The Irish Tech News Podcast

An Cosan Virtual Community College is being launched today by their patron, renowned film-maker and Ireland’s Digital Champion, Lord David Puttnam. Ronan caught up with Liz Waters the director of VCC and she told Ronan about VCC and how it started. Liz also mentioned startling statistics that show why VCC is so important and Lynn Ruane is a perfect role model for VCC.

A new, classroom-based programme called Futurewize, aimed at inspiring young Junior Cycle students to explore a new world of career possibilities that are opened up through the study of STEM related subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) was launched today. The brand ambassador for Futurewize, Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, spoke to Ronan about Futuerwize and how it works, why more girls should be doing STEM courses and why it's all about hard work and not your gender that will take you far in STEM.

In the second and also last in our series of Space Week podcasts, Ronan talks to the French Astronaut Jean Francois Clervoy, who flew on three Space Shuttle missions with NASA, including the one where the Hubble telescope was repaired. Jean Francois talks about Elon Musk's Mars vision and when he thinks we will go to Mars, and why we should be going back to the moon Jean Francois also talks about how space travel is portrayed in Sci-Fi Movies, his views on cheap space travel such as the sub orbiital Space X, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic and why prices won’t be much cheaper than their current price. Jean Francois also talks about his 3 NASA Space Shuttle missions, which one was his favourite and his current work with ESA.

#AroundIrelandOnAPushie is a challenge that will take Tara Foster a TV producer on a journey across Ireland. Yesterday Tara met Ronan in a Dublin Coffee shop and she explained how #AroundIrelandOnAPushie came about, what it entails and how Twitter is helping her journey around Ireland. She also spoke about the time she spent with NASA attending a Social Media program designed by NASA, which Tara will be talking about in Cork as she takes part in an event for National Space Week.

Paul O'Connell is the man behind the Uprise Festival, the biggest and best startup event in Europe. In the past Uprise has been run in Amsterdam but on October 20th it is coming to the RDS in Dublin. Paul met up recently with Ronan to talk about Uprise. Paul explains to Ronan what you can expect at Uprise, the pitch battle contest, why companies like Microsoft have come on board and how startups will be actively looking for people to work for them.

This episode of the Irish Tech News Podcast was recorded at SaaStock, a SaaS conference held in the RDS in Dublin. Ronan spoke to James Sherrettt, the Senior Manager of Accounts in Slack Europe. James spoke to Ronan about what Slack do, why their product is used by so many companies. James also spoke about Slack’s Dublin office and their plans for the immediate future.

This episode of the Irish Tech News Podcast was recorded at SaaStock, a SaaS conference held in the RDS in Dublin. Ronan spoke to Krish Subramanian the CEO and co-founder of ChargeBee one of the up and coming SaaStock superstars. Krish told Ronan about the background of ChargeBee, how they are growing so fast and why companies like Stripe are using them.

Ronan was at the launch of the Virgin Media Digital Insights report and he sat down to chat with Tony Hanway the CEO of Virgin Media Ireland. Tony spoke about some of the key findings of the report, the trend of going mobile, Virgin Media's future plans including why increasing their broadband speeds is not a priority.

Stephen Quinn the CEO and co-founder of Jobbio our jobs partner appears on this episode of the Irish Tech News Podcast. Stephen talks to Ronan about the recent investment in Jobbio, how Jobbio works, who some of their clients are and why Jobbio is an agency free zone. Stephen also mentions the three issues that their clients can face namely talent attraction, cost and time, and their plans for the next five years.

Alex Theuma the founder of SaaStock appears on this episode of the Irish Tech News podcast. Alex tells Ronan the background of SaaStock, why he chose Dublin as the city to host SaaStock, and how Niamh Bushnell, Conor Stanley and Startup Dublin helped him. Alex also talks about the SaaStock speakers which includes Des Traynor the Co-Founder of Intercom, Leo Widrich the Co-Founder of Buffer, and Peter Reinhardt the CEO and Co-Founder of Segment.