Deals done this past week


3 May 2011

An overview of the week in deals in the Irish technology sector.

Irish web tech firm in CMS deal with UMass Dartmouth

One of Massachusetts’ leading colleges, UMass Dartmouth, is to deploy technology developed by Irish company TerminalFour to manage its web system, which is used by 400 staff, 10,000 students and 40,000 alumni.

The company’s web content management solution is supporting more than 100 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth websites as it targets growth in undergraduate and graduate student numbers.

TerminalFour Site Manager, a web content management solution, has been rolled out across more than 100 sites initially and this process is continuing.

The newly developed website is now the primary point of contact between UMass Dartmouth and the millions of prospective American students that enter the third-level education market every year. 

SFI partners with DCU Ryan Academy to upskill researchers

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has joined forces with DCU Ryan Academy to provide entrepreneurship training for post-doctoral researchers so they can learn the business essentials when pitching their ideas to secure investment.

Sixteen researchers from research centres in universities across Ireland are engaged in the three-month programme at DCU Ryan Academy, which will culminate in Demo Day in May, whereby they will pitch their ideas to a selected panel that includes a representative from the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) in Silicon Valley.

The eventual winner will then head to Silicon Valley for a week-long trip, hosted by ITLG, to meet venture capitalists and leading technology companies.

This collaboration is part of SFI’s TIDA (Technology Innovation Development Award) 2010 programme. SFI is working in partnership with Enterprise Ireland on TIDA to realise a greater economic impact from State investment in oriented basic research. 

The key objective is that successful TIDA awardees will start to develop a base of commercially relevant, applied research skills that can then be built on with Enterprise Ireland support in order to produce tangible commercial outputs.

ESB in €22m energy supply deal with Eircom

ESB Electric Ireland has signed a €22m contract with Eircom Group, which will see it service Eircom’s energy requirements over the next two years and also strive to improve the company’s energy efficiencies.

As part of the contract, ESB Electric Ireland will supply electricity to 81 major telephone exchanges and installations along with Eircom’s new corporate headquarters at Heuston South Quarter and support the company with long-range energy procurement.

ESB Electric Ireland Industrial & Commercial business manager Derek Russell said the company had developed a highly flexible, innovative contract that would help drive cost savings and energy efficiency for Eircom.

Over the next 24 months, ESB Electric Ireland will aim to help Eircom exploit energy cost-saving and efficiency initiatives through the installation of Energytracked, its energy and environmental management system.

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