NovaUCD 2006 Campus Company Development Programme Awards Evening
The 11th NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme Awards evening took place on 21 November 2006 in UCD's O'Reilly Hall.
The aim of the NovaUCD CCDP, which is sponsored and supported by BT Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, is to assist academic entrepreneurs in the establishment and development of new business ventures to commercialise the output of their research.
The overall winner of this year's Programme was FitFone. FitFone has designed, developed and patented platform technology which when embedded into a mobile phone facilitates remote health and fitness assessment to assist in increasing an individual’s life expectancy.
Kevin Sherry, Divisional Manager, High Potential Start-Ups, Enterprise Ireland; Dr Conor O'Brien, founder of FitFone, winner of the NovaUCD 2006 Campus Company Development Programme; Leo O'Leary, General Manager Indirect Channels, Business Enterprise, BT Ireland with Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD
The founder of FitFone is Dr Conor O’Brien, a consultant neurophysiologist and physician in sports and exercise medicine and a lecturer in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was chairman of the Anti-doping Committee of the Irish Sports Council (1999-2005) and is Chairman of the Irish Heart Foundation Council for Exercise and a former Irish Olympic Team doctor.
Click here to view the NovaUCD 2006 CCDP Awards press release
The guest speaker at the awards evening was Eamonn Fallon, Director and co-founder of Daft.ie.
Eamonn Fallon, Daft.ie
Two other projects participating in this year’s Programme, Biontrack and Nanogrind were short-listed for this year’s event and received runner-up awards.
Biontrack delivers software solutions to support protein researchers in industry and academia. Biontrack has developed a software platform called Proline which reduces the complexity involved in and accelerates proteomics’ research. The software is very flexible and can be customised to meet each researcher’s needs.
Dr Matt Sullivan and Andreas de Stefani, founders of Biontrack
Biontrack’s promoters are Dr Matt Sullivan and Andreas de Stefani who are based in UCD’s Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. The developed software arose from research funded by Science Foundation Ireland and Siemens in collaboration with UCD. Biontrack is continuing to collaborate further with both Siemens and UCD.
Nanogrind has developed a novel manufacturing processing technology which uses microwave heating as a processing tool for the fabrication of metal (nickel)–diamond composites. These composites have enhanced mechanical performance which can facilitate the fabrication of sub mm-micro tooling for which there is a growing demand in bone drilling and micro-component manufacture in the aeronautical and automobile industries.
Dr Denis Dowling, founder, Nanogrind
The founder of Nanogrind is Dr Denis Dowling, Director of the Surface Engineering Group in UCD’s School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering.
For further information contact:
Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, Tel: (01) 716 3712, e-mail: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie
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