Dave Douglas, founder and MD of award-winning digital agency ebow

Dublin digital agency wins the 12^th annual ICT Excellence Awards for their work with the GAA, National Archives & The Irish Museum of Modern Art

At last night’s ICT Excellence Awards held at the Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, the Dublin digital agency ebow beat off stiff competition to scoop the top award for Web Development Company Of The Year. The ICT Excellence Awards is considered the foremost awards for Ireland’s tech industry. It contained 16 categories for which some of Ireland’s most well-known companies were short-listed including IBM, Vodafone, Airtricity, BT, Dell, Deloitte and Microsoft.

These awards are the first ever entered by ebow, which was set up 1999 by David Douglas. This maiden success is recognition of the innovative design and development the creative digital agency has undertaken for its high profile clients in the past year including the GAA, The National Archives and ‘The Moderns’ the online museum of  The Irish Museum For Modern Art.

David Douglas, founder and Managing Director of ebow said: “For our Web Department to win Best Web Development Company of the Year is an honour to me and our team. We’ve worked hard to build ebow into a unique digital agency in Dublin so it’s great to receive recognition for this part of our work with major clients. This was the first ever awards we entered, so to win is an incredible achievement and testament to the hard work my colleagues have undertaken. This award is for them.”

Client work that formed part of the award submission included:

•  www.gaa.ie the GAA’s new website, which provides a resource for all levels of the GAA structure, allowing everything from buying tickets to All-Ireland Finals to finding a local GAA clubs for children, which includes both traditional and mobile versions.
• www.themoderns.ie ebow recently undertook the online museum for the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s show ‘The Moderns’ in which the site provides virtual tours of exhibitions, allowing the museum’s collections to be viewed all over the world. The site was funded by a grant from The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport.
• www.nationalarchives.ie ebow designed and built this new site for the National Archives which provides a considerable research resource as it has allowed Ireland’s entire archives to be put on line. This also includes the first ever online exhibition of the signing of The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The full treaty became available online through this site to mark its 90^th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty.

The awards are judged by independent experts with senior positions in the IT industry and major organisations such as Google, The Irish Management Institute and Trinity College Dublin

http://www.ictexcellenceawards.ie/

Uniquely for a digital agency like ebow their offices in Castle Street are also occupied by Gallery Number One, which the digital agency uses as a creative space, pitching area and think-tank. The gallery forms an important element of the ethos of the agency as it can be used as a resource by clients for launches and demonstrations where allows them to bring their digital existence off line and showcase themselves to people on the ground. Last year it was a popup shop for Irish t-shirt website HairyBaby.com. The gallery also allows ebow to provide on-going support of the arts – in July it will host an exhibition by Jimi Hendrix’s photographer Gered Mankowitz of his Hendrix photos. The show will be entitled ‘Experience Hendrix’.

For more details please contact Simon Palmer of Republic PR 0851341761 or simon@republicpr.ie

ebow (http://www.ebow.ie), 1 Castle Street, Dublin 2, 01 478 9090, hello@ebow.ie

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The high demand for this seminar has been quite astounding and highlights how many people in Ireland are suffering with serious financial problems. We had originally estimated for 30 to 50 people, then last week we doubled the room to cater for 100, but now have had to double this again to 200. We are now also taking details of people on a standby list and will be hosting another one shortly.

We apologise if you wanted to attend this seminar, but we will be posting details of the next seminar soon.

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The famous split kick

Taekwon-do First Grandmaster Rhee-Ki-Ha brick break punch

4^th May, 2012; Dublin, Ireland: This weekend the Republic of Ireland Taekwon-Do Association (RITA) will celebrate four decades of teaching Irish students the most powerful martial art in the world, Korea’s Taekwon-Do, which literally means ‘the way of the hand and foot’. Members from all over the country will be in Dublin for a special two day workshop, which is being led by Korean First Grandmaster Rhee who is back in Ireland for the celebrations and offering a chance to be taught by one of the greats of martial art.

First Grandmaster Rhee is the world’s most senior surviving Taekwon-Do expert and it is a great honour for RITA to host him here. The workshop is also being run by local Taekwon-Do Grandmaster Robert Howard. Only thirteen men (eleven surviving) in the world have ever been promoted to Taekwon-Do Grandmasters by the International Taekwon-Do Federation, based in Vienna; Robert Howard is the first European ever to be promoted to Grandmaster, which is 9^th Degree Black Belt.

President of RITA Grandmaster Robert Howard says: “I started training with First Grandmaster Rhee in 1969 and have enjoyed every minute of the past 40 years. He was trained by General Choi, the founder of International Taekwon-Do Federation, who described him as the best student ever and he was the first person General Choi ever made a Grandmaster hence the title ‘First Grandmaster’. When we originally contacted him he was working in Coventry and he used to fly in to train us in Dublin once a month. The days were very long and tiring without a break. There was nothing he couldn’t do – he used to spar with four of us at one time and his kicks were impossible to block! He’s 74 now and I’m 73 so we’re looking forward to another forty years of doing Taekwon-Do together.”

In 1971 Grandmaster Howard, Master Dandy and Mr Frank Matthews all achieved their first degree black belts, closely followed by Senior Master Phelan. Returning to Ireland as the country’s first Taekwon-Do black belts the three friends formed RITA in 1972 along with the assistance of First Grandmaster Rhee.

This weekend (4^th and 5^th May) RITA’s Taekwon-Do students from all over Ireland will come to Dublin for two days of workshops to be undertaken by First Grandmaster Rhee and Grandmaster Howard; a unique opportunity to be taught first hand by two of martial arts greats. The workshops will take place from 9.30am until 5.30pm in Saint Marks Community School in Fortunestown Lane, Tallaght.

For more information please contact Simon Palmer of Republic PR on 01 282 2504 or simon@republicpr.ie

Grandmaster Robert Howard

Grandmaster Howard still trains and teaches at his own Taekwon-Do school in Cabra, Dublin 7, one of 22 schools around the country; there are approximately 10,000 Taekwon-Do practitioners in Ireland making it one of the country’s most popular martial arts. He travels Ireland, giving seminars and classes and continues to be an inspiration to his students. He is also the senior examiner at the RITA black belt gradings.

Over his years of teaching Taekwon-Do, Grandmaster has trained thousands of students, international competitors and World Champions, and produced hundreds of black belts (including Masters and Senior Masters). He is very well respected both in Ireland and internationally and since the early 70s he has been travelling the world training in Taekwon-Do and umpiring in European and World Championships.  In 1994 he retired from umpiring internationally but as the President of the association he continues to represent Ireland at European and World congresses

History Taekwon-Do

Modern Taekwon-Do has is a combination of the ancient Korean foot fighting martial art of Taek kyon combined with the Japanese martial art of Karate. During the Japanies occupation of Korea Taek kyon was outlawed and people were forced to learn Karate. Following the 1945 liberation of Korea people were again free to practice their own martial arts. The founder of modern Taekwon-Do was General Choi Hong whom developed the martial art in the early 1950s within his crack 29^th Infantry Division developing Taek kyon and Karate into a modern style martial art – Taekwon-Do was born. In 1966 the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) was formed and the first World Taekwon-Do Championships were held in 1974.

Useful Information

www.masterhoward.com  Contains details of Grandmaster Howard’s Taekwon-Do School website contains GM Howard’s Taekwon-Do history and details

http://www.fgmr.org/ the website of First Grandmaster Rhee-Ki-Ha

http://www.rita-itf.org Republic of Ireland Taekwon-Do Association Facebook: search RITA 1972 Twitter: @RITA_1972

International Taekwon-Do Federation: www.itftkd.org (International facts on Taekwon-Do)

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Details of the seminar is here: http://www.irishbankruptcyuk.com/invitation.html

The text of the article is below or it can be read here http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0418/1224314875355.html

The full Erwin Schrodinger manuscript can be read here http://www.kingshospital.ie/thekingshospital/Files/Schroedinger%20Bluecoat.pdf

‘Quantum humour’ beams back after absence

Prof Jonathan Coleman: now owns Schrödinger’s typescript

DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor

AN ORIGINAL manuscript written in Dublin by Nobel Prize- winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger has resurfaced after almost 60 years.

The short manuscript was prepared in 1955 for publication in the King’s Hospital school magazine. The five-page manuscript reveals an unexpectedly humorous side to the Austrian-born scientist, who also held Irish citizenship.

Schrödinger is viewed as one of the fathers of quantum mechanics. For the general public he is perhaps better known for his attempt to explain his theories using “Schrödinger’s Cat”, a cat that can be both alive and dead at the same time.

His willingness to write for the school’s magazine, Blue Coat, arose because of his friendship with a teacher at King’s Hospital, Ronnie Anderson, said the school’s headmaster Michael Hall.

Schrödinger published his manuscript in the December 1955 edition of Blue Coat, writing it in the form of a dialogue involving three speakers, said Trinity College Dublin’s Prof Jonathan Coleman, who now owns the typescript.

Oddly, while Schrödinger was writing about the start of quantum mechanics in the early 1900s, his speakers were from the 16th century and a time when none of the ideas would have made any sense. The character Salviati attempts to explain the oddities associated with quantum mechanics, while Simplicio refuses to believe that such things could possibly be true.

Ronnie Anderson kept the original typescript for some years before giving it to a young physics teacher who had joined the school, David Clarke, Mr Hall said. He in turn held on to it for several more decades before inviting a past pupil, Prof Coleman, to judge a science competition.

“I went to King’s Hospital and was invited to come back and talk to the kids,” he said. “At the end of the day he [Clarke] gave me the document.” Prof Coleman is now considering what to do with the typescript. “It had been sitting on a shelf for 40 years and before that, sitting on another shelf for 20 years,” he said.

The text of Schrödinger’s manuscript is now available at the kingshospital.ie website.

NewJobRadio.com, the first ever radio station in Ireland to focus solely on job vacancies, was launched today. The brainchild of Verify Recruitment, the Dublin recruitment company, the internet radio station provides an outlet for Irish employers to showcase their job vacancies and provides shows that outline job vacancies in detail from some of Ireland’s best known companies.

The new station is the first jobs focused radio on iTunes and targets the iPod generation to allowing people to listen on line or download shows to their MP3 players. Each show will feature employers discussing the roles they have available and provide a detailed insight on the types of candidates that they are looking for.

The first show is now live on iTunes and NewJobRadio.com. Paddy Power is the featured employer discussing some of the current technology jobs available at their new Dublin campus in Clonskeagh.

Coming up over the next few weeks are vacancies at companies as diverse as PR and event management at the Scoop Foundation; and IT roles at Lighthouse BCS, an expanding Irish ICT company.

Also available now is a preview show where Cathal Grogan, Managing Director of Verify Recruitment, outlines his reason for setting up New Job Radio: “New Job Radio is all about capturing those conversations that take place between our industry experts and companies that are hiring, in order to give a much fuller understanding of the role to jobseekers, rather than just what is outlined in the job specifications. We will notify candidates of job specifications before each show and ask them to post their questions for employers on Facebook and Twitter.”

New radio is streamed from http://newjobradio.com/ with a new show going live every week. Previous shows are available on the archive on the website.

Podcasts of all shows and job specifications can be downloaded from iTunes via http://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/newjobradio/id509158286

You can also follow on Twitter and Facebook

For more information contact Simon Palmer, Republic PR:  +353 (0) 1282 2504 or simon@republicpr.ie Notes to Editors

Verify Recruitment was set up in Dublin in May 2009. The company recruits experienced professionals for Irish blue chip companies, specialising in the IT sector and senior project roles. Uniquely it uses a panel of experts to assess and vet its candidates on behalf of its clients.

Cathal Grogan, has 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, and has held senior positions in Program & Project Management, Product Management, Management Consulting, and Change Management in local and multi-national organisations, within Enterprise Software, Financial Services, Contact Centre and Automotive industries.

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Gerry Hasset, Irish Life, & Graham Mulhern, MXI

Dublin – 6th, February 2012: Wicklow software provider MXI Ireland has secured a €380,000 ($500,000) deal with pensions and life assurance insurance provider, Irish Life, which has selected Tableau Software to support its new vision for Business Intelligence (BI) across the firm. The financial services specialist is using Tableau to provide user friendly dashboards that allow access to data on financial products to 300 of their staff, for use when they out of the office, presenting data to clients using tablet computers. Irish Life chose Tableau Software for its ease of use and cost effectiveness.

Working with business intelligence specialists MXI Ireland, Tableau has allowed the rapid roll-out of sophisticated online interactive data dashboards. The dashboards are currently accessible to business executives, account managers and the CEO, enabling them to review up-to-date information in a highly visual and graphical manner. Ultimately, the primary focus of the tool is to improve sales and customer service management, whilst also increasing business retention.

“From our experience with Tableau Software, we can see that the return on investment is already being delivered,” said Gerry Hassett, CEO at Irish Life Retail. “The whole implementation of my dashboards has taken a few weeks and has been a seamless operation. We can now see what is happening on the day-to-day and week-to-week basis which means we can develop our business accordingly and further enhance our competitive edge.”

Following an evaluation of Irish Life’s existing software and other major players in the BI software market, the company found that competitor products were more difficult to install and use and sometimes had multiple ways to perform the same task. Whilst Irish Life preferred Tableau’s clear and transparent licensing model and found the running costs to be more manageable.

“Tableau Software is an elegant business intelligence solution which is already having a positive impact at Irish Life,” said Graham Mulhern, Director at MXI Ireland. “Business executives and sales managers are following the emerging trends, seeing new and additional insights into the business information and capitalising on relevant opportunities. From MXI’s viewpoint, Irish Life is a household name and this relationship will have real meaningful effect on our business growth over the next few years, both in terms of sales and employment.”

“Our business needed a tool to make the job of analysing data easy,” said Paul Egan, Business Intelligence IT Manager at Irish Life. “We also wanted the ability to produce the information clearly for analysis in dashboard applications and in PDF format and accessible on the web and via the mobile.”

Data extracted from the Tableau will be used to monitor many aspects of business performance including sales margins, costs, the value of new business and head count to maximise efficiencies wherever possible. Customer service will be enhanced with the ability to maintain a deeper level of reporting, tracking the number of contacts that have been made online, via telephone or by paper and spot areas that can be streamlined to promise a better customer experience.

“Every organisation is faced with an onslaught of data and turning it into a format that is useful is the toughest part of the puzzle,” said Bruno Saint-Cast, VP for Europe at Tableau Software. “Irish Life has recognised the value of data in their business and the potential to improve processes and best serve customers.”

Irish Life plans to take their Tableau interactive dashboards mobile. Users will be able to browse content, access favorite reports and quickly collaborate, all while on the go.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Irish Life

Founded in 1939, Irish Life is Ireland’s No.1 provider of Life, Pensions and Investments with over 1m customers and €31bn of assets under management. It has an excellent reputation for service delivery being recently voted ‘Top Life Company’ by the members of the Irish Brokers Association. It has a multi-channel distribution model with leading positions with Pension Consultants, Brokers and Direct. In addition, it has strong relationships with Permanent TSB, Ulster Bank & EBS. The Plain English campaign voted Irish Life as ‘Best in the World’ for clarity and honesty in 2009.

About MXI

MXI was established in 1994 and is a trusted Partner in the IT sector, serving customers across UK, Europe and the Middle East. Initially founded to supply the needs of manufacturing companies, MXI has established a Business Intelligence practice over the last few years specialising in Data Visualisation, Rapid Analytic Software, ETL and Financial Modelling. MXI’s solutions help customers see new insights into their operations, in a rapid and economical manner, forecast and control their day to day activities and achieve new efficiencies. MXI helps customers drive down costs and increase profitability every day.

About Tableau Software

Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Ranked by Gartner in 2011 as the world’s fastest growing business intelligence company, Tableau helps anyone quickly and easily analyse, visualise and share information. More than 6,500 customers across most industries get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. Tens of thousands of people use Tableau to share data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by downloading the free trial at www.tableausoftware.com/trial.
For media enquiries please contact:

Simon Palmer
Republic
Tel: 01 282 2504
Email: simon@republicpr.ie

2011 was the ‘European Year of Volunteering’ and with so many people out of work, and donations to charities reduced, Verify Recruitment aims to keep the goodwill of the past year alive by offering skills and expertise to Irish charities for 2012. Verify Recruitment has launched the ‘Volunteer With Verify’ programme and is working with two major not-for-profit organisations that supply help to Irish charities:  The Wheel and Volunteer Ireland. They are looking for both candidates and charities to participate.

The aim of the initiative is to source experienced professionals who are willing to volunteer their skills to work with on projects for which charities require specialist assistance. These are highly skilled professionals whom the charities would not otherwise be able to afford to hire. For those volunteers who are in between jobs it is a way for them to apply their skills and remain productive, whilst they are searching for full-time paid employment.

Cathal Grogan, Managing Director of Verify Recruitment, says: “Volunteer With Verify will source much needed expertise for charities that have specific and unique projects that require specialist skills.  We have always advised our candidates to volunteer their skills in order to keep them busy and up to date in their chosen field. There is often a reluctance in companies with regard to hiring people who have been out of work for an extended period of time, so the initiative also provides an answer to that awkward question in an interview: “what have you been doing since your last role?” as potential employers will see that candidates have been applying their skills productively in a volunteer capacity. And as a recruitment company, we are in a unique position to match the skills of candidates to the volunteer projects, and ensure that the experience is beneficial to all concerned.”

Verify Recruitment is liaising with Irish charities to assess their needs and then approaching its candidates that have the relevant skills required. They have already sourced volunteers to help Volunteer Ireland and The Wheel with major projects such as event management and marketing, HR support, Project Management and implementing new technology changes.

Yvonne McKenna CEO Volunteer Ireland stated: “Helping Charities and volunteer organisations get access to highly skilled volunteers will be of great value.  We ourselves have benefited from the Volunteer with Verify initiative having already been introduced to some very experienced and highly skilled volunteers for some complex projects currently underway.  This is a very positive initiative from Verify Recruitment that we fully support and welcome.”

The benefits of volunteering to jobs-seekers are as follows:

• Verify Recruitment strongly believes volunteering helps with candidates’ self-esteem, maintains their confidence and gives them a sense of having contributed to their community.
• Volunteering shows potential employers that the candidate has remained motivated and has been using their time wisely; it is always easier for a candidate to get a job it they already have a job
• The volunteer positions are specialised in the candidates’ fields of expertise e.g. technology or business management, so they are keeping their skills sharp and keeping up to date with changing work practices.
• The benefits of keeping to a routine cannot be underestimated; whilst it is physically and mentally much healthier for job seekers, doing so keeps the candidates motivated and does not allow them to get into a rut, which can easily happen.
• A volunteer position helps the job seeker demonstrate their skills to potential employers and showcases them to a wider network, such as the charity itself or the organisations that the charity is working with, or to the people that are involved in charities, whom are often retired professionals with extensive contacts.

Grogan adds: “there is an interesting psychology attached to volunteering, people do not naturally volunteer, especially when asked as a group, but when they are approached directly on an individually basis they rarely say no. With the obvious benefits to candidates we do not believe we will have any problem finding volunteers for the positions that are available.”

For more information please contact Simon Palmer of Republic Public Relations on: +353 (0) 1282 2504; email: simon@republicpr.ie; or Twitter @simonprepublic

Notes to Editors

Verify Recruitment was set up in Dublin in May 2009. The company recruits experienced professionals for Irish blue chip companies, specialising in the IT sector and senior project roles. Uniquely it uses a panel of experts to assess and vet its candidates on behalf of its clients.

Set Cathal Grogan, he has 20 years experience in the IT industry, and has held senior positions in Program & Project Management, Product Management, Management Consulting, and Change Management in local and multi-national organisations, within Enterprise Software, Financial Services, Contact Centre and Automotive industries.

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Dublin solicitor Anthony Joyce BBC World Service 22.12.11

Please click the link below to listen to the interview.

BBC Radio 4 Today 20-12-11 Republic PR