A round-up of today's other stories in brief
College team plays it safe to book final spot
Students from IT Sligo have won the Irish leg of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2011, with their project, Hermes.
The IT Sligo team will travel to New York this summer to compete against students from all over the world at the global finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011. Hermes is an interdisciplinary project combining ideas from the School of Engineering and the School of Business.
The team have developed an in-car road-safety system that communicates data from a device in the car to a mobile phone, which is then be uploaded to the internet as an early warning system on erratic driving behaviour.
This is the fifth year that Ireland has competed in the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition.
IT staff to take part in survey
Information technology staff across Europe are being asked to participate in a new research project on attitudes to structures and professionalism within the IT industry. The research has been commissioned by the European Commission and is being carried out by the Innovation Value Institute at NUI Maynooth and the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies.
It is part of a project to develop a European framework for ICT professionalism, aimed at increasing the competencies and mobility of IT practitioners in Europe. The 30-minute questionnaire includes certification programmes, ethical considerations, training and education and competence frameworks. Details can be found at ICTProf.eu
Lack of maths take-up could add to misery
Ireland’s inability to produce enough maths, science and technology graduates could harm our prospects of long-term economic recovery, according to John Power, director general of Engineers Ireland. His comments came as a major European Commission report found Ireland only increased the number of maths, science and technology graduates by 1 per cent between 2000 and 2008.
Nolan appointed Cisco Ireland boss
Mary Lou Nolan has been appointed country manager for Cisco Ireland.
Ms Nolan, who will take over the role on May 1st, succeeds Kim Majerus, who is returning to the US to take up a new role with the networking equipment maker.
Ms Nolan joined Cisco 12 months ago. Before that she was director of sales for Hewlett-Packard Ireland.
Cisco employs more than 200 staff in Ireland at a sales office in Dublin and a research centre in Galway.
