The Irish Startup and Tech Hub Invitation Programme in Japan (2 of 2): Aichi and Kansai

/ John Breslin / Leave a comment

While we spent the majority of our first three days on the JETRO Invitation Programme for Irish startups and tech hubs in Tokyo, Team Galway moved to Nagoya by Shinkansen (bullet train) on the evening of day 3 for meetings on the morning of day 4 (this was after a small mishap where we missed our original train, but thankfully you can just take the next Shinkansen in an unreserved carriage!), and to Osaka and Kobe on day 5. If you can believe it, our next two days were even more jam-packed, as we visited Japanese startups, innovation hubs, and corporations, and even took part in an overseas startup event!

(In Nagoya, which is in the Aichi Prefecture, we stayed at the Strings Hotel for €120 a night including breakfast and free cancellation via Booking.com. We also had a lovely yakitori dinner in Torishin Meieki with Ozeki-san. In Osaka, which is in the Kansai Region, we stayed in the Rihga Royal Hotel for €100 a night including breakfast and free cancellation via Booking.com. We ate in the Cellar, one of many dining options in the hotel, which had a very handy free shuttle bus to the JR Osaka Station. We also had an amazing okonomiyaki [Japanese savoury pancake] at Botejyu HEP Navio for only €7 at lunchtime.)

Fainzy Technologies, Nagoya University

We had stayed in Nagoya the night prior, and loved wandering around downtown and exploring the city for the first time. Our first stop in Nagoya was to visit Nagoya University’s spinout Fainzy Technologies, where we met Dr Jude Nwadiuto, Founder and CEO of Fainzy and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University. We were accompanied by Dublin Resident Agent Yasuyuki Ozeki-san and the Central Japan Startup Ecosystem Coordinator with JETRO Nagoya, Masanobu Sakaki-san.

Fainzy is a robotics company that has developed a number of interesting product offerings, particularly around automated delivery robots as a service, including indoor food delivery robots for ordering and bringing meals to customers inside restaurants and hotels, as well as “last mile” outdoor food delivery robots to bring meals and drinks from restaurants to consumers’ own locations. They use a variety of electronic and computing techniques including autonomous driving, control systems, and deep learning to power their robots.

We had a great discussion about product focus and competitors, and then got to see some of the robots themselves. We really liked Jude-san’s presentation on Fainzy’s future robotic product offerings, and I also enjoyed having some hands-on time (or as my colleagues said, “engineering exam!”) to ask some questions about the types of sensors being used.

STATION Ai

We stayed on in Nagoya City for our next meeting where we met with the leadership team of special purpose vehicle (SPC) STATION Ai Corp., temporarily based in WeWork until their fabulous new building is completed later this year. The hosts were Hirokazu Satoh-san, Assistant Director of the Overseas Collaboration Division of the Aichi Prefectural Government and who has been to Ireland before, and Satoru Ichihara-san of SoftBank, who is General Manager of the Investment and Global Support Section of STATION Ai. Ichihara-san started our visit with a welcome presentation about some of the exciting things to come for STATION Ai.

Opening in October 2024, STATION Ai is set to be Japan’s largest incubation hub with a staggering total floor area of over 23,000 m². Yes, you heard that correctly. That’s over 2 hectares. It will be located on the southside of Tsuruma Park in Tsurumai, which is about 7 minutes on the Chūō Line from Nagoya City, or 15 minutes by car. The facility will have training rooms, offices, co-working areas, meeting spaces, prototyping labs, direct access to local government via a dedicated office, cafés and restaurants, parking and storage, and lots more.

Image courtesy of STATION Ai

STATION AI also plans to integrate next-generation advanced technologies into its facility, including the Internet of Things, AI, robotics, and big data analytics. Importantly, a dedicated fund (Central Japan Fund 1) will be created between the STATION Ai Corp. SPC and DeepCore Inc. (an AI-focused venture capital firm and subsidiary of SoftBank) to invest in technology startups.

Aichi’s startup strategy aims to fuse their startup ecosystem with the huge manufacturing industry in the region, which includes the likes of Toyota, Fuji, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and many others. This will be achieved through incubation, infrastructure development, training/programming, fundraising, and networking/events at STATION Ai.

The word global occurred throughout the visit’s presentations and discussions, both in terms of markets and partnerships. Some have already been forged with the likes of France’s STATION F, and others are yet to come. We were very impressed by STATION AI’s scope (a home for 1,000 startups) and vision (for a unique and global startup ecosystem), and we look forward to future potential collaborations between our startup ecosystems in Ireland and Central Japan.

Hitachi Channel Solutions

After a quick fast food lunch (salmon onigiri for me, yum!), we moved on to Owariasahi City where we visited the headquarters of Hitachi Channel Solutions. We were met by Deputy General Manager Masanobu Segawa-san, Junta Atsumi-san and Xinyue Chen-san of their Corporate Planning Office. We began with a presentation from Atsumi-san and Chen-san, and then had a tour of the facility led by Segawa-san and other Hitachi team members.

In their demonstration room showcasing various current and future ATMs (and their innards), it was fascinating to see some of the features of future ATMs including touchless (holographic) keypads and menu systems, and finger vein scanning for improved biometric identification. We also visited a museum area with some vintage Hitachi systems, and I took the opportunity to pull out a photo of my vintage TRK-5280E radio/stereo cassette recorder from sister company Hitachi Consumer Electronics.

We were amazed to find out that each ATM has over 16,000 parts, most of which are assembled by hand, with some robotic interventions. We were brought through the work floor where the ATMs were being assembled, and observed the extremely detailed work that goes into making each machine on time and to the highest quality standards.

Finally, we had some interesting discussions on future application areas for Hitachi Channel Solutions, having seen some new automated systems being developed by them for the healthcare space. We observed that the technology underlying ATMs can be deployed in many application areas (as we know from a company called EcoATM founded by our friend Mark Bowles), and ATMs themselves are still in demand in many countries, for example, banks are being encouraged to maintain ATMs in Ireland under a new access-to-cash law.

We would like to thank all of the team at Hitachi Channel Solutions for the very extensive and informative tour, presentations, and for being so generous with their time. We look forward to future open innovation possibilities between Hitachi and Ireland.

Fuji Corporation

Accompanied by Shinichi Doi-san, J-BRIDGE Coordinator at JETRO Nagoya, our final stop in Aichi prefecture was Chiryu City, where we visited Fuji Corporation and were met by Koji Kawaguchi-san and Kazumitsu Kamiya-san from their Innovation Promotion Department.

We began our visit with a fascinating tour of the Fuji Corporation demonstration room, where we were able to see various products that utilise Fuji’s machine tools and assembly machines, including Toyota cars, the original Sony Walkman, and modern smartphones. As an electronic engineer, it was so exciting to see the state-of-the-art in surface-mount technology (SMT) systems from Fuji, placing resistors that were so small as to be like dust, but also the new intrapreneurial application areas being researched and developed.

As well as seeing the SMT systems in operation, we had a live demonstration (Niamh from our team was the volunteer) of the Hug mobility support robot, which helps lift those less mobile from beds to chairs and vice versa in either nursing home or own home settings. It was also great to hear about some of the CSR initiatives that Fuji has set up to engage young children in learning STEM and languages, boosting maths and English skills through the THANK learning facility.

After the tour, we had an interesting presentation on existing and future product lines. We appreciated the time and experience shared with us, and look forward to future open innovation opportunities between Fuji Corporation and Ireland via J-BRIDGE, JETRO Europe Innovation and the JETRO – Japan External Trade Organization.

Osaka Innovation Hub

Our first stop on our last day was the Osaka Innovation Hub (OIH), accompanied by Chieko Tanabe-san and Aki Hirahata-san of JETRO Osaka for the day. Megumi Ishitobi-san, Global Team Leader of the Osaka Innovation Hub gave us a very warm welcome and overview of OIH’s activities to help startups “step into tomorrow”.

OIH is operated by the Osaka Business Development Agency (OBDA) from the local government, and acts as a concierge and gateway to the local startup ecosystem. Osaka Prefecture is home to about 9 million people, and the broader Kansai Region has 20 million people. Osaka and its environs are known for many innovative companies including Akippa, Loss Zero (the Japanese FoodCloud), Omron and Sharp.

One event organised by OIH is their involvement in a Global Startup Competition called Get in the Ring, a pitching event that originated in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and is now run worldwide. The Osaka instance is a collaborative effort between corporations (AstraZeneca, Itochu, Fujitsu, Monex Ventures and Tokio Marine Nichido), the participating startups, and various government agencies through OIH.

We enjoyed meeting Ishitobi-san and learning more about OIH: the programmes and events they organise were really interesting to us, and we had some takeaways for things we could do ourselves and together. We hope to collaborate and exchange more useful information again soon!

FUTRWORKS, Hankyu Hanshin Properties

The FUTRWORKS innovation space from Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp. (HHP) is certainly quite special, with a warm, welcoming interior, and views from the 26th floor that are hard to beat. Hankyu Hanshin evolved from the consolidation of two of Japan’s premier train companies in 2006, and HHP is a REIT owned by the holdings company Hankyu Hanshin Holdings.

We were welcomed by the Manager of FUTRWORKS and of HHP’s Urban Management Division, Nobuhide Okamoto-san, who helped us understand HHP’s vision for and support of this innovation district in Osaka. It was encouraging to hear of corporates supporting the startup sector and stimulating innovation in city centres.

Although HHP owns many of the larger buildings in the area, they are charging well below market rates for FUTRWORKS in order to encourage startups to establish and grow in Osaka. This is part of a community-driven ethos that could certainly be adopted by others, and reminded me of Fexco in Killorglin and their amazing support of RDI Hub.

The FUTRWORKS space itself is beautiful, with wood and warm autumnal tones, focus rooms, a hammock and grandfather clock, and a plush Japanese-style cushioned seating area with views over Osaka. We even managed to become part of a photo shoot at the space for their website – I look forward to seeing those pictures later!

QUINTBRIDGE, NTT West

From one cool space to another: we also really enjoyed visiting QUINTBRIDGE, an open innovation space founded by NTT West that is located in A Building on NTT West’s i-CAMPUS in Osaka. Vice President Naoki Ichihashi-san, Yuusuke Kobayashi-san and Hiroki Fujimori-san of the Innovation Strategy Office kindly hosted the visit, and Kobayashi-san presented the rationale and vision for QUINTBRIDGE.

This 4,000 m² innovation facility has been open for nearly two years, and consists of three main levels: a new encounter floor on the bottom, an idea realisation floor on the second level, and a business expansion floor on the third (mostly offices for tenants). It counts over 1,275 organisations as members, with startups making up nearly two-thirds of those, enterprises one-sixth, and government, universities and others the rest.

QUINTBRIDGE runs a number of interesting programmes including the UP↑ UP↑ Program for their community of innovators, Shining Startup for societal impact, Business Matchup for “next value” co-creation between NTT West and startups (QUINTBRIDGE also have a private 5G network on site for testing), and Future Build to co-create new businesses with NTT West for wellbeing.

The space was a hive of activity, with a Coffee Meetup Pitch on while we were there, and about two events a day being held. This aligns to the fourth principle of the Boulder Thesis: “The startup community must have continual activities that engage the entire entrepreneurial stack.” We loved the brick layers (not bricklayers!) downstairs in the Boost Mountain(s), the “serendipity encourager” on the next floor up (you cannot walk through the space without encountering areas with people), plus all the facilities from makerspaces to office spaces. And the use of art and branding that runs throughout is just sublime.

Kobe City

Our final stop was in Kobe City, a place I would have loved to have spent longer in as it looked so interesting, but it was really just a flying visit for us. We were there to attend an overseas startup event at ANCHOR KOBE (another amazing space with wonderful views of this beautiful city) in which Mary Rodgers was a guest speaker. The event was titled “Kansai and the world connected by innovation – why is collaboration with overseas startups necessary now?”. The event was co-organised by KGAP+, ATR and the City of Kobe.

After an introductory talk, the main proceedings moved on to a panel about “Why and how should we collaborate with overseas SUs*”, chaired by Hiroyuki Suzuki (ATR) with panellists Shiori Fukuda (Kobe City’s New Industry Development Division), Satoshi Miyata (TOA Corporation) and Joshua Flannery (Innovation Dojo Japan). * SU is used throughout Japan as an acronym to refer to startups.

We then had an introduction to Kobe City’s startup support project from Innovation Specialist Shiori Fukuda of the City of Kobe, who also told us about some of the FoodTech and ClimateTech global startups that were invited to Kobe, given its prominence in the food and agriculture space. I thought that there may be some opportunities for Irish startups to visit and collaborate with Japanese companies here given our own focus on AgTech and related areas.

Mary Rodgers, CEO of the PorterShed / Galway City Innovation District and also CEO of the Irish Tech Hub Network, then flew the Irish flag in her excellent invited talk on Ireland’s startup ecosystem. The event finished after some pitches by companies from Europe and beyond in areas such as compostable product alternatives to biodegradable plastic and object detection eyewear for visually impaired people.

The End

This was our final event in the JETRO Invitation Programme for Irish startups and tech hubs. It was an amazing, hectic, busy, inspiring and enlightening trip, but more importantly, real and valuable connections were forged between the Irish visitors and our Japanese hosts.

Thank you to JETRO Europe Innovation and JETRO – Japan External Trade Organization for making this happen, and of course, to our own super guide and local expert Yasuyuki Ozeki-san who got us safely to (and through) Japan and back again to Ireland. If there’s one person you could rely on to get us through things, it’s the man who cycled from Japan to Ireland alone for a pint!

Yasuyuki Ozeki-san, Dublin Resident Agent for JETRO, and John Breslin, Professor at the University of Galway, enjoying some non-traditional Irish-Japanese drinks

The Irish Startup and Tech Hub Invitation Programme in Japan (1 of 2): Tokyo

/ John Breslin / Leave a comment
Mary Rodgers, CEO of PorterShed, Kenny Deery, CEO of Galway Chamber, Niamh Costello, CEO of CREW, John Breslin, Professor at the University of Galway

At the end of February 2024, I was a member of a JETRO Invitation Programme for Irish startups and tech hubs in Japan. It was a packed but productive week, and I wanted to give you a flavour of some of the activities involved as we endeavoured to make even stronger links between Ireland and Japan’s startups, corporates and tech hubs.

You may not know it, but: Japan is the largest source of FDI into Ireland from the Asia-Pacific region; there is €23.3 billion in two-way trade between Ireland and Japan each year, up by 40% from some years earlier; also in just a few years, agrifood exports to Japan have jumped by over 50% to well over €200 million per year; and Ireland is also the top EU country for learners of the Japanese language per capita.

The various startups split out into separate itineraries in other cities according to their business needs from Thursday onwards, but I will describe our own itinerary during the week in two parts, starting with Tokyo in the first part, and moving on to Aichi and Kansai in the second.

(By the way, we stayed at the Gate Hotel Kaminarimon, a four-star hotel [that felt like five!] with amazing views over Asakusa near Sensoji, for €133 including breakfast and free cancellation both via Booking.com and their own site. We ate delicious tempura in Aoi Marushin the first night, various local dishes in an izakaya called Shoya Akasaka the second night, and lunch in Tokyo Sake BAL Anbai Asakusa on the third day.)

JETRO Headquarters

We began our programme with a visit to, tour of, and presentations given at JETRO’s Tokyo headquarters. JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organisation, supports Japanese companies exporting to other countries, as well as foreign companies who wish to enter and expand into the Japanese market. We were kindly welcomed by Shin Hirota, Director of Service in JETRO’s Innovation Department, who gave an overview of the Invitation Programme, and the JETRO staff who would be accompanying startups that week also introduced themselves (including Naoko Yamagishi-san, Miyuki Yamada-san, Moeko Sato-san of JETRO Tokyo, and Amina E and Amina J of JETRO London).

Neil Cooney, Enterprise Ireland’s Director in Japan, gave an invited presentation on Enterprise Ireland’s support for Irish companies expanding into Japan, with some strategic tips for startups entering the Japanese market, and various enlightening market statistics. Notably, exports from Enterprise Ireland’s clients to Japan more than doubled from 2017 to 2022 to over €360 million, part of €17.5 billion in total exports from Ireland to Japan (of which €4 billion or ¥800 billion is goods, and around €13.5 billion is services). It is also worth noting that the forthcoming Ireland House in Tokyo (new home to Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, the Embassy, the Ambassador’s residence, and a shared event space) is the biggest ever capital investment by the Government of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

We had a tour of JETRO’s Invest Japan Business Support Centre (IBSC) and the JETRO Innovation Garden, home to many of JETRO’s Invest Japan, J-BRIDGE and J-Startup activities. There are co-working/hot desk facilities and a number of fully-furnished offices that can be used for free by JETRO client companies for up to 50 days. A fabulous open area for workshops, meetings, talks and other events is also available in this space. For example, a CleanTech-themed visit by government officials, lawyers and investors from the Pacific Northwest was being hosted in the Innovation Garden later that day. Along with Green Transformation, CleanTech was an open innovation topic that kept popping up again and again as a priority area in different organisations during the week’s visits.

In the afternoon, JETRO facilitated a series of presentations by some external partners: a recruitment agency, a real estate agency, and an IP legal firm.

  • Lalita Mosorin and Shintaro Ajito from the PageGroup gave some really interesting insights into local market trends and recommendations for how to hire. A perfect storm of low unemployment rates, a declining population, and strict immigration policies means that the number of job opportunities being created in Japan significantly surpasses the available supply of candidates by a ratio of about 4:1, an outlier in the Asia-Pacific region.
  • In a very insightful presentation from Tadashi Fujimura of Sanko Estate, we learned that while rents are remaining quite steady, there is an upwards trend in vacancy rates which at least points to an opportunity for those looking for suitable office space in Japan. He also explained the trade offs between serviced offices and conventional offices, including the longer-term savings for the latter. This market report from Sanko, published just last week, gives some more details of trends across all the major cities in Japan.
  • Finally, Ayako Nakano and Hayato Higa from Baker McKenzie tested our know-how on IP rights for startups with an interesting presentation on what to know as regards trademarks and patents in Japan.

Tokyo Innovation Base

Tokyo Innovation Base (TIB) is located in the heart of the popular Ginza shopping district in Tokyo. It can best be described as a HUGE collaborative space for starting a business, being part of startup events, building partnerships and open innovation opportunities, and more. It is supported by the local metropolitan government in Tokyo. It is also part of the SusHi Tech Tokyo area and associated programmes (note the big H for an emphasis on Hi Tech).

There is some co-working space in TIB, but it is certainly not the main focus. TIB also has a nice innovation/demonstration/showcase area for Japanese startups, something we have been talking about for Galway for some time, but have not managed to put in place yet (ideally in a high traffic/footfall location).

We were given a tour of this amazing space by one of the TIB staff, followed by presentations from SusHi Tech Tokyo, TIB, and Invest Tokyo from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG).

  • SusHi Tech Tokyo runs the Global Startup Program, a large innovation conference of talks, pitching, matchmaking and exhibits that will be held in May this year at the Tokyo Big Sight (a super venue, I was there in 2015) and some other locations in Tokyo. The event expects to attract 40,000 participants. The main themes of the event are all around sustainable cities: infrastructure, environment, living and culture.
  • TIB itself brings together the quintuple innovation helix – corporates, startups, investors, universities, government – for activities that are global, growth-oriented, collaborative, and that connect all stakeholders. Although not fully finished (the grand opening is to be held later), TIB will include a prototyping/fabrication area, a test shop for marketing products, a studio for working through business plans, a 5G demo facility, and other ecosystem/community plays.
  • Invest Tokyo from the TMG had some interesting statistics and resources on Tokyo. A city of 14 million people (35 million in the metropolitan area), Tokyo has a GDP of about ¥1 trillion or €9 billion that situates it in between Indonesia and the Netherlands in terms of GDP. It is home to around 3,000 large companies (i.e., those with a market capitalisation of over ¥1 billion). Invest Tokyo provides various programmes including business access to Tokyo, free consulting (with a particular focus on the areas of Industry 4.0, FinTech and asset management), entry support for foreign companies involved in green transformation (up to ¥50 million in the first year), initiatives to increase the numbers of foreign entrepreneurs in Tokyo, and the Tokyo One-Stop Business Establishment Centre (TOSBEC) and Business Development Centre Tokyo (BDCT).

Embassy of Ireland, Japan

The delegation from Ireland to Japan consisted of six Irish startups and their executive team members: Brandon Blacoe, CEO of Byowave; Kevin O’Toole and Richard Blackburn, CEO and Head of Engineering respectively of Exergyn; Tyrone Lynch, CEO of Metadomo; Derek Robertson, CEO of Subsea Micropiles; Tilo Weigandt, COO of Vaultree; Gianfranco Bianchi, CCO of Xavatar; plus myself as a connector in the Irish tech and startup ecosystem and co-founder of the PorterShed; and Mary Rodgers, CEO of the PorterShed / Galway City Innovation District and CEO of the Irish Tech Hub Network. We were also accompanied by Kenny Deery, CEO of Galway Chamber, and Niamh Costello, CEO of CREW Digital.

At an Irish Startup Pitch and Networking event organised by the Embassy of Ireland, Japan and JETRO, the invited startups had the opportunity to pitch their innovations to an audience of investors, business leaders and government representatives at the Ambassador’s resience in Tokyo. Chaired by master of ceremonies Neil Cooney from Enterprise Ireland, the event began with a warm welcome from Ambassador Damien Cole, followed by a lovely speech from Takashi Nakagawa, Director General of JETRO’s Innovation Department, who is also a fan of Irish band U2! (In turn, I expressed my love for the music of Isao Tomita.)

Before the startup pitches, Mary Rodgers gave an inspiring presentation on the Irish Tech Hub Network, including the PorterShed of which she is CEO and on the Board of Directors, where she spoke about startup ecosystem building, amplifying entrepreneurship, the power of the startup community, and the need for world-class programmes to drive world-class startup ecosystems.

I followed up with a talk on “Ireland: Island of Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, where I spoke about the overall startup and scaleup picture in Ireland (details courtesy of Scale Ireland and TechIreland), along with spinouts and innovations coming out of our SFI- and Enterprise Ireland-supported centres/programmes such as Insight, CÚRAM and BioInnovate Ireland at the University of Galway. I also told the audience about the origin of the current usage of the term entrepreneurship from Irishman Richard Cantillon. My slides are linked to below.

🔗 Ireland: Island of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The MC duties then transferred to JETRO’s Dublin Resident Agent, Yasuyuki Ozeki-san, the man who really made all of this happen, and who had a nice ice-breaker story to introduce each startup with a follow-up introduction in Japanese. I can’t describe each pitch here in detail, but I can summarise the company areas as follows.

  • Byowave: a modular, customisable and accessible video game controller for people with disabilities
  • Exergyn: clean energy and thermal management solutions powered by shape memory alloys
  • Metadomo: connects existing loyalty program accounts and aggregates points for redemption across a merchant network
  • Subsea Micropiles: land-based micropile technologies for superior marine foundations and anchoring solutions
  • Vaultree: data-in-use encryption framework that facilitates real-time processing on encrypted data at both speed and scale
  • Xavatar: customisable autonomous avatars for video conferencing, animation, television shows, and a variety of metaverse applications

For the reception that evening, I also had an exhibition of photographs from the Old Ireland in Colour project, including 10 new photographs with an Ireland-Japan theme that were colourised especially for this exhibition.

  • John Breslin, Professor at the University of Galway, and Damien Cole, Irish Ambassador to Japan

It was also a pleasure to meet Yoshihiro Tsuchiya and Pat Ryan from the Ireland-Japan Chamber of Commerce at the event.

CIC Tokyo

Along with Silicon Valley, Boston is one of those hubs of the startup universe. When I was in MIT to take the Entrepreneurship Development Program with Bill Aulet in 2017, I remember my jaw dropping during the tour of CIC Cambridge in Kendall Square. The 6,000 m² CIC Tokyo is also extremely impressive, and we were kindly shown around and given an interesting overview of activities by Victor Mulas, Chief Innovation Officer, and Ayano Kagami, Assistant Director.

CIC Tokyo, and its sister organisation Venture Café Tokyo, are located in the fabulous Toranomon Hills Business Tower in Tokyo’s Minato City. The number of companies (280+) on the wall of member entities that greets you on entry is a bit mind boggling, but also of interest are the huge number of international organisations and corporate partners that are part of the CIC ecosystem.

CIC Tokyo itself has all a newborn startup needs, from co-working and office spaces, to massage facilities, nap rooms and baby nursing areas. Next-level stairs function as seating for an audience in the events space, and we loved the overall design of CIC Tokyo, with an imaginative use of fabrics on the ceilings of intersectional meeting and seating areas, and a reservable living room that serves as both chill-out zone and photo backdrop.

But while space is great, it would be underutilised without a constant stream of events and programmes, and CIC Tokyo has these aplenty. Members are kept up-to-date on forthcoming events and office hours on fridge calendars in the state-of-the-art kitchens, and CIC Tokyo is strongly linked to international programming in areas such as DeepTech and healthcare.

LINK-J

Speaking of healthcare, our final itinerary item in Tokyo was to visit LINK-J. When you arrive in Nihonbashi, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the skyscrapers bearing names of life science giants such as Takeda and Astellas. LINK-J aims to create a life science ecosystem and foster life science innovation in not only Nihonbashi, but also other life science clusters around Japan, as well as connecting to international organisations. It is an initiative from Mitsui Fudosan, one of the biggest real estate developers in Japan.

Yoshinori Kiuchi, Project Manager in their Innovation Group, kindly gave us an overview of LINK-J’s objectives and role of creating a community, some of it on top of the facilities layer provided by Mitsui, but also extending far beyond that. With over 750 members, well over 1,000 events per year, and training and acceleration programmes, LINK-J is a model that could certainly be adopted by other countries.

I was happy to present some of the excellent work being carried out by my colleagues at the University of Galway in both CÚRAM and BioInnovate Ireland. In relation to a LINK-J seminar on regulatory/clinical trial processes in Europe, we were also delighted to see Nicola Wall from PorterShed member company Afortiori Development appearing on Yoshi-san’s slides – although nearly 10,000 km away, it’s still a small world after all!

Maciej Dabrowski: Start-ups Key to Galway’s AI Growth

/ trevorportershed / Leave a comment

This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Maciej Dabrowski, Chief Data Scientist, Digital and AI at Genesys, took time to sit down with the PorterShed blog recently. Maciej has been with Genesys for four-and-a-half years. Before that, he was with Altocloud for four years. So, it’s safe to say that Maciej is a fount of knowledge in his field, and he took time to speak with us about how to create a great product, Galway’s role in the development of AI, and what he sees as the future of the technology.

It’s fair to say that artificial intelligence is dominating many conversations in the start-up and broader tech worlds today. At the recent Dublin Tech Summit, there were more than a few panels discussing the current developments as well as a few others that pondered the future of AI, too. With Genesys’ AI headquarters in Galway, it’s clear that the City of Tribes has a key role to play in what that industry becomes. 

From Maciej’s point of view, “strong universities and access to world-class engineering talent” are two of the big reasons that Genesys chose Galway as their AI centre.

“The AI ecosystem in Galway is steadily growing, we do have good universities here that give us access to engineering talent and an exceptional quality of life. What we don’t have in comparison to larger cities is access to a strong  pool of local, senior AI technical talent who have “seen it all” over a long career in AI.” Maciej adds. “In the past, I would say there were not that many AI jobs in Galway – there was Genesys and a handful of other companies working on AI to some degree. Now there are many more opportunities for finding AI jobs in the West”.

Maciej also makes the point that Galway has good engineers that are transitioning into AI, something that is working really well to fill that senior talent gap. For him, the West of Ireland has an abundance of world-class engineering talent on all levels, and with an increasing number of companies working on AI, many engineers will pick up AI skills and transition into core AI. He points to NUIG’s degree to help with this transition and makes the point that Genesys are providing the opportunities to make that switch – with success.

And there is another big positive that Maciej sees, something that Galway can do, in particular:

“If I were to pick one of the things we can do really, really well that will boost the ecosystem, it would be the start-ups. We have a relatively small but critical mass that is working on that, and one of the best ways to grow the AI ecosystem is to develop start-ups that get acquired by a big company and then start building around it. “If that start-up happens to do AI, then that’s obviously an anchor to build around them. So, one of the things we can do is to get more AI start-ups rooted in Galway because that will pull in the AI talent, engineers, new companies, and more resources into our AI ecosystem.”

Maciej Dabrowski

When it comes to exactly what AI can do for people and the wider world, our conversation veers towards the idea of what is best, what is useful, and whether AI always needs to follow either one of these paths.

“We should not approach AI as a magical, all-capable solution to the most-pressing World problems out of the box – it’s not, at least, not yet” Maciej explains, adding that there are lots of studies about how and why AI companies fail when they lack focus on the suitable use case that is feasible and can deliver value. What it all comes down to in most cases, he says, is value generation that depends on the focus on applying AI to the right use case, and access to talent that can solve it using available data and technology.

For Maciej, the best way to attract talented people is to create products that solve problems – big or small.

From Genesys’ perspective, artificial intelligence is all about making things easier for customers and users. Because while AI can sometimes have the cachet of being futuristic and otherworldly, Maciej makes the point that it needs to be understood by those who are using it – and getting the benefit from it.

“We want to make AI accessible and simple. There are a bunch of things that underline that, such as transparency and privacy, for example. Fundamentally, what we’re trying to do is build AI into the products that people use and don’t require advanced degrees to operate them. So, we have to explain what AI does, how it does it, in a way that people understand it and trust it enough to use it.”

Maciej gives an example of a product they launched last year which they ultimately redesigned to be uber simple. The predictive routing software applies AI to connect customers with the most suitable agents, finding areas in the call center that can be optimized. Businesses can identify the areas they can create value with AI within a matter of a few simple clicks. Essentially, queues which would benefit from optimization can be identified and targeted leading to better customer experience and business results. It’s certainly an everyday AI win that, on the face of it at least, is accessible and easy to understand. 

For Maciej, AI is a means to an end. He points to Genesys’ predictive routing as the ideal showcase of why that should be the focus. “In most cases It’s not really about the AI technology (algorithm) itself, it’s more about how you apply it to create value, how you make it simple, how you embed it, and how it improves people’s daily lives and makes them better.”

Rory Timlin is Playing His Cards Right

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Rory Timlin is from Galway and works in the PorterShed. Like his Bowling Green peers, Rory hasn’t always done things the way most other people do. In fact, for a period of around eight years, he became a professional online poker player before ultimately going on to become a business analyst and financial controller. 

This followed a period of time over a decade ago, in the wake of the most recent recession, where Rory backpacked and lived abroad for a time following his studies. Today, Rory works for a company in Galway, and it was his decision to push for a remote-working role there which would allow him to say in his hometown of the city of Tribes

“I love Galway and I’m not a major fan of living in Dublin for a number of reasons, like the rent – and I’ve got a beautiful girlfriend living in Galway as well,” he says.

The co-working and open innovation culture of the PorterShed suits Rory down to the ground, and Rory adds that the PorterShed is certainly a big part of what keeps him in Galway – especially the open and humble atmosphere.

“That’s one of the things I love about the PorterShed is that when you walk in the door, you don’t really know who’s this big-shot important guy. You know they’re there, but unless you really get chatting to people…and there’s nobody going around bragging to people about how great they are or anything like that.”

To go from a poker player to a professional analyst/wearer-of-many-hats with a company headquartered in Dublin called Meltdown is not your average career path, for sure, but it has certainly been one that has stood Rory in great stead. After all, it has allowed him to learn things most people wouldn’t, put himself in extraordinary situations, and figure things out in quick and innovative ways. 

Rory, in fact, managed to earn enough money over the course of his poker career that was the equivalent to quite a decent wage year after year. 

“I wanted something more steady, but also something that I could progress at. With poker it’s always going to be a struggle, there’s no natural progression – there’s no going to someone for a raise or ‘look at everything I did in the past’. There’s no obvious progression aside from: get better, get lucky, see what happens.”

Rory Timlin

So, Rory decided to go ahead and put his poker skills to a different use: taking the pragmatic, clinical perspective of strategies and analyses to help a business understand the hows, the whys, and the what nexts.

And Rory explains that numbers, statistics, and data are what keeps him motivated, and it’s what he’s best at.

“I love numbers, I’m good with numbers. I could happily stare at stats all day and be happy. I like taking stats and making them into something that people who don’t like stats would happily look at and understand,” Rory says. 

“For example, when I take a deep-dive into what sells best in one of our cafés. I might talk to the manager or the owner of the shop, and they’ll all have an opinion on what sells best or better, but they won’t actually know, but when you show them the facts, they might be surprised because people’s perceptions of what’s happening don’t always marry up with what’s actually happening. So, for me the stats tell the real stories, and that’s how you make better, informed decisions.”

In today’s world where industries and individual companies are over-saturated with misconceptions and misreadings, it’s people like Rory who are able to scythe through the noise and create an impact that’s felt on a number of levels. And that all comes with his varied career which covers a number of disciplines – and Rory explains that this is part of what he identifies with.

“One thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that there is no normal career path for most people, especially the people who are very successful. They just take their opportunities and see what happens.

“I was reading the other day somebody’s advice that if you’re reviewing a job description and you meet all the criteria, then you’re over-qualified – you shouldn’t be going into something you’re comfortable in, it should be outside your comfort zone.”

Rory has certainly proved that it’s best to test yourself, and even though some moves might seem like a gamble, the winnings are there to be won if you play your hand right.

Inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit in the Portershed, Rory is now offering his services to growing companies in financial systems setup and business analysis. You can find him in the Portershed, on LinkedIn, or at timlinrory@gmail.com.

Carol Ho, COO of Baseworx, on the Rise of Co-working Spaces

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Carol Ho is the Chief Operating Officer of Baseworx, a company that helps hubs to better manage their co-working spaces. Their easy-to-use software means that hub managers can seamlessly oversee the day-to-day operations from their own devices. All across Ireland, the hubs on the ConnectedHubs.ie platform benefit from Baseworx’s solution – helping many of them to thrive as places where professionals from many locations can come to work and connect with the wider world.

The hub network across Ireland is key to the government’s initiative to make it easier for professionals to work remotely in a variety of locations. The push to have spaces available to work from has been catalysed by Covid and the shifting dynamics of the future of work. In Ireland, it has been encouraging to see so many new hubs opening up in recent times. However, as Carol explains, coworking has long been an existing option in other countries – and the landscape is very evolved elsewhere.

“You can see so many co-working spaces in a tiny city like Hong Kong – it’s super-competitive if you’re running a co-working space over there. They have their own territories. Over there, if you’re talking about social innovation, you go to Good Lab. If you are tech-focused, you go to Science Park. If you are a maker, you go to MakerBay. They have different themes and focuses for different hubs over there,” Carol says.

A quick look on ConnectedHubs.ie will show you that there are over 230 hubs open across the country at the time of writing – that’s quite an impressive number, and while we still have a way to go to catch up with countries like Hong Kong, it’s encouraging to see such a high number.

So, why is it that so many people are pursuing the co-working experience?

“Of course, working from home is still okay, but I do get more stuff done when I’m working in the PorterShed,” Carol explains. So, productivity is clearly a big factor in why people are ditching the kitchen table for the purpose-built desk.

But there’s another factor behind the rise of co-working spaces.

“Lots of big companies are getting rid of the office. If you’re running a business, you probably rent your own office somewhere else. But right now, a lot of big corporates have started to rent desks in the co-working space because it’s handy – they save time, they save the maintenance, and they reduce cost,” Carol says.

Carol Ho, COO of Baseworx

In addition, people view co-working spaces as a way to reconnect with the real world. Many professionals are still re-emerging back into office life, and some are still looking for ways to do so gradually. For many people, co-working spaces offer a chance to do exactly this. Ultimately, co-working spaces provide the sweet spot between traditional offices and remote working. Worldwide, too, that trend is clear – a recent newsletter from The Hustle explains that analysts are predicting approximately 42,000 coworking spaces globally in 2024, an increase of 116 percent when compared to 2020.

As Carol explains, these hubs are having a positive knock-on effect around the country.

“We see the benefits of Connected Hubs – it’s definitely supporting the development of the countryside of Ireland, bringing the jobs, and helping to boost the economy of the countryside areas.”

The ConnectedHubs.ie website, which is managed by Baseworx, is clearly in high demand, and Carol explains that they have big plans in store for the site in the near future – both in Ireland and internationally.

“We are launching version two of Connected Hubs, so that’s one of our flagship projects that we’re working on at the moment. Right now, we are pretty much focused on the Connected Hubs projects because it’s such an important government initiative. I’m spending lots of time talking to many of the hub managers to get their feedback on the software to understand what features they want to get.

“We are taking in some interns from Limerick and Cork – graduate students from some of the colleges there. So, we are doing a summer internship programme and spending some time training the students up. And they will help us with some of the international market research. Because apart from Ireland, we are looking at some other countries to see if other countries could have the same model.”

Back home, the focus of course is on continuing to help hubs harness the power of the Connected Hubs platform through the Baseworx software.

A lot of talk continues to centre around the future of work and what it will look like in the next five to 10 years. An important topic of conversation, for sure, but what does Carol think about the future of co-working? Will we see even further revitalisation of rural areas in Ireland in the near future?

“I just think that probably we will have more young families moving back to the countryside area and that way they won’t need to stay in the city with the high living expenses and all that. But it will take a while. Right now the government is trying to build loads of infrastructure to support that, but it will take some time,” the Baseworx COO said.

In the meantime, your local hub awaits with high-speed broadband, coffee, and the facilities needed to get work done, no matter where you are. The future can wait, for now.

Itera’s Lana Liubetskaya: “Use tech for good things”

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Svetlana Liubetskaya is a tech professional with over 15 years of experience in computer science and artificial intelligence, and she has recently arrived in Ireland from Ukraine, looking to make a new start.

Our conversation starts with Lana telling me that her decision to move country was forced after her house in Ukraine was destroyed because of the war being waged by Russian forces.

Having spent a number of years in project management and software management, Lana currently works for Itera Research, a full-stack web and mobile development firm in Ukraine that is focused on helping businesses grow. In spite of the ongoing war, the company remains in operation, and amazingly they are focused on keeping their clients satisfied.

Life in Ukraine is continuing for many – somehow. Like her father and her mother. Lana tells me that she regularly phones them to find out how they are. She speaks about her father who is in his 70s; their phone conversations focus on how he is taking care of his garden. Now and again, the sound of rockets will interrupt their conversation, but her father tells her not to worry.

“For sure, I am worried about it a lot, and I cried a lot for sure, but it is what it is, and now let’s continue doing something good in this world.”

Now, Lana lives in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, with her son, and she is keen to make the most of a new beginning. Lana is enjoying life in the west of Ireland. Her son has already made so many friends, and she has had the opportunity to go surfing in the sea during her down time.

Lana with her son

In her professional world, tech has been something Lana has always been profoundly interested in, and having run a successful light business for a time, she returned to that first love.

“I came back to IT because it was my passion, actually since childhood, because I started coding when I was around 12 – just for fun with my cousins. We played games with random numbers and I created code for these games to show people pictures, just for fun. I didn’t play games a lot, but I liked it for creating something, and that’s why I came back to this industry,” Lana explains.

She also says that she has been particularly focused on the digital transformation of companies throughout her career – helping organisations to embrace technology.

“I personally participated in the digital transformation of a factory – their processes. I also did this in the governmental sector which is a big challenge because they are very slow, they don’t want to change everything. They like to sign papers – keeping pen and paper – and they would do this for the next 20 years if they could, but we found a way, though it was not easy!”

Indeed, Lana is focused on how the tech industry can solve problems, not only through start-ups but through communities keen to harness the power of tech for broader, inclusive missions.

In Ukraine, Lana explains that this pursuit is becoming increasingly popular, through the likes of Unit City [unit.city] which gathers start-ups together to drive innovation, create a comprehensive mission, and build an environment that helps the community, the city, and the surrounding areas to solve broader problems that affect lots of people.

Lana points to the notion that it is too easy for people to concentrate on just the tech, without realising that the tech is simply a means to and end.

“The technology is just a tool. If you know how to use it, that’s great, and you can spend less money, using the money [you saved] to do something else, to support the business, and grow the business. The most important thing is to solve the problem, the main problem of the business.”

And Lana is keen to tackle one big challenge throughout her career in tech – how to make sure that we harness its power for good and not for bad.

“It can be a medicine, or a treatment, or a system, and it can be a weapon…our human challenge is to find a way to use it for good things,” she says.

“I feel supported” – Yurko Turskiy, Advisable Developer

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Yurko Turskiy, a frontend developer working for Advisable sat down with Trevor Murray to talk about leaving his home country of Ukraine, starting a new life with his girlfriend on the west coast of Ireland, and what it means to have arrived in Galway in the midst of trouble in his homeland…

For Yurko, who originally hails from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, it was important that he got a job working with an international team where he could speak English – and Advisable gave him that opportunity, having helped him submit a work permit visa that allows him to live and work in Ireland. Yurko has a background in graphic design but ultimately decided to get involved in development. He also explains that he “loves” working for Advisable, and is keen to contribute everything he can to develop a seamless and attractive website for their users.

Advisable is a business that aims to help companies complete diverse tasks and projects. Led by their CEO Peter O’ Malley, they essentially make it easier for their clients to discover the talent and community base needed to complete all sorts of workstreams. They also facilitate the process whereby freelancers can get their work noticed by the right people. 

Currently based in the PorterShed where he works as part of a collaborative team, Yurko is now living with his girlfriend Kate in Galway. Kate herself is a PhD Chemistry student who is now doing her studies remotely, continuing to deliver lectures and work in the early hours of the morning. Kate is also studying Python and hopes to become a data scientist in the near future.

While Yurko and Kate have done their utmost to keep up some semblance of a normal life, doing so has certainly been an unprecedented challenge, to say the very least. In fact, Yurko arrived in Galway just a few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine escalated. It had always been his plan to move to another country – but Ireland was an unexpected eventual destination.

Yurko Turskiy, frontend developer with Advisable, pictured working in the PorterShed

“Eventually, I arrived here on the 13th of February, and 11 days later the full-scale war started with Russia. I’m saying full-scale war because we were in the war for eight years – that was a slow war, but now we have a full-scale war,” Yurko explained.

Uprooting to begin again has been a decision millions of people have made throughout history for a myriad of reasons, and Yurko now counts himself as one of those people. The opportunity provided by Advisable was a big enticement to come to Ireland for a new adventure, but the outbreak of a full war made Yurko’s relocation more problematic – and dramatic. Moving was not a decision Yurko took lightly either. Yurko’s girlfriend Kate was still in Ukraine at the time his work permit came through, moving briefly to Poland for temporary shelter because of the war. Initially, Kate’s plan was to move to the States, but they decided that being together in Ireland was the best idea. Yurko had to wait for his other half to join, and the wait for both was an anxious one.

“The whole situation was horrible. The feeling of war was in the air. It was very scary, to be honest.

“It was really stressful. For the first week, the muscles in my neck were in tension. I had headaches, though headaches are not [usually] my problem. I wasn’t able to eat. I had to force myself to eat once per day. I lost some weight even though I’m skinny. It was hard to smile and communicate with people – especially with Irish people because they are all the time friendly and they smile!”

Yurko had to force himself to learn how to adjust to leaving behind the life he had before and jump into the new one he is now creating. After weeks of intolerable anxiety and worry, he’s now socializing, smiling, and getting to know the people around Galway. Indeed, the safety net of his new home has helped and Yurko’s impression of Galway – and Ireland – is a positive one. 

“It’s an amazing place. I like it.

“For me it was a sign that the western world understands those risks. The whole world understands. That we got the full support of everyone, it was really amazing. On the first day of the full-scale invasion, I found news that Ireland waived visas, and it was really impressive that Ireland were aware of what they needed to do and how to support.

“I feel supported a lot,” he says, adding that Kate feels the same way owing to the many Ukrainians they see being helped in Ireland.

Back home, Yurko still has family, friends, and loved ones that he regularly stays in touch with, and although he has moved to Galway, he remains tethered to his homeland.

“I call them on Telegram.

“Most of my family are in Kyiv – my mom, my brother, my sister, my sister’s husband. My sister has three small kids. They decided to stay there because they were not sure if it was safe to go west.

“My grandma is living between Kyiv region and Zhytomyr region; it was really dangerous there, so I was really worrying about the situation with her, but she’s fine now.”

For Yurko, the current situation in Ukraine is something he is looking to alleviate as much as he can from his base in Ireland. He’s sending as much support and aid as he can to comfort those back home – and he’s constantly in touch with them when he’s not working. And while the present is unfortunately negative beyond much compare, Yurko tells me that he believes Ukraine will come through this dark time – and his people will return.

“When Ukraine wins, hopefully, I could come back to visit my family and friends,” he says.

After all, Yurko knows that there is so much more that he can achieve for his country from Ireland.

“I had a really big desire to go there in the first days. I was almost ready to drop everything and fly back, but my relatives and my family they told me not to do that, because I am completely useless there!

“My possibilities here are much bigger, and I can do much more being here than there.”

Speaking with Gordon Mullins, Mindful IVF Founder

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

“I’ve a saying about entrepreneurship – being an entrepreneur and being self-employed is like being a gladiator in a ring with a skipping rope…everyone else has swords and shields,” Mindful IVF’s CEO Gordon Mullins says.

Reflecting on winning the ‘Most Potential’ award at February’s Founder Weekend, he says:

“We had no electricity on the Friday because down in Kenmare, we had lost electricity all day. So, I had two candles to the side and I had a powerbank with my laptop.

“It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, I have to admit.”

Mindful IVF took home the prize thanks to an impressive three-minute pitch by Gordon that captured the judging panel’s attention, but the far-from-ideal circumstances leading into the weekend didn’t deter Gordon in the slightest. 

What started out as an idea for an IVF tracking app ultimately transformed into the Mindful IVF app that many users know and love today. As their website explains, Mindful IVF provides an easy and user-friendly way to ‘leverage the science of meditation to improve fertility mental fitness, and help people achieve a healthy, happy IVF’. However, it took a couple of years before Gordon knew what the finalized idea and actual end-product were ultimately going to look and feel like. 

Currently, the Mindful IVF app has 4,500 monthly active users and approximately 1,000 users using the app on a daily basis. Great figures for a start-up, and the positive signs are continuing as they are also experiencing a healthy number of users signing up to use the app every day. However, it wasn’t always plain sailing.

For Gordon, very early on he realized that one of the most important aspects to help the product take off was to factor in that human element. The algorithms proved difficult to get a handle on, and the last thing Gordon wanted was to create a fertility tracking app that would provide misinformation and confuse users.

Mindful IVF founder Gordon Mullins

“So, one night, I said to the guys – we’re cutting this 90 percent, and we’re just going to do the meditation side of things. Everyone got really upset and were like ‘no, we spent 18 months doing this’. So, we cut it and within like three days we had taken it from what we had to the meditation side of things. We literally launched a couple of days later. Almost immediately we got traction.

“I was like, ‘I can’t believe we’re getting traction on this’. Within the first month, we had 200 users, within the second, third, and fourth month, we were up to 500 users.”

Since then, it has been a constant push to increase the number of users, and Gordon has continually deployed new ways to get traction and drive the involvement of new users.  Equally important in Mindful IVF’s journey has been Gordon’s desire to bring money in and understand the psychology of why people do – and don’t – spend money. 

Gordon can see the potential that Mindful IVF has, and he touches on the fact that the start-up has developed entirely through organic growth, – having never spent a penny on advertising at all. He explains one factor that has driven the company’s growth has been what he terms “superfans”.

“If you manage to keep people on your app for 21 days, you can create a superfan,” Gordon says.

“For me, a superfan is where you work with them on things that don’t scale – because we’re all focused on ‘scale, scale, scale’, but if you get one superfan, they can do an amazing job of promoting you in forums very well,” he explains.

He provides the example of providing quick and straightforward technical support through email and using those wins as ways to nudge customers towards promoting your brand, idea, or product. Gordon can already see the rewards of it through user engagement.

“I would average one email a week from someone that says that I am their second husband in bed at nighttime! The thing about meditation is that all we’re trying to do is provide people with 10 minutes of a break. They’re not going to become zen-balanced buddhists or monks up the side of a mountain; this is 10 minutes to pause, to breathe and to just say ‘this feels great’.”

Gordon has certainly put a great deal of work into his start-up, and there has been a lot of analysis and effort to understand users’ behaviour, but Gordon is aware that one of the best strategies for Mindful IVF is – “don’t try to convert the unconvertible”.  It seems to be working, too, because the operation has already experienced a great deal of growth, and things are starting to take off for them now, so what does the future hold for the app, and what milestones does Gordon as CEO have in his sights?

Gordon is aiming to have approximately 2,500 subscribers by December, which would put the company in a great position to apply for capital funding. He holds the likes of Hertility – founded by a number of Cork ladies – and Exceed as a standout example of why femtech/health tech has so much potential to deliver huge numbers – and MindfulIVF could be the next big success story in this space.

“There’s a huge future in this space,” Gordon says.

Exclusive Interview: Real Engineering’s Brian McManus

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This article was originally published on portershed.com and has been republished here with permission.

Brian McManus sat down with the PorterShed to discuss his journey from an engineer to a successful YouTuber with over 3.5 million subscribers on Real Engineering – and why he feels the content creation field is one that is only just taking off.

Brian’s Real Engineering channel launched in 2016 after Brian decided to leave his 9-5 engineering job. Since then, the channel has witnessed enormous success, been followed on by a sister channel, and Brian has also co-founded Nebula, the smart streaming service. Whereas once, Brian was being inspired by people making content that interested him, now he is the one leading the way, making in-depth, one-of-a-kind content that is consistently viewed millions of times around the world. 

When Brian started, there were very few outlets producing the type of content that Brian wanted to make and share with a large audience, which meant that he had to write his own playbook as he went. Today, there are hundreds of channels in the same category, but Brian is at the forefront of it all, producing, scripting, and editing detailed videos on space, energy, engineering, materials, and so much more.

Weaving intriguing narratives into each production, he’s been able to hook readers with captivating content. 

Staying on top of his game

“There’s an army of 15-year-olds that want our job, so you have to be continually improving your craft and making yours the best possible,” he says when asked how he plans to remain one step ahead of the competition.

“Because anyone can upload on YouTube and there’s a lot of talented people who now see the value in it, that it is a potential career option. You have to stay on top of your game.”

Indeed, Brian has been striving hard to help ensure that what he’s doing is cutting edge. Having invested a lot of time and energy into his craft and production values, he is certainly blazing a trail – especially when it comes to his video animation.

“Our animations are quite high-quality now. There were one or two news stations that took our footage from the Perseverance Rover and I assume they just thought it was NASA animation because they looked fairly similar to the quality that NASA were making,” Brian explains.

One animation even included an easter egg of Grogu (more widely – if incorrectly – known as Baby Yoda) getting abducted in the background. The perks of being a content creator mean that Brian gets to have fun with even this side of his job, underlining just how passionate he is about making material that is playful, engages his audience, and stands out from the crowd.

Irish economy

Indeed, while most of Brian’s audience is based in the United States, he does cultivate his content to be as appealing, as educational, as informative, and as inclusive of diverse regions as possible. This drive to create the best content is certainly a key factor behind his continued success – and a couple of recent studies, one from Google and another from Oxford, boldly underlines just how the likes of Brian and his fellow Irish YouTubers are having a directly positive impact on the economy. The former of these studies indicated that YouTube contributes to 1,600 Irish jobs, contributing €30m to GDP, but is there more to those figures?

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think those numbers are right – I think it’s much higher,” Brian explains.

“People like Jacksepticeye, alone, is making more than €30m a year, but he lives in Britain so I’m not sure exactly how they’re measuring all of that.”

It’s a testament to the growth of the Irish content creation scene, where entrepreneurially minded professionals are making viral content that appears in many guises. And does Brian believe that Irish Youtube content creators can reach even loftier heights?

“I think if more Irish people were willing to put themselves out there, we could be, because we’ve historically punched above their weight in cultural stuff – I don’t even know if [the Google study] is counting musicians like Hozier in their calculations, I’m not sure. I think Irish people have a stigma against looking for attention online, but there are ways to do it in non-cringey ways.”

Next chapter?

Brian’s Real Engineering channel was the first one he launched, and it gained traction pretty quickly, ensuring that Brian didn’t need to return to the 9-5 circuit. The next channel launched – Real Science – has become enormously popular, too, with over 747,000 subscribers already. Many of their videos, including their ‘The Insane Biology of’ series, garner over a million views apiece, and since Jun 2019, the channel has attracted almost 44 million views in total. Stephanie Sammann is the host, narrator, editor, and producer of this channel, and she has certainly made light work of attracting a dedicated audience.

And that’s not all. Plans are afoot to add another channel to the ‘Real’ family, as Brian explains.

“We are looking to start another channel in the next year or two, and it’s just a case of finding producers capable of handling it because scaling is difficult because there’s no college course for making YouTube videos. You kind of look towards the film industry; there are very few people who can do everything, like film, animate, write, and all that – and we need all of that. Every single one of our shows is handled by someone who can do everything, so that’s difficult – the writing, in particular, is difficult. 

“We’re just figuring out what the next thing is going to be.”

Improvements and developments are an everyday part of the Real Engineering and Real Science stories, and the same can be said of the smart streaming service, Nebula, that Brian helped co-found together with dozens of fellow creators and Dave Wiskus. Already, the platform has 435,000 paying subscribers.

And while lots of positive change and growth is a positive for Brian and his audience, one thing that remains a constant is the draw of Galway. Although based in Texas – which is quickly becoming the new playground for tech experts to experiment and have fun – for Brian, there is always time for the City of Tribes, especially at the PorterShed.

“For me, the community here has always been really nice, even though I’m pretty quiet and keep to myself for the most part. I have a co-working space in Austin, Texas, and the co-working space there is completely different; very segregated, no-one really talks to each other, whereas [the PorterShed] offers a nice way to come in and separate my work and life,” he says.

Undoubtedly, Brian is the definition of an entrepreneur. Having struck out on his own, he has now built a legacy that continues to grow today, and he has made new strides with Nebula, too. A testament to what can be achieved when you reach for your goals, Brian has also been diligent in his efforts to succeed by creating high-quality content that filled a gap in the market – and the real results speak for themselves.

MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 Europe Festival to Take Place in Donegal

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For the first time, Ireland has been chosen as a location for the Innovators Under 35 Europe Festival

Connla McCann, Director, IU35 Europe, Cllr Jack Murray – Cathaoirleach, Comhairle Condae Dhún na nGall, Anna Ní Ghallchóir, Chair, Údarás na Gaeltachta and Natasha O’Hea, Community Manager, Catalyst.

MIT’s Innovators Under 35 Europe Festival, one of the world’s most distinguished events honouring young technology pioneers, is coming to Ireland for the first time. On May 19-21, Europe’s brightest innovators will gather in Gaoth Dobhair, Donegal, to showcase their work and meet other visionaries who are shaping the future and transforming lives through their technological advances. European and global leaders in innovation will also speak at the festival focusing on the transformative power of tech in creating a better world for all.

Since its creation, MIT Technology Review has been publishing an annual list of the most brilliant Innovators Under 35. Notable alumni include Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, CRISPR Technology Pioneer Feng Zhang and Tesla Motors Co-Founder JB Straubel. The Innovators Under 35 Europe Festival is sponsored by Údarás na Gaeltachta, North West City Region Councils of Derry City and Strabane District Council and Donegal County Council, NUI Galway, Catalyst, Open University, Unosquare and Atlantic Technological University.

The Innovators Under 35 Europe award unites Europe’s community of young technological leaders and provides them with a platform to showcase their achievements in biotechnology and medicine, computer and electronics, hardware, software, Internet, artificial intelligence, robotics, telecommunications, nanotechnology and materials, energy and transportation.

Located at the edge of Europe and nestled beneath the Errigal Mountain, Gaoth Dobhair is a fitting location for rebooting the Festival after a two-year hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The 2022 Festival will celebrate a new generation of changemakers who are striving to solve society’s most pressing challenges as we begin to emerge from the COVID pandemic. These pioneers are thinking differently about the future. They’re reimagining technology and re-evaluating traditional workplace models, recognizing that distributed technology means that cutting edge innovation is no longer limited to urban centres.

Speaking on the announcement, Mat Honan, Editor of MIT Technology Review said “Innovators Under 35 honorees continue a tradition of mentorship, collaboration, discovery, and purpose that began in 1999. We call all of these honorees “innovators” because no matter their field, each is doing something original and impactful. We unpack not only what they are doing, but help people understand its relevance not to the world at large. I’m really looking forward to hearing from this year’s European honorees.”

As Ireland and other European countries seek to build upon the benefits provided by remote working and support the opportunity to further develop a distributed workforce, the Innovators Under 35 Europe Festival aims to showcase the potential to lead, command, innovate and build a more connected world and society from the edge of Europe. In addition to showcasing the innovations, the event will highlight the Gaeltacht as a place increasingly being discovered by entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors, including the more than 175 anticipated attendees who will be invited to explore and experience the local area.

“Exposure to high quality and innovative projects being led by Under 35s from our European neighbours and indeed other parts of Ireland will help to animate and inspire innovators in our Gaeltacht regions.” said Údarás na Gaeltachta CEO Micheál Ó hEanaigh. “We look forward to collaborating with MIT Technology Review and all of the other partners to welcome the extremely talented young innovators, the excellent panel of judges and other contributors to the event being held in Donegal in May.”

The call for applications is now open. Applicants must be from Europe and under 35 at the time of the event and have an innovative project that will transform the world. A committee of judges made up of experts from leading universities and companies will select the 35 winning candidates. The competition also recognizes five different categories of innovators: inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, humanitarians and pioneers who will partake in networking events, local activities including hiking and surfing, culminating in an awards gala.

“By choosing this location, we wanted to demonstrate that in our connected world, no location is off-limits when it comes to innovation. The Atlantic edge– and places like it– will be the Centre of the new world,” said Connla McCann, Director of Aisling Events, which is hosting the festival. “This is a rare opportunity to show off the phenomenal success of the Gteic hub network which is home to hundreds of entrepreneurs and innovators across the Gaeltacht. We will gather the young visionaries, humanitarians, entrepreneurs and innovators whose work today can make a real difference to the world we live in. Fighting climate change with revolutionary green-tech, harnessing the power of AI to improve the lives of millions, finding new ways to tackle Covid in low-income countries and building smart cities are all fields which will be featured in the 2022 Innovators Under 35 listing.”