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Tyndall National Institute, based at UCC, showcased the groundbreaking industrial research which has been developed through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF) programme. The projects included technology advancements in the areas of MedTech, Maritime Surveillance and Drug Interdiction, and Photonics Manufacturing.
The Fund, which is administered by Enterprise Ireland, has already allocated €371 million to 104 successful projects approved under six DTIF calls. These projects cover areas such as life sciences, medical devices, ICT, artificial intelligence, manufacturing and environmental.
The GUARD project has developed world-leading smart drone technology that can efficiently survey large areas of coastline, which will revolutionize future maritime surveillance.
The GUARD project is a collaboration between Tyndall, A-TechSYN, VRAI, WAZP, UCD and UL, with significant input from the Irish Naval Service.
It is widely reported that Ireland has long been a target for smugglers due to its vast coastline, and with less than 10% of smugglers caught, Ireland is a prime gateway for contraband, including drugs, into the EU.
The goal of the GUARD project is to enhance maritime surveillance and drug interdiction through equipping new medium range drones that have vertical take-off (VTOLS), can travel 800km and can land safely at sea on vessels or on land.
Key innovations of the GUARD project include:
Fully autonomous drones capable of operating in harsh weather with 800km range
Reliable low-latency multi-connectivity including a gigabit mm-wave link, which is critical for real-time applications, such as controlling drones remotely.
Automatic flight plan and permissions for operation in civil airspace.
Automatic creation of digital twin of surveyed area & AI based video analysis.
VR control enabling intuitive 'human in the loop' high value decision making.
This is a significant development in the area of coastal maritime surveillance, as traditional methods of using ships and helicopters for interception have proven to be inefficient and costly. Recent developments in drone technology have faced several challenges, including high costs, difficulty in operation, regulations, and limitations in harsh weather conditions.
Professor Holger Claussen, Wireless Communications Laboratory, at Tyndall Dublin said: "This project has the potential to transform how Ireland and other countries survey their maritime space, while promoting Ireland as a leader in smart drones, future communications, AI, and virtual/augmented reality in a harsh environment."
Other projects on showcase at Tyndall's event were the Perceive project, which is developing an ultrasound-based catheter imaging system to improve the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation (a heart condition that causes an irregular heart rhythm that can lead to heart failure or stroke).
The Photonics Pilot Line project has established a dedicated open-access facility for early-stage manufacturing of emerging photonic-based products, which will address key technological and manufacturing challenges for the second digital revolution.
Dr Imelda Lambkin, Manager of the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund at Enterprise Ireland said: "It is fantastic to see the first ground-breaking technologies emerging from the DTIF portfolio. My congratulations to all of the consortium partners on these projects.
With the announcement of the latest call 7 for applications we're open for business and looking for new collaborations between companies and researchers to develop and deploy disruptive technologies and applications on a commercial basis."

We review this relevant and potentially interesting book. It is certainly something that needs to happen if we are going to survive as a species going forwards. See more about the book here.
Seeding Innovation: The Path to Profit and Purpose in the 21st Century, reviewed
This is an important topic and we are starting to see more and more books tackling this topic. Naturally this should be no surprise as it is the fate of our own descendants, so, you would hope, this motivates and engages people. We found the book to be very practical on building a company, dealing with curveballs, developing ideas and growing the business. The one area that we found it a little light in was the actual green and clean tech side of things.
In many ways it felt more like a primer for going into business, rather than a detailed or deep dive into what the potential environmental solutions might be.
More about the book
Build and grow a company ready for the next generation of consumers
In Seeding Innovation: The Path to Profit and Purpose in the 21st Century, veteran entrepreneur, award winning author, global strategist, speaker, and Rice University Innovation and Entrepreneurship professor, Robyn O'Brien, delivers an insightful and data driven roadmap to authenticity and smart leadership in the face of accelerating technological, environmental, and social change.
In the book, you'll discover how to build resilience, authenticity, market share and purpose into your business plan and move beyond box-ticking, virtue signaling and one-dimensional metrics, in a way that strengthens your business model, enhances your bottom line, attracts investors, fortifies employee retention, and more.
With her characteristic candor and attention to data and deep experience on the frontlines of industry change, Robyn explains how you can transform concepts like paradigm blindness, scarcity, imposter syndrome, rejection, and fear to build durable, lasting, and profitable businesses that integrate social and environmental principles, with courage and integrity to drive long term shareholder and stakeholder value.
You'll also discover how to:
Develop a purpose-driven product line that holds strong appeal for new generations of consumers and avoids the ruthless practices associated with PR nightmares and externalized costs
Build an iconic company that focuses on integrating meaningful change to inspire customers, investors, and employees and that eschews meaningless press releases and virtue signaling
Overcome imposter syndrome and naysayers using the S.T.O.P. Protocol
Develop supportive scaffolding and a resilient mindset in order to leverage courage and gain market share
Build boards (not echo chambers), why equity and governance matters, and how diversity is good for your bottom line
Integrate authentic marketing and storytelling into your brand strategy to drive revenue and capture market share
Avoid the dangers of silos, fundraising traps and toxic capital and build a model with value-aligned, informed investors.
Spot greenwashing, gender washing, and carbon washing, and more importantly, how to avoid them within your own organization and drive change
Address headlines around ESG and DEI metrics in order to meet the needs of asset managers and investors, build successful teams and integrate goals that are central to outperformance and higher returns
Gen Z and the modern consumer are looking for companies with authenticity - they want transparency and purpose from brands that are future proofing for the planet they're inheriting. With this changing consumer focus and mindset emerges an urgent need for emotionally intelligent leadership. Along with profitability, 21st century leaders must focus on environmental stewardship, equity and justice, employee retention, recruiting, collaboration, and emerging other key aspects of modern business.
More about the book
ROBYN O'BRIEN is a partner at Montcalm, an impact investment firm that blends personal empowerment and plane

The 2024 Dublin Tech Summit is taking place today in the RDS and on the first day of the conference I caught up with Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures and one of the Dublin Tech Summit speakers. Nicolas spoke to me about his background, what TDK ventures does, what they invest in and more.
One of the companies TDK Ventures has invested in is AutoFlight who have developed an Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL). AutoFlight are aiming to be one of the worlds first air taxis and you can see it in action below.
More about Nicolas Sauvage:
Nicolas Sauvage is the President of TDK Ventures. Nicolas Sauvage is committed to invest and serve entrepreneurs - the ultimate Impact Scalers - to build innovative and meaningful solutions in Digital, Energy & Environmental Transformations that will bring positive impact to society and the planet.
Nicolas believes in the value of focusing on what really matters in one's life and removing the noise around us as much as possible; he created the concept of the "8 words" to capture in just 8 words what matters the most to someone, and prioritise their life's choices and activities, every day. His 8 words starts with his wife: "Sheila first. Scaling Impact Scalers. Patience and Impatience." and are engraved on his iPad.
Nicolas is an alumnus of the Stanford GSB, INSEAD, London Business School, and microelectronics ISEN school.
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Hitachi, Ltd., and Google Cloud has announced a multi-year partnership to accelerate enterprise innovation and productivity with generative AI. Hitachi will form a new business unit focused on helping businesses solve industry challenges with Gemini models, Vertex AI, and other cloud technologies, and it will also adopt Google Cloud's AI to enhance its own products and services.
Through the partnership, Hitachi will further accelerate growth of Lumada, its core digital business, and it will advance operational efficiencies for the Hitachi Group.
Led by GlobalLogic, a leader in digital engineering and a subsidiary of the Hitachi Group, the companies will establish the Hitachi Google Cloud Business Unit and the Google Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE) to rapidly scale Google Cloud technology to new and existing enterprise customers. Additionally, Hitachi will collaborate with Google Cloud to incorporate training on Google Cloud's GenAI as part of Hitachi's GenAI Professional training program.
The program will deepen the expertise and managed services available through these business units, which will ensure large-scale organisations have access to the resources needed to fundamentally improve how they operate with AI.
Additional focus areas of the partnership will include:
New GenAI solutions for software modernisation and customer service: Hitachi will use Gemini models to build solutions that help businesses efficiently modernise legacy software systems, and it will adopt Google Cloud Contact Center AI to power more effective and accurate customer service experiences.
For instance, using Google Cloud Agent Assist, customer service representatives can be supported with real-time knowledge assistance and resolution suggestions to help them be more productive and provide better service. The new solutions will be compatible with GlobalLogic's Platform of Platforms architecture, which is designed to address the needs of intelligent enterprises.
Enabling safe, secure GenAI solutions for on-premises and cloud environments: Hitachi's new solutions will support customers running both on-premises and in the cloud, enabling enterprises to modernise operations while retaining existing IT environments. The solutions will also be compatible with Virtual Storage Platform One,so that users can build GenAI applications using data stored on Hitachi Vantara's hybrid cloud platform.
Joint go-to-market initiatives: Hitachi and Google Cloud will better align their sales, marketing, and engineering teams to ensure that customers across industries have access to the resources needed to optimally deploy and manage GenAI projects through Hitachi Google Cloud Business Unit and Google Cloud CoE. This will include the GenAI Professionals that Hitachi trains on Google Cloud technology.
Strengthen GenAI talent development: Hitachi's GenAI Professionals play a critical role in supporting customers' transformation with AI, and Hitachi will train more than 50,000 GenAI Professionals through its global training program, As part of the program, Hitachi will include training on Google Cloud's Gen AI solutions and AI technology.
GlobalLogic and Google Cloud have collaborated for more than 15 years and helped empower enterprises with solutions that achieve their business objectives with efficiency and scale.
"Through this partnership, Hitachi will leverage Google Cloud's AI capabilities to improve and enhance employee productivity and accelerate innovation.
By augmenting the capabilities of our developers and customer success units with Google Cloud GenAI solutions, such as Vertex AI and Gemini models, Hitachi will be able to better serve the needs of its customers in diverse industries and across complex domains such as energy, mobility, manufacturing and digital services," said Toshiaki Tokunaga, Executive Vice President and Executive Officer at Hitachi.
Nitesh Banga, CEO, Digital Engineering Business Unit, Hitachi, and President & CEO, GlobalLogic, added: "Thr

It should not be the day before, and you should not be pulling out your previous slide deck, changing the title slide, or doing what you usually do, talk about your business or product.
If you wish to be a memorable and successful communicator, you must continually read and listen to radio, TV and the myriads of podcasts that can provide content to improve your engagement with the audience.
Stand out from the crowd:
Stop being the person with slides full of bullet points. What you say must inform the audience. If you are honest with yourself, the bullet points help you remember what you will say.
An even bigger sin is to stand reading the slides with your back to the audience.
School teachers used to do this in the past, but now they are much more interactive.
What to do in the time before delivering your talk:
Arrive early and check out the room. Where will I stand? Are my slides uploaded? Avoid using video in your deck, if possible; more often than not the video will not work on the day.
Also, ask yourself, do you want your audience's attention focused on you or the video?
Always, always bring your presentation on a 'memory stick' as a backup.
Do not stand backstage in a quiet corner stressing about your talk while becoming increasingly anxious.
My advice to all my clients is as follows:
Engage with your audience beforehand; talk to two or three people, nothing specific, just chat.
Before going on stage, note where they're sitting and initially talk to them.
Ideally, remember their names to mention during your presentation.
Everyone loves to get a name check.
The above will help to reduce stress for you and your audience.
Finally:
Memorise your opening lines, helping you deliver with confidence from the start
Remember:
A good start is half the battle
By Executive Coach Andrew Keogh of Aristo.ie

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) is inviting entries from individuals and organisations across all sectors of the Irish economy who are accelerating away from fossil fuels and taking advantage of innovative energy solutions, to enter the 2024 SEAI Energy Awards.
The Awards will showcase these achievements and inspire others to do the same. More than 2,000 previous entrants over the past two decades have saved over half a billion euro in energy through implementing sustainable energy initiatives.
2024 entrants can choose from eleven Award categories, including:
Large Business
Small and Medium Business
Transport
Inspirational Energy Community
Energy Research and Innovation (comes with a €10,000 bursary prize)
Last year's winners include:
Ahascragh Distillers Ltd (Innovative Deployment of Renewable Energy)
Lawler Sustainability (Research and Innovation)
Lidl (Large Business)
William Walsh, CEO of SEAI, said:
"Since launching over 20 years ago, the SEAI Energy Awards have celebrated the hard work being carried out by communities, organisations, businesses, and individuals towards a shared, clean, and sustainable energy future. These awards are an inspiration to others, highlighting fresh and exciting approaches to sustainable energy and finding innovative new ways of eliminating the use of fossil fuels.
We look forward to recognising emerging leaders and visionaries in the sustainable energy sector in Ireland, and I would encourage you, your community, or organisation to enter the 2024 SEAI Energy Awards so we can celebrate your achievements and inspire others."
The closing date for entries is Friday, 21 June 2024. Overall winners will be announced at a lunch event in Dublin in Autumn 2024.