The Mole Screening Clinic, a new venture set up in 2010 by Mike Malone, has become the first winner of the new Start Up monthly initiative run by Eircom.
Eircom is working with the Small Firms Association, First Step Microfinance and Small Business Can on the new start-up drive to give new ventures that are less than two years old a platform to showcase their innovations.
More than 50 companies already filmed for the initiative and more than 120 companies have registered to take part in upcoming Start Up programmes.
Mike Malone set up the Mole Screening Clinic after a family member had a melanoma scare. He he realised Ireland was lacking in such type of mole-screening services, despite having high skin cancer rates. The clinic is now based on Grafton Street in Dublin City.
Prof Giuseppe Argenziano, a world expert on dermatology, will work at the clinic, as will Dr Geoff Tvrdeich, who also runs Naevus, a skin cancer screening centre in New Zealand.
The Mole Screening Clinic is deploying skin-screening technology, such as the latest photo capture and digital skin analysis software to carry out mole screening and early melanoma detection.
Malone said he heard about the competition and then produced a two-minute video on the clinic as its entry.
“We are very excited to be this month’s winner and the prize of a year’s telecoms package worth €2,300 will really benefit our company,” he said.
Start Up will be running for another two months.