Coup for Cork as global tech leaders to convene in January

Barry O’ Sullivan, senior VP Cisco and Cian Hughes, head of operations, ITLG

Coup for Cork as global tech leaders to convene in January
Barry O’ Sullivan, senior VP Cisco and Cian Hughes, head of operations, ITLG.

The first major business event of The Gathering 2013 is taking place in Cork, as the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) is holding its ‘Silicon Valley comes to Ireland’ event there in January.

Cork City Council, Cork Chamber, University College Cork and Cork Institute of Technology have joined forces to bring the event to Cork as part of The Gathering, following a mission to Silicon Valley earlier this year and meetings at the ITLG headquarters in San Jose.

Technology leaders from Europe, China, Russia, India and across the Americas are due to attend the summit in January.

Hosted in venues across the city, the event will be led by former Intel chairman and CEO Craig Barrett and will see the delegation of global business leaders and investors convene in Ireland for a two-day summit of keynote presentations, panel debates and company showcases starting 21 January.

Indigenous companies in the fields of mobile technologies, cloud, biotech and convergent pharma, nanotechnology and renewable energies among others will be invited to pitch their business ideas to the international delegation of investors and entrepreneurs.

Conor Healy, CEO Cork Chamber, said the event reinforced Cork’s positioning as “a great place for international business and world class innovation”.

“There is a great opportunity for indigenous industry to meet and engage with international investors and business leaders.”

City manager Tim Lucey said a memorandum of understanding on future engagement will provide significant opportunity for leading edge SMEs to access advice, markets and venture capital opportunities in Silicon Valley, thus maximising the return from the expertise of the Irish business Diaspora in this region of the US.

Submissions are now being invited from organisations all over the island of Ireland for a chance to pitch to the international investors on 21 January 2013.

More information can be found here.