophisticated digital economies like Estonia, and how they've implemented mobile-voting.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/could-brexit-have-been-avoided-if-uk-had-smarter-digital-voting-system-1567845 

Could a Brexit have been avoided if Britain had a digital voting system?

I've been buying razor blades for two decades, and have never given any thought to the science & engineering that makes shaving possible.  In a Podacst recorded last year, I had a fascinating conversation with Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze, from Gillette's R&D facility on follicles, prototyping, women in science and how shaving has evolved.

E22 : The Science, Of Shaving with Gillette's Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze


Fitbit was established in 2007 and dominates the fitness tracker market 
They’ve just announced revised versions of their Flex and Charge trackers and some Fitbit execs were in Dublin to officially open their new EMEA HQ, where they say they’ll employ 50 people by the end of this year.

I sat down with Chief Business Officer, Woody Scal and we discussed gamification, new products and how companies might be able to unlock the potential of fitness tracker data for the benefit of customers, health services and society as a whole, but first, I asked Woody about this significant investment for Fitbit, outside the US.

License: CC BY-NC
This Podcast may be reproduced, or broadcast but should not be sold and should include attribution to the producer.

Produced by: Andy O'Donoghue
Recorded at: FitBit EMEA HQ, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Recording Date: 31-August-2016


E23: Woody Scal, Chief Business Officer, FitBit

This year, Cartoon Forum was held in Toulouse, from September 13-16 with 950 participants including producers, broadcasters and investors. 2016 was the inaugural year a special 'Focus on...' country, with the selected country being Ireland.

Cartoon Forum is a pitching & co-pro forum for animated TV projects. 3 days, producers have the opportunity to pitch their project in front of 900 broadcasters, investors and other potential partners from 30 countries. Since its creation in 1990, 680 series have found financing, with a total budget of 2.3 billion EUR.

Images by and © Cartoon Media

Interviews:
Annick Maes: Director of Cartoon Forum Director
Paul Young: Animation Ireland & Cartoon Saloon, Ireland.
Eileen Bell: Enterprise Ireland
Deirdre Barry: Salty Dog Pictures, Ireland.
Cliff Parrott: Salty Dog Pictures, Ireland.
Nayoung Cho: Anyzax Animation, South Korea,
Zsuzsana Krief: Director, The Adventures of Candide - Popfilm, Hungary.
Ben Harper: Creative Director, Giant Animation - Creepers, Ireland.
Adrian Mulvey: Producer, Keg Kartoonz, Ireland.

Produced by: Andy O'Donoghue

Licence: CC BY-NC 3.0
You may broadcast, edit and transmit this audio content, but if you do, you must attribute it to the original producer and you may not charge for the content, or sell it, or offer it as part of a subscription only service.

E24 Cartoon Forum 2016 in Toulouse, France.

The BT Young Scientist is one of the oldest competitions of its type in the world. From Jan 11 - 14, 50,000 people will visit Dublin's RDS to see the work & experiments of students from the island of Ireland. BTYSE lumni have gone on, like Patrick Collison from Stripe, to found multi-billion dollar companies and to do good, like Emily Duffy with her Duffily Bag. I spoke to teacher Tracey O’Leary from Presentation Secondary School in Clonmel, and two of her students, Caoimhe Woods, 14 and Aoibhin Foley, 13, have created an app called Diabetica to help diabetics manage their illness as well as John Sims from Mary Immaculate, Lisddonvarna who's been bringing students to BTYSE for 28 years, including Jessica Kelly, a 15 old transition student who's created an app for civic crowd-sourcing, Saoránach.

Produced by: Andy O'Donoghue

Licence: CC BY-NC 3.0
You may broadcast, edit and transmit this audio content, but if you do, you must attribute it to the original producer and you may not charge for the content, or sell it, or offer it as part of a subscription only service.

E25 : BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition : 2017

Last year, I met Heather Brunner, CEO of WPEngine in Lisbon. In an interview broadcast on Midlands 103FM we chatted about WPEngine's investment outside of the US, in the UK and Ireland but in this extended version we talk about a lot more.

What has powered the growth of WPEngine since 2010? What's life at a tech company in the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas?  How WPEngine's customer focus is in their DNA and the importance of WordPress in democratising publishing in a new media world.

Recorded at the WebSummit, Lisbon, 2016   |   Produced by Andy O'Donoghue

Licence: CC BY-NC 3.0
You may broadcast, edit and transmit this audio content, but if you do, you must attribute it to the original producer and you may not charge for the content, or sell it, or offer it as part of a subscription only service.

E26 : Heather Brunner, Chairwoman & CEO, WPEngine

The ‘end of’, and ‘start of’ year lists about the biggest trends in tech this year include many of the usual suspects; Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Social Media and Hackers, but a gaping omission I feel, is the absence of food.

Food and technology are intersecting, and I joined Matt Cooper on The Last Word to talk about Caleb Harper, The Personal Food Computer, Click and Grow and what happens when food and tech collide.

The Internet of Food : The Last Word with Matt Cooper on TodayFM

All over the world, cities are getting smarter.

In Bristol their ‘Citizen sensing’ project helps shops plan their offerings based on foot traffic while in Costa Rica's Curridabat The Walkway Project developed by the local authority lists the obstacles which disabled people meet in the street like poorly maintained sidewalks or missing handrails.

Technology writer Andy O'Donoghue joined Matt Cooper to suggest what Ireland could do next. From smart bus stops that conserve power and advise drivers of upcoming stops to place water sensors in flood prone areas of Cork.

Andy also told Matt about a project underway in Ireland's capital, a collaboration between See.Sense,  SmartDublin and the city's cyclists.

The smart bike lights will record road quality and the location of potholes and bad surfaces. As well as that, they’ll highlight how cyclists use the roads and will report on environmental and traffic conditions. As well as that, information about cyclist accidents and bike thefts will also be recorded.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is on TodayFM, Monday to Friday from 4:30pm to 7pm.

Smart Cities On The Last Word, With Matt Cooper

Andy O'Donoghue discussed Bitcoin with Matt Cooper on The Last Word on TodayFM.

As Bitcoin finally settles over the $10,000 mark, Andy tells Matt what Bitcoin is, how it's used and what's going on in the world of cryptocurrencies as we get to grips with new digital currencies like Ether, Monero and the meteoric rise, of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencies | The Last Word, TodayFM

Bobby Kerr chats to Andy O'Donoghue, CEO of KM Medical on Newstalk's Down To Business.

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