Startup – Page 7 – ɔimoɈɒ

An email sent to a senior person in one of NI’s Health Trusts

Hi, Some of the stuff we were talking about. As you know – I’m funded by InvestNI in assisting media and technology companies in Northern Ireland compete on a global scale. We’ve been looking at areas of “Connected Health (aka Telecare, Telemedicine) to find ways where there can be market pull rather than technology push … Continue reading “An email sent to a senior person in one of NI’s Health Trusts”

Hi,

Some of the stuff we were talking about. As you know – I’m funded by InvestNI in assisting media and technology companies in Northern Ireland compete on a global scale. We’ve been looking at areas of “Connected Health (aka Telecare, Telemedicine) to find ways where there can be market pull rather than technology push for ambient assisted living. We do some work with both the University of Ulster and QUB to find real-world solutions.

We can develop all of this locally with local expertise – we’ve worked hard to develop significant expertise in mobile development (specialising on iPhone and iPad but also including Android and other mobile platforms). Recent developments from DEL have meant there is fully funded training available to qualified organisations in the development of mobile technology plus local businesses are able to avail of innovation vouchers from InvestNI to solve particularly though problems.

And with new guidelines from the Central Procurement Department in the DFP, we’ve been working with DETI to find pathfinder projects for Pre-Commercial Procurement.

We’ve been trying to work with Mencap NI at the moment to find a way where our developers can tie into their perceived needs to provide ambient assistance, travel training, social networks and other products which are slightly more specialised for the individual with learning difficulties. The possibilities are pretty much endless. The idea that an app can ask someone how they feel in the morning (good, bad) and have that reported back and plotted to discover trends is very exciting. The ability to use off-the-shelf hardware to permit safety tracking of vulnerable adults and a social network of carers to assist in the location of a vulnerable adult or child is very close to my heart.

So here are some of the links to give you an idea of what we’re talking about. Very happy to talk to people who are interested in this.

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures.
http://cimota.com/blog/2009/08/12/global-social-open-mobile-playful-intelligent-and-instantaneous/

As ‘media’ has become disruptive – are there other industries that can be end-to-end digital: created, distributed and consumed – without ever becoming atoms.

Fred suggests:
Consumer Finance – money is already just bits. Why do we still use cash?
Education – education is interactivity, media, straight to the brain. The web as a textbook.
Energy – smart power in the home, renewable energy creating peer-produced micro-grids
Healthcare – self-care reporting, digital doctors, sharing data worldwide about pandemics?
Government – procurement, defence, law enforcement, entitlement, planning, crowd-sourcing?

Think about these areas: they’re incredibly disruptive to large organisations. To banks, schools and universities, power companies, hospitals and health trusts and, of course, the government itself.

The Fund for NHS Innovation
http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/4788/money_found_for_nhs_innovation

Health minister Lord Darzi has unveiled a package of measures to encourage and spread innovation in the NHS.
…
The Department of Health is creating a £20m prize fund to encourage people working inside and outside the NHS to combat the key health issues facing the nation.
DH information says: The funds will focus largely on promoting innovation in healthcare delivery, health improvement and patient engagement rather than the development of new medicines or devices, for which funds are already available.

New mental-health apps for iPhones like a ‘therapist in your pocket’
http://www.theprovince.com/health/mental+health+apps

The new apps let users track their moods and experiences, and either get instant advice on how to change negative affective states or assist mental-health-care providers with making psychological assessments.

“It gives me an additional source of rich information of what the patient’s life is like between sessions,” University of Pennsylvania researcher Dimitri Perivoliotis told NPR. “It’s almost like an electronic therapist, in a way, or a therapist in your pocket.”

A Doctor’s Review of Rounds with An iPad
http://www.medcitynews.com/2010/06/a-doctors-review-of-rounds-with-an-ipad/

For any provider who is highly mobile this blows the doors off of the COWs (computer on wheels) which is like rolling a file cabinet around. It’s faster, more reliable, insanely long battery life, and goes up stairs (although I have often thought of testing the ’down the stairs’ mode on the COWS when they run out of batter halfway through rounds on CC7) this is the machine to get. If you are office based, there isn’t a reason for this, but if you round on more than a few patients, then it will be invaluable.

iHelp for Autism – from SFWeekly
http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-08-11/news/ihelp-for-autism/all/

Leo is Rosa’s 9-year-old son, and when people ask her about him, she is mindful to explain him in a way that will set appropriate expectations. He is a boy with intense autism, she says. He is not conversational, he learns very slowly, and he has been prone to violent outbursts.
…
Though scrolling through the icons is easy for most users, the device was not created with special-needs consumers in mind.

So when Leo took it in his small hands as if it were an old friend, and, with almost no training, whizzed through its apps like a technology virtuoso, his mother gasped in amazement. After he began spending 30 minutes at a time on apps designed to teach spelling, counting, drawing, making puzzles, remembering pictures, and more, she sat down at her own computer.

iPhone’s VoiceOver Helps A Blind Person “See”
http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-first-week-with-the-iphone/

Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours. The iPhone only has one thing holding it back: iTunes. Nevertheless, I have fallen in love.
…
I have seen a lot of technology for the blind, and I can safely say that the iPhone represents the most revolutionary thing to happen to the blind for at least the last ten years. Fifteen or twenty years brings us back to the Braille ‘n Speak, which I loved in the same way, so have a hard time choosing the greater.
…
The other night, however, a very amazing thing happened. I downloaded an app calledColor Identifier. It uses the iPhone’s camera, and speaks names of colors. It must use a table, because each color has an identifier made up of 6 hexadecimal digits. This puts the total at 16777216 colors, and I believe it. Some of them have very surreal names, such as Atomic Orange, Cosmic, Hippie Green, Opium, and Black-White. These names in combination with what feels like a rise in serotonin levels makes for a very psychedelic experience.
…
The next day, I went outside. I looked at the sky. I heard colors such as “Horizon,” “Outer Space,” and many shades of blue and gray. I used color cues to find my pumpkin plants, by looking for the green among the brown and stone. I spent ten minutes looking at my pumpkin plants, with their leaves of green and lemon-ginger. I then roamed my yard, and saw a blue flower. I then found the brown shed, and returned to the gray house. My mind felt blown. I watched the sun set, listening to the colors change as the sky darkened. The next night, I had a conversation with Mom about how the sky looked bluer tonight. Since I can see some light and color, I think hearing the color names can help nudge my perception, and enhance my visual experience. Amazing!

SBRI

Last week I attended a presentation on the Small Business Research Initiative or, as it is known locally, Pre-Commercial Procurement. Much of this content is cribbed from Eoin McFaddens (of the Innovation Policy Unit in DETI) excellent presentation and description and enthusiasm for the project. Pre-commercial procurement for especially for SMEs For innovative products, processes … Continue reading “SBRI”

Pre-commercial procurement for especially for SMEs

For innovative products, processes or services
Contracts (procurement), no subsidy and no grant
In competition

Goal is threefold:

Solving public questions/concerns , e.g. waste management
Stimulating innovation among SMEs
Exploitation of public knowledge and technology

Exempted are:

Products/processes/services which are not new compared to the state of the art world wide
Projects which were already procured

This diagram captures much of the process. The identification of the Unmet Need, the provision of first stage pre-commercial procurement, the establishment of filters to help define exactly the right process and prototype. The entire process is geared towards deliverables, not hourly rates.

The concept hinges around “Unmet Needs” – areas of development which may not be fully developed locally and where domain knowledge is not present within the public sector.

This process will build domain knowledge within local industry as well as in the public sector, it is 100% funded R&D as it is a procurement and not a grant (and therefore is not subject to EU state aid rules) and in most cases the IP will remain with the company while allowing the public sector certain usage rights. The increase in domain knowledge should bring better products to market for the public sector company and increase competition for the best product.

The most important part here is the green box – full open procurement permitted by every company, even those that were admitted earlier in the pre-commercial procurement but which didn’t make it to later stages.

Examples where this has been used in the past:

Retrofit for the Future – Department for Communities and Local Government
This competition aims to retrofit UK social housing stock in order to meet future targets in reduction of CO2 emissions and energy use.

Keeping Children Active – East of England SHA
Looking for technologies which can help and motivate children to take more exercise, to understand and monitor the amount of exercise they are taking and to incentivise them to exercise more.

Synthetic Environments – Department for Transport
This competition explores the use of synthetic environments applied to transport, in this case, modelling and managing complex traffic situations on motorways

And to finish off, some links to related reports and web pages:

EurActiv: UK plans to create enterprise culture

From EurActiv: An expert report prepared for the previous government in the UK called for the creation of “elite, business-focused” Technology and Innovation Centres (TICs). These centres are designed to do research but also engage SMEs by providing advice on funding, commercialisation and intellectual property. The UK’s new government is expected to continue with this … Continue reading “EurActiv: UK plans to create enterprise culture”

From EurActiv:

An expert report prepared for the previous government in the UK called for the creation of “elite, business-focused” Technology and Innovation Centres (TICs). These centres are designed to do research but also engage SMEs by providing advice on funding, commercialisation and intellectual property.

The UK’s new government is expected to continue with this policy, notwithstanding the need to control public spending. Business Secretary Vince Cable has emphasised the need to support entrepreneurship despite the need for budget cutbacks.

Cable’s department for Business, Innovation and Skills has committed itself to backing free and open markets, as well as promoting “business and innovation through entrepreneurialism and individual engagement in the economy”.

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has also pledged to create “an enterprise culture where everyone with talent is inspired and able to turn ideas into successful businesses”. Cutting red tape and offering incentives to start-ups are among the promises.

Taking Stock

Things are changing. A brief conversation this morning regarding atoms versus bits. With bits you never run out of stock and the rate you can sell is limited only by the ‘transactions per second’ permitted by your web server application and database limits. With atoms, you have to realise that every person sold to usually … Continue reading “Taking Stock”

Things are changing.

A brief conversation this morning regarding atoms versus bits. With bits you never run out of stock and the rate you can sell is limited only by the ‘transactions per second’ permitted by your web server application and database limits. With atoms, you have to realise that every person sold to usually takes a small amount of time to serve; time that is paid for.

Amazing companies are built on free.

I caught a comment on Twitter recently that “a company built on free would be a pretty shitty company”. The author has since deleted that tweet, presumably because some of the best companies are built on free. Brands like Gillette ($43B), Google ($185B), Apple ($205B) all leveraged ‘free’ in some form. King Gillette gave away … Continue reading “Amazing companies are built on free.”

Brands like Gillette ($43B), Google ($185B), Apple ($205B) all leveraged ‘free’ in some form. King Gillette gave away his razors and sold the blades a hundred years ago. Google gives away ‘freemium’ access to their apps and services. The foundation of Apple’s amazing operating system is open source and given away for free and they’ve created and given away a world-class web browser engine, WebKit, which is being used free of charge by Nokia, RIM and Google in mobile products that are competing directly with Apple.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary celebrates the notion of free (paying for flights using anciliary revenue – in-flight meals, bag checks, hotel and car bookings, internet and games):
“The other airlines are asking how they can put up fares. We are asking how we could get rid of them.”

Amazing companies are built on free. 20th Century companies were built on the notion of scarcity. They focussed on the shipping of real goods, the transportation of atoms. The scarcity was real. With the exception of High Fructose Corn Syrup, we have a scarcity of many items because duplicating items means duplicating costs. But there’s no scarcity of bits. Bits are the lingua franca of the Internet and we have an abundance of them. Bits enable ‘virtual goods’ to be duplicated endlessly. The cost of duplication is zero so you’re left with the initial cost of creation which, when amortised over the potential millions of recipients, drives the individual cost towards zero.

Now the economics of scarcity keep some people in power – this is the essence of the haves and have-nots. But in a future where the real currency, the currency of bits, is something that is abundant, even more abundant than the air, how can these people retain their power? They can’t obviously and what’s worse, they don’t understand it and it scares the shit out of them.

The scarcity/abundance economics are the reason we’re setting up StartVI. In Belfast there is an artificial scarcity of office space (with over 1.26 million square feet of empty office space in Belfast). The scarcity is created by pricing the office space beyond the means of the businesses which could make use of them. It seems utterly insane that we’re talking about a scarcity of empty space. So, we’re removing the essence of that scarcity. And we;re providing more than empty space. Desk space in StartVI is free. Internet access is free. Light and heat are free. And we’re filling the empty space with people: hopeful entrepreneurs, wise business advisors, savvy investors. And they’re giving their time for free.

A Room with a VI

Marty writes about VI: VI is an empty room. It needs painted, stud walls, electric points, heating and people to help do all of those things. It needs energy and creativity, ideas and heart. It will need money but for now it has enough to get by. It needs a good internet connection to give … Continue reading “A Room with a VI”

Marty writes about VI:

VI is an empty room. It needs painted, stud walls, electric points, heating and people to help do all of those things. It needs energy and creativity, ideas and heart. It will need money but for now it has enough to get by. It needs a good internet connection to give it tentacles to the world. It needs five businesses willing to take a risk at being all they can be. Why five? Because AirPOS, my spin out, is VI (1) and I’ll be on this journey with everyone else. And I’m very very excited about that.
…
VI has no business plan nor a strategy. It has no board of directors. It has no logo. We’re incubating the incubator too, if that’s not too surreal, and its success will be tied into those within its walls.

I disagree with Marty.

We do need paint, stud walls, electric points, internet access, desks, chairs, cork-boards, whiteboards and people to help make all of this work. And some of those people need to have energy, creativity and ideas and we want to help the people find their feet and make something of their ideas and creativity. But VI is much more than an empty room.

I snapped these pictures a couple of days ago:

Can you see it?

This room is filled with heart.

It’s leaking out the non-double-glazed windows. It’s seeping through the bare floorboards. It’s flowing out the main door and flowing down the sinks and toilets. This room is filled with so much heart that it’s alive.

In the coming weeks we’re going to have a paint party there. We’ll be there from early, hoovering up the dust and detritus, starting to paint over wood and bare plasterboard. We’re going to have power points and lights installed. A phone line will bring annoying ringing noises as well as sluggish ADSL broadband (until we raise enough money to install a leased line).

We don’t have the funds to maintain a large building out in the middle of a wasteland. We don’t have the budget to refurbish this building into a modern office suite with glass walls and an entire videoconferencing suite. We don’t necessarily have the connections to be able to call a President by his first name or have his Special Envoy over for tea. But these things don’t matter and they shouldn’t matter. We have heart to spare.

If you think of us as a competitor then I pity you. If this rag tag bunch of hobos with nothing but a little cash and a worn-out old clothing factory is a competitor then you’ve got a serious problem and you should seriously look at what you have there.

I’m thankful for a few people who have, perhaps unknowingly, pushed me to this. David, Marty, Aidan, Jason, Alex, Rob, Simon, Ian, Bill and others. Some of you will know why, some of you won’t – but all of you have contributed to me putting something on the line and making something happen. You’ve all helped and I hope you can understand that you deserve some of the credit here.

This is just the beginning.

Entrepreneurship

Fraser is absolutely right. What’s stopping you? When I was being consulted on a funding programme recently, it was made clear that funding would not be available for capital (hardware and software) purchases. My response – “Everyone already has a computer or access to one.” So, to start your company, what do you need? Sound … Continue reading “Entrepreneurship”

Fraser is absolutely right. What’s stopping you?

When I was being consulted on a funding programme recently, it was made clear that funding would not be available for capital (hardware and software) purchases. My response –

“Everyone already has a computer or access to one.”

So, to start your company, what do you need? Sound off in the comments!

An alternative route to Funding.

The State of Funding in 2009 was a blog post I put together a few days ago. It’s not meant to be definitive and there are other ways to get funding. I think we should recognise the efforts of one local entrepreneur who managed to energise a local MLA into seeking funding for his startup … Continue reading “An alternative route to Funding.”

The State of Funding in 2009 was a blog post I put together a few days ago.

It’s not meant to be definitive and there are other ways to get funding.

I think we should recognise the efforts of one local entrepreneur who managed to energise a local MLA into seeking funding for his startup from two local property developers. This sort of ad-hoc business angel network should be taken as an examplar. Never before have I known a local politician to take the plight of startup entrepreneurs so seriously. Would it be that other politicians would follow suit and assist us in the building of an incubator and seed fund for startups.

So. I mentioned yesterday that a small group of interested do-gooders are opening an incubator and starting a fund.

We reckon that businesses will stay in the Incubator for 6 months – 1 year and then will be able to graduate to other premises (for example CoreBelfast or many of the Serviced Offices around the province).

The fund is going to be made up by interested do-gooders. It’s small amounts individually but it only takes small amounts to get a startup off the ground. We’re going to talk to some ‘professionals’ about the legals of this obviously (recommendations welcome)

To build for tomorrow, we have to plan today.

The Economist: Nokia tries to reinvent itself: ASK Finns about their national character and chances are the word sisu will come up. It is an amalgam of steadfastness and diligence, but also courage, recklessness and fierce tenacity. “It takes sisu to stand at the door when the bear is on the other side,” a folk … Continue reading “To build for tomorrow, we have to plan today.”

The Economist: Nokia tries to reinvent itself:

ASK Finns about their national character and chances are the word sisu will come up. It is an amalgam of steadfastness and diligence, but also courage, recklessness and fierce tenacity. “It takes sisu to stand at the door when the bear is on the other side,” a folk saying goes.

We have this feeling. We have it. We likely don’t have a word for it. And that’s a damn shame.

We need something to change. Northern Ireland will always have difficulties because we lack the environment we need to excel. Part of this is historical, part of it is just the way our culture is built. We have the talent, we have the brains, we just lack part of the execution. We will never have the same number of angels and funds as Silicon Valley. So we have to make better use of what we have. We will never get the massive DoD contracts that Israel secured so we’re going to need to find other ways to make our mark. We need to have the foresight to prepare for the future, the charisma to make friendships that will last and the heart to build it. Not for our own gain but for the gain of tomorrow. Well, starting from today, the first week of January 2010, we’re going to change that.

We’re going to start an incubator.
We’re going to start building a fund.
And we’re going to do it in Belfast.

So I’m looking for a word in Irish to express something. To express the passion about how I choose to spend my free time. There’s some candidates here – and the front-runner so far in bold.

dream	brionglóid
sight	radharc
To hell with you!	Go hIfreann leat!
friendship	cairdeas
The big race	An rás mór
connection, bond	ceangal
feat, achievment	gaisce
nerve, courage, morale, heart	misneach

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