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DIGITAL WORLD
Start-ups at the Web Summit’s Alpha Village
INNOVATORS AND EXPERTS For most people, the event was all about the presentations delivered by some of the world’s leading technology innovators and experts. In all, 350 speakers spoke from six main stages and through workshops, including Hailo founder and CEO Jay Bregman; Dropbox CEO Drew Houston; Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box; Cisco’s CTO Padmasree Warrior; Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom; and Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell. One of the people who helped design Apple’s iPod and
the author of more than 300 patents, Fadell co-founded Nest Labs in 2010. The company designs and manufactures sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors. In his talk Fadell outlined why he believes smoke detectors are ripe for disruption. Elsewhere, in an interview during his trip, Fadell said his
company is planning to establish an office in Ireland. He said his decision had been informed by advice from a number of people who recommended Ireland as a place to do business, as well as from seeing companies like Google and Facebook setting up operations in the country. Evernote’s chief executive Phil Libin also indicated that his
company may be setting up a facility in Ireland. He described Ireland as a great place to be and said most countries could learn from how the country attracts the best talent and companies. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was back at the summit and, in
his ‘fireside chat’ with The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Rooney, he spoke about the past, present and future of the online giant, which now includes Techcrunch and The Huffington Post among its brands. He said that while the company hadn’t always been on track on the past, he believes it’s set for a bright future, particularly in the online video space. The youngest founder to speak at the event was Jordan Casey from Waterford, who announced the launch of his
58 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEWIssue 7 Autumn/Winter 2013
second company Teachware to join his existing company Casey Games. The 13-year-old coder told the audience that his new cloud-based management software is designed to help teachers keep track of student information like attendance and exam scores. Casey, who became one of Europe’s youngest iOS creators at the age of 11 when his first game Green Boy Touch went into the App Store, spoke about some of the disadvantages of being such a young entrepreneur, including the fact that he’s not always taken seriously by investors and venture capitalists. The highlight of the summit for most people was the closing
event featuring billionaire technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal and now heads up electric car maker Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX. A late addition to the summit line-up, Musk shared the main stage with Shervin Pishevar, founder of Sherpa Ventures, and the Taoiseach, in a discussion moderated by Storyful’s Mark Little.
Musk made a somewhat dramatic entrance to the packed auditorium, driving Kenny to the stage in one of his own electric cars. Asked by Little for advice on ensuring that Ireland continues
to be at the forefront of the digital economy, Musk said it is important to continue to develop engineers. “For technology companies, you need engineers,” he stressed. He suggested that engineering tuition could be free but that graduates would then have to remain to create their companies here. “I think that kind of thing would be effective in creating technology companies,” he added. The Taoiseach urged Musk to consider Ireland as a location
for manufacturing the cars. “Seriously, if you are coming to Europe with Tesla, we will compete with the best, so if you are going to do that, give us a chance. We’ll give you a fair hearing and our workers will not let you down. I promise you that.”
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