Cisco: ‘Innovation can spring from anywhere in Irish economy’

25 Mar 2010

Cisco Ireland managing director Kim Majerus believes Ireland could be its own Silicon Valley but it needs to improve its education and digital infrastructure in order to move fast in a world where every country sees opportunity in innovation.

As I write, I’ve just finished reading Fine Gael’s plan to create a €900m-a-year education economy and I’m convinced they could have expanded on an obvious opportunity: selling Irish education via the web.

Here’s the rub: out of 430,000 unemployed people in this country, there are a lot of out-of-work primary and secondary school teachers who, with broadband, video conferencing, e-learning and a bit of enterprising spirit, could help export our education system to the four corners of the earth.

This isn’t my idea; it’s just one of many ideas from Cisco Ireland managing director Kim Majerus, which she believes could transform Ireland into the true smart economy we keep hearing about.

For more from Cisco growth plan: ‘Innovation can spring from anywhere in the Irish economy’, go to Digital 21.

By John Kennedy

Photo: Ireland is a really good place for ideas; people just need to believe this, urges Cisco’s Kim Majerus

www.digital21.ieDigital 21 is a campaign to highlight the imperative of creating an action programme to secure the digital infrastructure and services upon which the success of our economy depends.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com