Green energy comes out on top of innovation awards

Intel and Wavebob Ltd came out on top of the innovation stakes at an awards ceremony in Dublin today.

The awards were presented at the Art of Innovation, an Engineers Ireland seminar, and were attended by business leaders in the high-tech and engineering industries.

Martin Curley, a senior principal engineer with Intel Lexlip, was named Engineers Ireland Innovation Engineer of the Year. Curley, who flew in from Brazil to collect his award has developed a ‘capability maturity framework’ that can be implemented by companies to achieve more predictable business value from IT based innovations.

Curley’s framework approach has the potential to be a catalyst for driving a structural change in the IT profession and also in the way in which IT is used in industry and by governments to create value.

The framework forms the basis of the Innovation Value Institute (IVI), recently launched by Intel and NUI Maynooth and is supported and funded by many world-leading organisations such as SAP, Microsoft, BCG, and Chevron.

Curley’s framework has been tested at Intel and has yielded significant results of $67m (€50m) million Net Present Value for Intel in 2005.

He has also published a book called “Managing Information Technology for Business Value” documenting the framework and tools.

Wavebob Ltd, were announced winners of the Engineers Ireland Innovation Company of the Year category.

Wavebob Ltd, an Irish green energy company, have spent the past seven years developing a highly innovative technology for the conversion of ocean wave energy to useful power.

With an investment of €2.5m Wavebob have patented an ocean wave power device which is planned to be used in all the coastal European states, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Mauritius where there are significant wave energy resources and reasonable expectations of the resource being exploited.

According to projections published by the Department of Communications, Marine Natural Resources, the Irish domestic market is worth €49m by 2020 for a successful wave power device, and the export market worth potential €95m.

Industry director with Engineers Ireland Úna Parsons said: “The significance of innovation for Irish business today cannot be overemphasised. As we move toward becoming a knowledge economy we need to focus more on linking innovation with government policy and our continued economic success will depend on that. I think the winners’ projects here today are a wonderful example of where Ireland is at the forefront of global innovation.”

Cathy Lasser, Vice President of Industry Solutions and Emerging Business, IBM New York delivered the keynote address seminar before awards were presented. Lasser, who has worked with IBM for 28 years, spoke about importance of collaborative innovation to maintain competitiveness in the global market. Referring to IBM research survey that revealed innovation to be a major business priority for CEO’s around the world, she said, “innovation is key to overcoming any business challenge but to be effective, it must be open and collaborative. To succeed with innovation, companies must break out of the box and look to clients and business partners for ideas in addition to their own employees.”

Also speaking at the seminar were; Dr. Imelda Lambkin, Director for FP7 with Enterprise Ireland; Prof. Mark Keane from Science Foundation Ireland and Helen Ryan, CEO Creganna Medical Devices.