FOR THE 11 days from November 10th to 21st next, Dublin will host its second Innovation Dublin festival when venues throughout the city region will open their doors to showcase and promote all facets of innovation in the city. The festival aims to provide Dubliners, entrepreneurs, students, researchers, artists, large corporations and many others with an opportunity to discuss, promote and celebrate innovation in the city.
Companies and organisations across Dublin are planning a range of events including seminars, workshops, discussions, exhibitions, performances, showcases and competitions on a range of topics, from cutting-edge design technologies such as biomimicry to arts initiatives like opera in public places.
“Releasing creative energy is what it’s all about,” says the man charged with the organisation of the festival, Michael Stubbs, assistant city manager with Dublin City Council.
“If we just wait around for the next creative wave to come along, we will miss it – that’s not the way things happen. We have to compete at the leading edge with the most creative cities in the world. We have to go back to basics to a certain extent. We have found ourselves in a spot of bother and if we look within ourselves to our own creativity we might come up with sustainable solutions that are different and distinctly Irish.”
The Innovation Dublin festival was launched last year to promote innovation and creativity in the city. Originally conceived by the Creative Dublin Alliance and coordinated by Dublin City Council, the project received hundreds of ideas and submissions from Dubliners across all walks of life. The result exceeded all expectations, with 40,000 visitors attending over 465 events throughout the city region. In response to this initial success, it was decided to make the festival an annual event.
“We were overwhelmed by the response to last year’s event, which started out as a means of caucusing the work being done by organisations such as universities, local authorities, large companies and others in promoting innovation in the city,” says Stubbs. “We decided to put our toe in the water and invite people to participate in the festival and found a hunger and appetite out there to talk about things that could be valuable for the future. And we are not just talking about high technology when we speak of innovation; we are looking at what small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are doing to be creative and innovative, and we are looking at arts and culture as well. We are covering the whole broad spectrum of innovation.”
He points to one of the major highlights of last year’s festival in this regard, Hip-Nos – a fusion of hip hop dancing, Seán Nos singing and dancing, and rap that brought together artists from New York and Ballymun to stage one of the most interesting and unusual musical collaborations seen in Dublin for quite some time.
“This was an amazing collaboration,” he says. “And it is an example of what the festival is all about; it’s about society and collaboration and the spirit of partnership that is required to create a platform for future economic growth.”
Among the major events planned for this year’s festival is the IBM SmartCamp 2010. Billed as a means of meeting the world’s smartest start-up businesses the SmartCamp is an exclusive global program bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and experienced mentors who want to build what IBM terms a “smarter planet”. It provides participating businesses with access to world-class advisers, plus a direct route to seed and venture capital.
SmartCamp is a global programme which is being run in eight cities in 2010. In each location, five companies have been selected to spend one day networking with 25 world-class entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. One selected company from each city will be invited to SmartCamp week in the Dublin City Council Offices in Wood Quay during the Innovation Dublin Festival, where one will be named “the World’s Smartest Startup”.
“We partnered with IBM last year on the Smart Dublin idea,” says Stubbs. “We did a kind of Dragons’ Den event where we got a panel of people together to put entrepreneurs through their paces and help them become more successful, while also selecting the smartest business.
“Out of that has grown the concept of bringing the different cities involved to a single event in Dublin – and we are looking forward to hosting SmartCamp in November.”
This is very much in line with the aim of bringing a greater international flavour to this year’s festival. “Last year, we really didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “This year, we are being a little bit more focused and we want to give it more of an international flavour.
“It’s about job creation – and we want to contribute to that by showcasing our potential as a location for foreign direct investment. In this context we have a number of major international conferences during the week, including the Globe Forum on smarter and greener business innovation for sustainable growth in the Convention Centre and the Corporate Responsibility Summit in the Aviva Stadium.”
Globe Forum 2010 is an international conference focused on matching people, ideas and business with sustainable innovation opportunities. The conference will focus on the power of Irish innovation, both at home and globally. Through partnerships with innovative companies and Irish universities, the organisers have created a unique programme that will highlight the emergence of Dublin as a city for innovation and it will also bring international cutting-edge knowledge and influence to Dublin.
The Summit on Corporate Responsibility is being hosted by Business in the Community Ireland and will feature leading inspirational thinking from the world’s largest, most innovative companies as well as practical workshops on how responsible and sustainable practices can transform business.
Visitors will hear from a number of high-profile leaders of the world’s most innovative companies on how corporate social responsibility has changed their business.
“As part of the Globe Forum, we will give local entrepreneurs and people an opportunity to showcase what they are doing in this area and we will have an awards event for them in the Round Room in the Mansion House on November 17th,” says Stubbs.
“We are also looking at the development of Dublin as an Open City for Innovation. London has already done this, as have several other cities around the world. The concept sees cities sharing their data with private enterprise to assist innovation. An example of this might be the historic walks we organise and facilitate around the city. We recently gave access to that data to some people who very quickly came up with an iPhone app for it – it is this kind of creativity we are trying to harness and release.”
Appropriately enough, the internet will play a key role in this year’s festival. “Breffni O’Malley of Silver City Media has designed our website for us this year and he is bringing a very interactive approach to it,” says Stubbs.
“He has worked with Dublin City Council on our audiovisual presentation for the Shanghai Expo and this will be available online. The website (innovationdublin.ie) will be very important to us this year. Last year we were just trying it out. This year it will play a key role in making the festival internationally relevant, as well as allowing people to see what’s on and where, and streaming videos of many of the events they are not able to attend.”
Stubbs believes the festival will not only have a cultural and economic impact on the city, but will also be very important for Dublin City Council.
“We have to be ready to do things more efficiently and more effectively with less money and resources, and this is going to be a challenge. If we don’t support our staff in developing innovative solutions to this challenge it’s not going to happen.”
For further information on participating in Innovation Dublin 2010, contact the Economic Development Unit, Dublin City Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8; tel: 01-2220100or e-mail edu@dublincity.ie, info@innovationdublin.ie
