What a great idea! Take a bus load of tech start-ups on a tour to visit the magical city that is Kilkenny and introduce them to Kilkenny’s creative quarter. The full day tour is intended to provide the start ups with an in-depth look at what Kilkenny has to offer by way of providing a series of presentations on design talks and panels with topics relating to design led tech start-ups.
Some of the speakers and panelists during the day include Sean McNulty, (Dolmen), Fred Raguillat (IBM Design) and Karen Hennessy (CEO, Irish Design 2015).
This initiative is exactly what Kilkenny needs and it compliments the work being done by the @Ludgate team in Skibbereen where they have a digital initiative in place that aims to create over 500 jobs. Indeed, lets hope that other towns in Ireland grasp the nettle and begin to push their own local agenda for job creation.
We’ve yet to hear from Ballina or any other town in Mayo that wants to take first mover advantage of the new fibre optic cable that was officially launched by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny, himself a Mayo native, on August 15th.
This new cable has the capacity to handle up to a third of the world’s telephone calls. Ballina, like Kilkenny and Skibbereen is a beautiful market town that would lend itself to an initiative to take advantage of this phenomenal technological gift sitting on its doorstep. Perhaps a tag line, “Ballina – the place where the world comes to talk.”
The jewel in the crown in Kilkenny is the plans for the creation of a Creative Quarter on the site of the former Smithwicks brewery site. Kilkenny’s creative quarter is a 16 acre site and if its handled correctly there is absolutely no doubt that the mixture of the historic with the new will create a world class facility with the potential to create 1,000 jobs.
When is this great bus tour to Kilkenny taking place? Today and unfortunately I cant go. I’ll follow up with the driver of this idea, not the bus, John Cleere from Red Lemonade Creative.
