Cork needs to become a city where ideas can be tested and nurtured and less of a city of start-up office space, according to a leading tech entrepreneur.

Irish forestry software company Treemetrics is to double its workforce and launch a major global expansion on the back of signing a €1m contract with the European Space Agency.

Former GAA President Sean Kelly claims clubs and counties haven’t grasped the full extent of the ash dieback problem and its potential impact on hurling.

The Rubicon Centre is Ireland’s leading business incubation hub and home to some of the country’s top business start up specialists.

Treemetrics continues to grow with it@Cork award

Apple and other large multinational firms are unlikely to scale back their Irish operations due to the abolition of the so-called "Double-Irish" tax loophole but it will prove challenging to encourage similar companies to set up here in future.

For years, environmentalists have warned of the damage wrought on nesting birds and habitats from the destruction of the country’s rural hedgerows and woodlands. And now scientists say the lowly ditch could even be critical to the survival of the planet.

A joint initiative between DCU, NUI Galway, UCC and UCD focusing on the data analytics called Insight, is hoping to create 300 jobs through 12 planned spinout companies.

They have begun mapping every single tree on the planet with satellites, used 3D lasers to see the wood from the trees, and now they have developed a system to monitor logging machines as they work.

Conor Power learns how Treemetrics uses 3D modelling to assess trees while they’re still in the ground

Ten years ago some caravans had to be coaxed from a field in Mahon to make way for a squat cube building that now houses the National Software Centre (NSC).

The European Space Agency will be monitoring trees from space in conjunction with a Cork company.

THOUSANDS of jobs could be created out of a partnership between Ireland’s first Green Economic Zone and the Global Cleantech Cluster Association (GCCA).

THE cold period has concentrated minds on the whole area of energy, especially that which heats homes, offices, factories and places that people frequent.

A CORK-BASED forestry research company has scooped a major European industry award for the development of image processing technology to assess forest crop attributes.