Conference targets untapped potential

SUBSTANTIAL business opportunities can be created in Ireland through the combined use of existing technologies that offer massive untapped potential.

A two-day conference sponsored by employer body IBEC and state-backed Enterprise Ireland will be held in Dublin on June 17 and 18, and will highlight the possibilities open to the economy.

The Meeting of Minds conference will stress how Ireland can become a global centre for convergent technology that uses knowledge built up in one area to create products that enhance a wide range of sectors, from medicine to food.

At the launch of the conference, chair of the Irish Medical Devices Association and chief executive of Creganna in Galway, Helen Ryan, highlighted how the health care sector has benefited from “the convergence in pharmaceuticals, medical technologies and electronics”.

The line-up of international speakers at the conference includes forecaster Paul Saffo, who is based at Stanford University and is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy. One of his dictums is that we should “cherish failure”. Silicon Valley’s success “lies not in how it succeeds, but in how it fails its way forward”.

Economist Brian Arthur, also from the US, will tell the 300 delegates expected at the event that culture is the biggest driver of innovation.