Archive for category Ireland
Win free tickets to Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin
Posted by Stephen Downey in bloggers, competition, Ireland, web2.0 on October 3, 2007
Web 2.0 Ireland are running a competition for tickets to the Web 2.0 expo in Berlin. Each ticket is worth €1100 so it is well worth entering for anyone that is interesting in going.
Here is how you could win:
the Irish (or Ireland-based) blogger who makes the best suggestion for an original Web Application with an Irish focus will win the tickets.
There are of course a few rules to the competition, check out Web2.0 Ireland for more Information. All entries to be sent to the Web2Ireland Editor.
Better get my thinking cap on….
ICES Group Revisited
Posted by Stephen Downey in Business, ICES, Investing, Ireland on September 20, 2006
I am on the mailing list for the ICES group and received an email about a talk by Stephen May coming up. Judging by the biography, it definitely looked like an interesting talk:
…Stephen started at 19 years of age in his native Tallaght with a typical 3 bed semi and has since developed a multimillion Euro property portfolio consisting of almost 100 properties.
Stephen is regularly requested to speak at property functions and seminars and we are delighted he has accepted our invitation to return to the forum. By the way, he’s only 27!
The ICES group provides a forum where investors and potential investors can meet to discuss any fears or questions that they might have about investing. It always good to seek your advice from someone who has been there and come out the other side, rather than someone who is not willing to try it themselves. I could not get over the turn for the talk. The room in the Grand Canal Hotel was packed to the brim and as Ian Lawlor, one of the directors of the ICES group, put it:
…It was like an All-Ireland day in Croker…
I was amazed by Stephen's drive and ambition. He has an ability to see potential in a property that somebody else might miss. Even after building up such a bit portfolio of property he remains an extremely down to earth guy with time and encouragement for all the investors in the room.
I would recommend going to see Stephen talk, if only to see that it can be done. When I left the ICES meeting I felt a need to get out there and start building a future like the very ambitious Stephen May has. Thank you to the guys in ICES for organising a great evening.
See you for a Virtual Pint…..
Posted by Stephen Downey in community, Consulting, contract, Dublin, Hibernate, Ireland, java, javakicks, meetup, ruby on rails, SOA, Spring, Virtual Pub on July 12, 2006
I went along to the Dublin Java Meetup group last night. It was a very interesting night which attracted some new members as well as the usual suspects, about 15 members in all. The Dublin Java Meetup is always a good night where you can discuss any aspect of Java technologies (Or any technical topic at that. For some reason Ruby on Rails has been discussed at every meetup for the last few months:) )
Whether your are an expert in a certain area and have lots to contribute or have heard of a topic and would like to know more, this is definitely the place to go. Among the topics discussed last night was Java Kicks. this is a Digg like service aimed at the Java community. It is has only been launch recently but already has a very big following in the Java community. There was also some very interesting demos of Naked Objects. SOA's, Struts, Spring, Hibernate, AJAX, EJB3.0 and the Dublin Contract market were just a few of the other topics that were on offer.
One other thing that was discussed was the Java developer community in Ireland, that are not able to make it to Dublin for the meetups. To overcome this we are organising a 'Virtual Pub' meetup. More details to follow but at the moment it looks like it will be happen on 7.30 on the last Tuesday of the month. The proposed topic for Tuesday the 25th of July is
'What technologies should I be learning in the next 12 months?'.
Hopefully it will be a good interactive session for all developers of the Java community.