The cream of Ireland's young cyber-defenders head to Turin, Italy next month to compete against Europe's elite hackers and cybersecurity in an annual pan-European competition run by ENISA (the EU's cybersecurity body), The European Cyber Security Challenge (www.ecsc.eu)

This flagship event has been running since 2016, when Team Ireland were one of ten countries competing. The event has grown every year since then and this year will feature teams of ten from 39 European countries, plus 7 guest countries from outside Europe.

European Cyber Security Challenge

Team Ireland consists of ten young people, aged from just 16 up to 25, with six of the team being aged 20 or younger. Selection for the team began back in March with the national cybersecurity competition ZeroDays CTF (www.zerodays.ie). This 'Capture-the-Flag' competition has been running since 2015, and saw 140 teams of four from schools, colleges and companies all over Ireland, converge on Croke Park for the annual competition to be crowned Ireland's champions.

Teams compete across a range of cybersecurity domains in fun, novel challenges, including cryptography, coding, problem solving, reverse engineering and team challenges such as VR gaming, relay Mario Kart and lockpicking.

Individuals who did well in this competition, and in similar more local events, were invited to try out more challenges at www.cybersecuritychallenge.ie, and eligible participants who show promise there were invited to join a squad of around 30 candidates to receive dedicated training, before a final team of ten was chosen at the end of August.

This team of ten will now head to Turin to represent Ireland at the European Cyber Security Challenge, a competition that runs across four days of setup, competition and awards.

The final team features players from all corners of the country, from Dublin to Belfast to Cork and Donegal, Wexford, Offaly, Galway, it is a very diverse team with different backgrounds and varying skillsets, all of which makes for a stronger team.

Team manager Mark Lane, who lectures in cybersecurity at TU Dublin, where the team also trains, said "We've been competing in this competition since 2016, and it's amazing to see it continue to grow. We're up against some European powerhouses who have massive population bases and resourcing, but we've always managed to punch above our weight.

I'm really proud of the hard work the team has put in over the last few months, and I'm confident we will do well and continue to improve, as well have some fun while doing it.

This year we've had great support from the National Cyber Security Centre, who have awarded us a grant to continue to build on the work with the team, and from our amazing sponsors Cytidel and ReliaQuest, and without them we wouldn't be able to do what we are doing. CTF's have really taken off in the last few years and are, in my opinion, the best way for people to learn cybersecurity skills. It's a very hands-on, and gamified, way to learn, and the competitive side can really spur people on.

It's also great to see these young talents develop their skills over time, and to see a real team spirit develop. Over the last couple of years, we have worked hard to make CTFs more mainstream, and we're seeing more schools, coder dojos and colleges taking part. We'd love to see every school in the country taking part.

There's a huge skills gap worldwide, including in Ireland, and these events can highlight and encourage cybersecurity as an interesting, varied, and very well-paid career or college choice."

Team Bios

Cillian Collins, 22, is the Ireland Team Captain. He's a recent graduate from NUIG. Cillian also recently became the first Irish player to be chosen for Team Europe, which takes part in the pan-continental International Cybersecurity Challenge in Chile at the end of October 2024.

Dean Brennan, 25, is the team's vice-Captain. Dean is a researcher with Cyber Skills at MTU Cork, where he is currently in the first year of a Ph...

The schedule for National Women's Enterprise Day 2024 has been launched. The initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices takes place on the 17th October with 14 events lined up across the country that will see some of Ireland's best female entrepreneurs and businesswomen share their stories of challenges and success.

Some of those taking part this year include Aimee Connolly, founder and CEO of Sculpted by Aimee, Anne Heraty founder of CPL Resources, broadcaster and entrepreneur, Norah Casey, Martina Fitzgerald of Scale Ireland, entrepreneur Chupi Sweetman and broadcaster and podcaster Sile Seoige. They will be joined at the events across the country by a host of female led small businesses and start-ups are telling their story of how they began and made it happen with their ideas.

This is the 18th year of National Women's Enterprise Day and the theme of this year's event is, "Making it happen". The event aims to encourage businesswomen to take that next step whether that be to act on an idea, grow their business or take steps to change or innovate in their business.

The events will outline the key supports that are available from financial and consultancy to training and mentoring to help them along the way from starting out right through to bringing a business to global markets.

Breege Cosgrave, Co-Chair of National Women's Enterprise Day 2024, said; "National Women's Enterprise Day has become a flagship event for women entrepreneurs and businesswomen every year. No matter what stage you are at, idea, starting up, or trying to innovate or grow your business, there is something for you. The events will dive into those stories of success, and failure and how some of the very best businesswomen in Ireland overcame the biggest challenges.

"Most of all, the day is about empowering women in business, or those with that kernel of an idea, to make that next step, whatever it is. It might be making that idea a reality, it might be innovating in your business or it might be taking those first steps in making your company greener or digitization. Whatever it is, the day will have something for you and will show you the supports that are available and the network all around you in your region that are there to help you make it happen."

The Local Enterprise Offices also run a number of initiatives to foster entrepreneurship across the country. These include Local Enterprise Week, the National Enterprise Awards, the Student Enterprise Programme, the Local Enterprise Village at Ploughing and Local Enterprise Showcase. The Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities are funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland.

Established in 2014, the Local Enterprise Offices are the essential resource for any entrepreneur looking to start a business or any small business that is looking for support or advice to help them grow. Since their inception eight years ago, the Local Enterprise Offices have helped create over 75,000 jobs across the country.

The LEOs work with thousands of client companies across Ireland in a diverse range of sectors offering mentoring, training, expert advice and financial supports to small businesses.

For more information on National Women's Enterprise Day and what events are on go to www.LocalEnterprise.ie/NWED

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Marama Labs, a life-sciences instrumentation start-up, has secured €280,000 in funding from Enterprise Ireland to fund the expansion of the company's Irish operations. Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) investment is part of the company's Q4 2023 seed-plus round led by leading Irish VC The Yield Lab Europe and brings the total funding of the round raised by Marama Labs to €2m.

The company, founded in New Zealand in 2019, is led by Irish-born CEO and co-founder Dr Brendan Darby with offices in Dublin and Wellington (New Zealand).

The investment from Enterprise Ireland will be used to fund the expansion of Marama Labs' Irish operations, opening a commercially-focused applications lab in North Dublin and hiring a life-sciences applications team to support its customers in the Northern Hemisphere.

Dr Brendan Darby, CEO and Co-Founder of Marama Labs, said: "We are delighted to have secured investment from Enterprise Ireland as part of our recent capital raise. Ireland's position as a leader in the global life sciences industryprovides the perfect launchpad for Marama Labs to scale our commercial footprint in the Northern Hemisphere life sciences market.

"I am personally very excited about working with Enterprise Ireland to build out our Irish activities and leverage the unique life sciences skills available in Ireland. Our mission is to become a global leader in scientific instrumentation, removing bottlenecks in the chemical analysis of liquids, enabling faster and cheaper development of life-saving products."

Tom Kelly, Divisional Manager, Industrial & Life Sciences at Enterprise Ireland said: "Congratulations to the team at Marama Labs on its recent investment wins. Enterprise Ireland's HPSU investment in this highly innovative company will support its exploration into the rapidly growing life-sciences market and the expansion of its operations in Ireland."

Marama Labs develops novel spectroscopy technology that can rapidly analyse the chemistry of highly complex high-value liquids in industries such as life sciences and fermentation. Its CloudSpec product is able to quantify crucial quality information about new classes of therapeutics, called nanomedicines, in seconds, compared to hours it takes with existing technologies.

Marama Labs is working with some of the world's leading therapeutic manufacturers to speed up their drug discovery and manufacturing workflows, with the life sciences product due to launch on the market in 2025.

Marama Labs, a Victoria University of Wellington spinout company, was founded in 2019 in New Zealand by physicists Dr Brendan Darby (CEO), Dr Matthias Meyer and Professor Eric Le Ru (CSO), when they discovered a fundamentally new way to optically interrogate highly cloudy liquids using light-based sensors; the breakthrough led to the development of its CloudSpec UV-Vis spectrophotometer.

Life sciences and pharmaceutical manufacturing

Initially commercialised for winemaking analysis, Marama Labs has widened the CloudSpec applications into the life-sciences market, where opaque liquids are a major hurdle for drug discovery, process monitoring, quality assurance and new product development.

CloudSpec's unique ability to measure UV-Vis spectra of highly turbid samples, like lipid-based nano-medicines, has caught the attention of the life-sciences industry. Commercial trials are underway with leading pharmaceutical manufacturers in Europe and the US, for optimising vaccine development workflows.

Compared to expensive and time-consuming analytical techniques like HPLC and fluorescent-based assays, which can take hours to get a result, CloudSpec can obtain the same information in a few seconds.

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Start-ups tackling some of the world's biggest sustainability challenges will trial technology with Amazon across Europe after winning funding in this year's Amazon Sustainability Accelerator. Eleven start-ups have been awarded the opportunity to test their pioneering innovations within Amazon operations with a potential investment of up to £2 million.

The start-ups will work with Amazon in the UK, Denmark, France, Germany and Spain to test new ways to recycle electronic waste, innovative packaging methods, ground-breaking building materials, and using AI to improve energy efficiency.

The pilots will vary in both duration and scope depending on the challenge that is being addressed, with the opportunity for wider partnerships on completion. Cheesecake Energy from the UK will deploy its compressed air and thermal technology to provide safe, reliable energy storage within Amazon's European operations, reducing emissions from electricity usage. HT Materials Science from Dublin and American-based Phaidra also have pilots in development with Amazon in the UK.

Cheesecake Energy was founded at the University of Nottingham and uses energy storage systems to capture electricity generated by solar power during the day to provide additional energy during peak hours or at night when the sun doesn't shine. The technology will be used in selected European fulfilment centres.

"Storing energy for longer periods is vital as we accelerate towards net zero," said Michael Simpson, Chief Commercial Officer at Cheesecake Energy. "We are excited to test our innovative technology with Amazon. This will help the company store excess solar energy and use it when needed. It's great that Amazon shares our belief in the potential of the Cheesecake Energy technology, to reduce the cost of energy storage as well as ensuring renewable energy is used efficiently."

HT Materials Science will add a nanofluid solution to the heating and cooling systems at Amazon fulfilment centres in Coventry, Daventry, and Doncaster. The aluminium-based technology, a winner of the Green Product Award, is expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 14%.

A pilot is currently being scoped to use Phaidra's AI tool with the heating and cooling system at one of Amazon's UK fulfilment centres. This is expected to lower carbon emissions by up to 40% and reduce energy costs by up to 25%. When connected, Phaidra's software will use algorithms to optimise energy usage in real-time based on factors such as the weather and the number of occupants in the building.

"Through our world-leading AI tools, we are committed to reducing carbon emissions and energy use in heating and cooling systems," said Jim Gao, CEO of Phaidra. "Our collaboration with Amazon in this pilot is a significant step towards achieving a more sustainable future in commercial, industrial and data centre facilities. We aim to provide a scalable and seamless solution that not only benefits the environment but also offers substantial savings and efficiency improvements."

The Amazon Sustainability Accelerator will see similar innovative pilots across Europe. To support Amazon's packaging reduction efforts, start-ups Re-Zip and Hipli will launch pilots to ship close to 100,000 orders across France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria using unique, reusable packaging.

Circu Li-Ion from Luxembourg will help extend the life of Amazon's batteries, using robots to disassemble and support batteries upcycling, giving them a second life, reducing lithium-ion waste and decreasing carbon-intensive material extraction.

Throughout the pilots, Amazon's subject matter experts will work closely with the start-ups, offering feedback, troubleshooting assistance, and opportunities to refine their technologies to ensure they work smoothly in their respective placements. Upon completion, Amazon will assess the environmental impact, financial viability, and overall effectiveness of the pilots to determine whether any can be s...

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge, the world's largest annual global hackathon, is set to return to Dublin on October 5-6, 2024. The event will once again be hosted at National College of Ireland (NCI), which proved to be the perfect Mission Control Center in 2023, offering outstanding facilities, warm welcomes, and exceptional academic mentoring to participants.

Last year, the Space Apps Challenge saw an impressive 57,999 participants from over 185 countries and territories. This year's global theme, "The Sun Touches Everything," invites participants to tackle one of 21 Challenges using space data and information. These Challenges span a wide range of topics, from astrobiology to space music and the design of games for astronauts.

The organizers are particularly excited to welcome participants from primary and secondary schools, as well as non-technical individuals. The Space Apps Challenge is a unique opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to engage with space science and technology, nurturing creativity and innovation in a collaborative environment.

The upcoming Space Apps Challenge has an impressive display of Global Collaborators, including Microsoft, Google, and Tableau, and the Dublin organizing board is actively seeking Local Collaborators from the Irish space industry, as well as non-space-related businesses looking to connect with the increasingly appealing space sector.

This is a fantastic opportunity for local businesses to be part of a global event, to enjoy international visibility and to support the next generation of innovators.

What sets the Space Apps Challenge apart is its inclusivity. It is a hackathon open to everyone, not just scientists, coders, and engineers. Participants work in teams, and often, non-technical skills are the key to creating winning projects. In Dublin, participants will be supported by Mentors, who will help them develop their projects to the highest standard.

At the end of the hackathon, a Community Choice Award will be presented to the best project, and a renowned Jury Panel from Irish academia, business, project management, and communications will select the Global Nominee. This project will advance to the final global judging stages, culminating in the announcement of ten Global Winners.

Members of the global winning teams will be invited to NASA for the prize-giving ceremony and will have the chance to develop their projects with the support of NASA and 15 national and regional Space Agencies that are partners of the hackathon.

For more information and to register for the event, visit the NASA Space Apps Dublin webpage.

Commenting on the collaboration for this year's NASA Space Apps Challenge, Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of NCI's School of Computing, said:

"National College of Ireland has an ethos of lifelong learning and inclusion and practices innovation and resilience through knowledge transfer. Being Dublin Mission Control for this exciting, all-ages, global hackathon, addressing real-world problems through collaboration and invention, is a perfect fit for NCI, and we look forward to welcoming participants to our campus at NCI Mayor Square."

Commenting on the collaboration with the National College of Ireland as the local venue for the NASA Space Apps Challenge for the second consecutive year, Dublin Local Lead Paola Vercesi said:

"The NASA Space Apps Challenge Dublin is proud to continue its collaboration with the National College of Ireland for the second consecutive year. NCI stands out as an academic hub of innovation and excellence, drawing a diverse group of students from across the globe and fostering an impressive international network of accomplished alumni.

This is why NCI represents the perfect ecosystem to host Dublin participants in the largest annual global hackathon, open to all cultures, backgrounds and skillsets. Join us at NCI on October 5 and 6, share your visions on the universe, science, Earth preservation, and community life. At t...

A new study from Visa, a world leader in digital payments, has identified increased access to mentorship as the top ask from growing small businesses in Ireland. More than half (52%) of the entrepreneurs surveyed acknowledged the benefits of mentorship despite just one in five (20%) currently having a business mentor. Half of women business owners also stated that they don't know how to go about securing a mentor.

Findings from the survey of over 300 small business owners highlighted both the challenges faced and the disparity that still exists between female and male small business owners across the country. Back for a fourth consecutive year, Visa has launched its biggest ever She's Next Grant Programme in Ireland to help close the entrepreneurship gap.

According to Visa's study, women entrepreneurs continue to come up against several challenges and barriers:

Access to funding and venture capital - a vital lever for 42% of small business owners. Men are twice as likely as women to have sourced and secured investments for their business (36% men versus 18% women).

Family support gap - 42% of women pinpointed the struggle to balance family and caregiving responsibilities with business (versus 28% of men). And 48% of women entrepreneurs say their business couldn't survive without family support (versus 32% of men).

Networking - 55% of women business owners stated they feel nervous walking into a room of strangers, compared to 39% of men.

Unfavourable terms or conditions - a greater issue for women following pitching for funding, compared to men (31% of women versus 8% of men).

As part of the 2024 programme, applicants have a chance to win several separate grants of business funding. A €10,000 grant will be awarded to four women entrepreneurs and one overall winner will receive €50,000 to help their business thrive.

All five winners will receive mentoring from award-winning entrepreneur and businesswoman Aimee Connolly, CEO and founder of Sculpted by Aimee and MentorsWork, an initiative of Skillnet Ireland in partnership with the Small Firms Association (SFA). All five winners will also have the opportunity to participate in individual and group pitch preparation sessions, equipping them with the skills and confidence to excel during future funding endeavours.

Mandy Lamb, Managing Director UK & Ireland, Visa, commented: "While progress has been made to narrow the gender gap in entrepreneurship, our commitment to addressing existing challenges remains resolute. That's why we're excited to bring She's Next back to Ireland again, continuing our mission to empower women entrepreneurs on their business journeys."

"At Visa, we want to provide women entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed. This year, we've enhanced the prize package and are providing business mentorship and funding pitch coaching for all five winners. Applications are now open, and we can't wait to connect with some of the inspiring women-led businesses that are driving innovation and growth across the country."

Aimee Connolly, who was appointed Visa's She's Next judge and mentor, also added: "As a business owner myself, I empathise with the unique barriers and challenges identified by women entrepreneurs in the Visa study. Programmes like She's Next are invaluable. The mentoring, coaching and funding can really help women business owners to build confidence and knowledge, not just in their brand and business, but in themselves as leaders too.

I welcome the opportunity to help with this initiative, championing women business owners in Ireland to learn, grow and achieve their goals, whether that's expanding into new markets, innovating products or increasing their digital presence."

Alison McGrath is the founder of My First Steps, the first dedicated children's footwear superstore in Ireland. Alison was one of five winners to receive a €10,000 grant and year of business coaching through Visa's She's Next Programme in 2023.

Reflecting on how the programme im...

Enet, Ireland's largest open access telecoms network provider, has announced a significant five-year deal with National Broadband Ireland (NBI), to provide backhaul to 32 regional and rural Point of Presence (PoPs) around the country.

The connectivity, multiple 10GB links, is seen as an enabler for NBI's nationwide delivery of a new future-proofed, high-speed Fibre-to-the-Home network under the National Broadband Plan on behalf of the Government.

NBI currently benefits from Enet's unique backhaul infrastructure's resilience, meaning there will be no disruption to the current connectivity to customers in rural areas. Enet's robust bandwidth capacity will grow and improve throughout the five-year deal, enhancing broadband services to nearly one-quarter (23%) of Ireland's population.

Peter McCarthy, CEO of Enet, says: "Enet are confident that we are best positioned to continue to provide a first-class national backhaul network to NBI. This is a significant opportunity to continue our successful working relationship with NBI, maintaining our current infrastructure to benefit NBI's national customer base, as well as our expanding network, to meet any of NBI's future requirements."

Peter Hendrick, CEO of National Broadband Ireland, says: "Our rollout is currently delivering high-speed fibre access to 10,000 premises every month, and as internet traffic continues to grow, and take-up on the NBI network goes from strength to strength, this deal enables NBI for the future, and gives us control over critical elements of our network architecture."

Integrity360, one of the leading pan-European cyber security specialists, has announced the launch of its new Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) as a Service in collaboration with XM Cyber, the leader in hybrid cloud exposure management.

Designed to enable organisations to manage their cybersecurity risks more effectively by identifying and prioritising exposures across their entire estate, CTEM as a Service provides businesses with the holistic support needed to identify and mitigate their most pressing cyber risks.

Following Integrity360's partnership with XM Cyber in 2022, the new service builds on XM Cyber's Continuous Exposure Management platform with a complementary service offering that helps extract maximum value from the platform, identify potential breach points and attack scenarios, highlight and prioritise exposures that put critical assets at risk and help those be interpreted, understood, and remediated.

Integrity360's CTEM as a Service offers support in managing the implementation of these remediations, either through the customer's internal teams or their external support partners. It's a comprehensive approach that sees security efforts tailored to the areas that matter most to an organisation, while reducing the burden on security teams who are often stretched thin.

This enhances the efficiency and efficacy of security measures while exposures are tracked over time to correlate remediation activity with posture improvement.

Key elements of the service include:

Platform Setup & Operational Management: From platform deployment and configuration to sensor design and integration, ensuring seamless operation.

Exposure Detection & Prioritisation: Continuously monitoring business infrastructure, identifying critical exposures and attack paths.

Remediation Management: Support for the remediation process with prioritised recommendations and engagement with business IT teams.

Resource Augmentation: Access to professional services and specialised teams to address remediation demands where needed.

Brian Martin, Director of Product Management, Integrity360, said - "Proactive management of exposure is at the forefront of cybersecurity thinking in the modern era. Exponentially increasing volumes of new vulnerabilities and other exposures coupled with the greatly expanded attack surface have left many organisations struggling to cope.

"The launch of CTEM as a Service is a pivotal step in our partnership with XM Cyber to provide businesses with a continuous, end-to-end solution for managing exposures. CTEM is implemented in a continuous and cyclical manner, ensuring constant improvement of security posture and the ability to adapt to emerging exploits and exposures.

It's a laser-focused way of identifying which exposures to prioritise, and, unlike most other services in this space, also address the remediation management challenge to maximise the delivery of real security value."

According to Gartner, by 2026, organisations that prioritise their security investments based on a continuous exposure management programme will be three times less likely to suffer a breach. Integrity360's CTEM as a Service directly aligns with this, giving customers the tools they need to maintain their security posture.

Integrity360's CTEM as a Service not only identifies vulnerabilities but all types of exposure such as those caused by misconfiguration and the mismanagement of identities and permissions, credentials, and third parties. By sitting down with resolver groups, mapping out processes and integrating output into existing systems, we validate the threat posed and provide clear, actionable guidance and ongoing support for remediation execution.

Furthermore, CTEM as a Service aligns security investments with business priorities, making it easier for organisations to invest where it matters most.

Stuart Quinsey, Director of Channels EMEA of XM Cyber, commented - "Our partnership with Integrity360 represents a milestone in expos...

The upcoming AVEA (Association of Visitor Experiences and Attractions) Conference planned for October 13th to 15th in Kilkenny will see the founder of ProfileTree and AI expert Ciaran Connelly take to the stage to showcase how to effectively use AI on a shoestring to maximise marketing efforts.

Ciaran has grown ProfileTree from a small team of 2 into a strong team of 24. Online he creates videos and training, which are delivered through YouTube and various websites. He continues to drive innovation in the digital marketing landscape through the adoption of AI tools in business practices and designs, develops and supports optimised websites and e-commerce sites for a large number of companies from the USA to Australia.

At the conference, he will share his expertise in using AI to get the most for your marketing efforts and team productivity.

CEO of AVEA Catherine Flanagan says, "We are very excited to welcome Ciaran to the conference. He works at the cutting edge of AI and is up to speed on what technology is evolving daily. He will demystify AI and share insights into some of the best tools for the best results. Tourism and hospitality are all about the personal touch, and AI can be a powerful and positive behind-the-scenes tool that enables us to spend more time connecting and engaging with the visitor."

Ciaran says, "In any business, we are always looking for ways to improve what we do. A lot of tasks are robotic and repetitive, and by effectively using AI we can remove some of these more basic tasks that we no longer need to do and allow business team members to focus on the higher-level strategic parts of the business.

"The speed of AI adoption since November 2022 is phenomenal. It is clear AI is the future, no matter what happens next - it will be a bigger part of everyone's life. One of the biggest challenges I see is getting staff onboard with using AI.

"We are all naturally resistant to changing how we work; for example, when you ask a team of writers to adopt ChatGPT, they initially think that they are sacrificing part of their creativity but AI is a tool for facilitating creativity and content writing, instead of staring at a blank screen or putting hours into research for an article, there is a tool that could help do all of that a lot quicker.

"My delivery at the upcoming conference is to arm the visitor attraction industry with some key knowledge and tools to focus their marketing efforts and reap the most reward by doing so."

Over 200 delegates will gather in Kilkenny at the Ormonde Hotel for the 7th annual AVEA conference. In a bid to tackle tourism visitor numbers and issues head-on and work towards providing the best experience for visitors, the industry will come together. The owners and operators of Ireland's leading visitor attractions will gather to discuss how the industry can drive further visitor numbers and future-proof their businesses under the theme of 'Innovation - Agility - Inclusion'.

A conference's leadership panel discussion will include Tourism Ireland CEO Alice Mansergh, Failte Ireland's Jenny De Saulle, Chief Executive at Irish Tourism Industry Confederation Eoghan O' Mara Walsh, CEO at Tourism Northern Ireland John McGrillen.

In addition to the leadership panel, the international speakers include Laura Magee, CEO of Thoroughbred Country, Nik Wyness, Head of Marketing, the Tank Museum, Dorset, Alison Bowyer, Executive Director, Kids in Museums, Eleanore Hutch and Kat Riddell, Diageo Brand Homes, Sally Booth and Olivia Hewley from VocalEyes, Michael Faley, Sector Lead for Travel, Google, Gary Farrington, Senior Partner Manager EMEA, Expedia Group, Rachel Kuhn, Senior Director, BOP Consulting and Anne O'Donoghue, CEO,

Irish Heritage Trust.

A highlight of the conference is sure to be the Gala Dinner at St Canice's Cathedral, which expects to welcome over 150 of Ireland's tourism leaders. St Canice's will be showcasing the illuminated Book of Ossory, which is on display in its new home for th...

Park Place Technologies, the world's leading global data centre and networking optimisation firm, has announced the expansion of its portfolio of IT infrastructure services with the introduction of two Liquid Cooling solutions for data centres: Immersion Liquid Cooling and Direct-to-Chip Cooling.

This announcement comes at a critical time for businesses who are seeing a dramatic increase in the compute power they require, driven by adoption of technologies like AI and IoT. This in turn is driving the need for more on-prem hardware, more space for that hardware, and more energy to run it all - presenting a significant financial and environmental challenge for businesses.

Park Place Technology's new Liquid Cooling solutions present a strong solution for businesses looking to address these challenges as the technology has the potential to deliver strong financial and environmental results.

Direct-to-Chip is an advanced cooling method that applies coolant directly to the server components that generate the most heat including CPUs and GPUs. Immersion cooling empowers data centre operators to do more with less: less space and less energy. Using these methods, businesses can increase their Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) by up to 18 times, and rack density by up to 10 times. Ultimately, this can help deliver power savings of up to 50%, which in turn leads to lower operation costs.

From an environmental perspective, liquid cooling is significantly more efficient than traditional air cooling. At present, air cooling technology only captures 30% of the heat generated by the servers, compared to the 100% captured by immersion cooling, resulting in lower carbon emissions for businesses that opt for immersion cooling methods.

Park Place Technologies can deliver a complete, turn-key solution for organisations looking to implement Liquid Cooling technology, removing the complexity of adoption, which is a common barrier for businesses. Park Place Technologies provides a single-vendor solution for the whole process from procuring the hardware, conversion of the servers for liquid cooling, installation, maintenance, monitoring and management of the hardware and the cooling technology.

"Our new Liquid Cooling offerings have the potential to have a significant impact on our customers' costs and carbon emissions, two of the key issues they face today," said Chris Carreiro, Chief Technology Officer, at Park Place Technologies. "Park Place Technologies is ideally positioned to help organisations cut their data centre operations costs, giving them the opportunity to re-invest in driving innovation across their businesses.

The decision to invest in Immersion Cooling and Direct-to-Chip Cooling depends on various factors, including the specific requirements of the data center, budget constraints, the desired level of cooling efficiency, and infrastructure complexity. Park Place Technologies can work closely with customers to find the best solution for their business, and can guide them towards the best long-term strategy, while offering short-term results.

This takes much of the complexity out of the process, which will enable more businesses to capitalise on this exciting new technology."

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