From left: Feargal O’Rourke, PwC; Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, TD; Aimée Madden, CliniShift; and John Lauder, Bolton Trust. Image: Jason Clarke
Aimée Madden’s CliniShift wins €10,000 start-up prize.
CliniShift, creator of overtime software for medical workers, has won the top prize in the 2018 Bolton Trust-PwC Innovation Awards.
The company is headed by Aimée Madden, a recent graduate of the DIT-IADT New Frontiers Programme.
‘It is important to support our entrepreneurs who will play a key role in our economy’s continued growth’
– FEARGAL O’ROURKE
Awarding the prize, the Minister for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe, TD, said Ireland must ensure that the right supports are in place to enable the continued growth of our entrepreneurial and innovation-led companies.
“This is why the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation was allocated in the region of €870m this year, the aim of which is to support high-potential start-ups and provide seed and venture capital to young Irish companies in the coming years, among other things.”
Global expansion potential
Madden convinced the judging panel, chaired by Sarah-Jane Larkin, director general of the Irish Venture Capital Association, that the CliniShift venture represented the strongest potential for global expansion and return on investment.
The company battled three other start-ups, including Horus, Outbound and Equine MediRecord, this week’s Start-up of the Week on Siliconrepublic.com.
CliniShift is a communication software solution for the allocation of overtime shifts in hospitals. Using the CliniShift app and the CliniShift manager portal, hospital managers can communicate with their own internal staff and rapidly fill overtime shifts when vacancies appear in permanent rosters. This reduces over-reliance on external agencies, and streamlines processes within the hospital.
Already successfully deployed in Ireland, CliniShift is about to launch pilot deployments in the US and the UK, where it hopes to see steady growth in the next 18 to 24 months.
Since 2012, the DIT-IADT New Frontiers programme has offered a support package of finance, training and workspace to 160 start-ups, which have gone on to secure more than €14m in equity investment and create more than 600 jobs.
“In the most recent PwC CEO survey, over three-quarters (76pc) of Irish CEOs believe that technology will significantly change competition in their industry in the next five years,” said Feargal O’Rourke, managing partner, PwC.
“Leveraging emerging technologies such as data analytics, automation and machine learning will be a key driver for firms to be more competitive. It is interesting to note that many of these innovations lie at the core of the product and service offerings of our finalists this evening.
“It is important to support our entrepreneurs, who will play a key role in our economy’s continued growth. Making a difference through ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship is core to the PwC values and is what these awards are all about. We congratulate the winner and all of the finalists who have done so well.”
