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Maurice Mortell
"It’s better late than never so you’re better off doing something now rather than leaving it the way it is. The Broadband for Schools project was released a number of years ago and broadband was delivered to 90pc of the country, a fraction of that was only taken up when it came to the actual use..." more...
Maurice Mortell, CEO, Data Electronics
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Graham Byrne
"The Smart Schools = Smart Economy plan effectively creates an environment and baseline infrastructure that we can start building on within schools. Is €150m enough over the three-year period? It’s a question of what is enough, but it is an incredible start." more...
Graham Byrne, head of Ireland and Scotland businesses, Promethean
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Martin Murphy
"One key ingredient is education – something I would say that acknowledges we’ve taken a step in the right direction is the commitment that has been made in education through the Smart Schools = Smart Economy strategy. As a nation we need to ‘double down’ to really invest more heavily in our..." more...
Martin Murphy, managing director, HP Ireland
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Jim O'Hara
"There are essential building blocks we need to be absolutely rock solid so that we can enable any future success, whether you call it the smart economy or whatever. I keep coming back to some of the fundamentals. I have spoken at length over many years about the education system." more...
Jim O'Hara, general manager, Intel Ireland
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Paul Rellis
"I think the priority is implementation – we’ve just got to go and implement what we agreed we would. We’ve put a lot of time and brainpower into coming up with the solution, which is to give every teacher a laptop and a projector and every one in five children in the classroom a laptop – today..." more...
Paul Rellis, general manager, Microsoft Ireland
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Mark Kellett
"You need to start off with the education sector. How do we promote, who do we envisage as exemplars in this area? Do we set up our business studies or finance students or maths students? Do we educate them about what it takes to be an entrepreneur?" more...
Mark Kellett, CEO, Magnet Networks
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Kim Majerus
"One of the things we need to say first and foremost, it shouldn’t matter what social class you are in or what district you live in, education should be consistent and should enable every student regardless to have the same education quality they deserve." more...
Kim Majerus, managing director, Cisco Ireland
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Dermot O’Connell
"Curriculum reform is essential. Some of the skills being taught have been taught the exact same way for hundreds of years. We’ve a lot of work to do to regain interest in maths and science subjects." more...
Dermot O’Connell, general manager, Dell Ireland
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Gerry Fahy
"It is critical to the future development of our economy that we provide our schools with the digital infrastructure to maximise the use of technology in education. Concern remains around the continuing failure rates in maths and science subjects, particularly in light of the focus on developing a..." more...
Gerry Fahy, director of strategy, Vodafone Ireland
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Graham Sutherland
"I think the schools agenda is absolutely critical. We invest in the BT Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition. To see the quality of our younger people and their enthusiastic aspiration for the future is really quite mind-blowing." more...
Graham Sutherland, chief executive, BT Ireland
INTERVIEWS AND ANALYSIS
 | Ryan commits to ‘Your Country Your Call’ digital and green ideasCommunications Minister Eamon Ryan TD has pledged to commit to the winning digital and green ideas submitted by the finalists of the Your Country Your Call campaign. |
 | Ireland's best days lie ahead - Enterprise Ireland CEOFrank Ryan’s vision for Ireland five years from now is a connected economy and a hotspot of innovation. |
 | Cisco’s Galway R&D group spearheads future workplaceCisco’s 170-strong R&D operation in Galway is already making significant contributions to the networking giant’s product strategy, especially several unified communications features of Cisco Quad. |
 | Mobile app at heart of Dublin's bid to bring 1m extra visitorsDublin Tourism is expecting more than 100,000 downloads of a new Android and iPhone app that is one of the flagship features of a new digital strategy to bring 1 million extra visitors to the city by 2015. |
 | Ireland as a nanotechnology centre - reportForfás has released a report presenting a national framework to position Ireland as a knowledge and innovation centre for certain niche areas of nanotechnology. |
DIGITAL REALITIES
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Taking a fresh look at maths and technologyEamonn Nolan of Griffith College Dublin says the perception about maths needs to be challenged to encourage students to pursue careers in ICT and digital media. |
WORLD VIEW
 | UK plans to get every adult online by 2015The UK Government’s new digital champion Martha Lane Fox has written a manifesto aiming to get the 10 million Britons who have never used the internet to be online by 2015. |
 | Australia sets the standard for next-generation broadband rolloutThe news that Australia is to invest close to US$10bn in a pan-Australian fibre-optic network that will transform its country socially and economically for the decades ahead should set an example for economies in Europe. |
 | US govt plans to double wireless spectrum and create jobsUS President Barack Obama’s administration is planning to double the amount of wireless spectrum available across America in a move that will grow bandwidth and create thousands of new jobs. |
 | Superfast broadband will add stg£18bn to UK economyJeremy Hunt, the new culture secretary for the UK, has identified next-generation broadband as integral to adding stg£18bn to GDP to the UK economy and creating anything between 60,000 to 600,000 new jobs. |
 | EU Digital Agenda plans 30Mbps broadband for all citizensEuropean Commissioner Neelie Kroes has outlined her vision of a single market to allow Europeans to prosper from the digital era . |
 | EU nations to present their digital plans for peer reviewAs part of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda to be unveiled in the coming weeks, all 27 member states will take part in an ongoing peer review of their digital strategies. |
| Digital Britain Bill to get second readingThe Digital Britain Bill is to get a second reading in Parliament and several MPs have called for its implementation to be delayed until after the UK elections. |
 | 200,000 respond to Google’s fibre broadband experimentGoogle’s plans to deploy 1Gbps fibre to the home in select US communities has been met with some 200,000 responses from interested individuals. |
 | UK PM joins with Berners-Lee to create ‘radical’ digital futureUK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has unveiled plans for a "digital future of Britain" that will result in 250,000 new jobs and has recruited the creator of the worldwide web Tim Berners-Lee to create a stg£30m Institute of Web Science. |
 | Major US broadband policy plan to be revealedRegulators in the US are set to roll out an ambitious broadband policy plan that will see the average American experience increases in speeds up to 25 times faster than what they currently experience. |
 | Promethean to roll out 4,550 whiteboards in Spanish schoolsInteractive learning player Promethean has won a major Spanish tender to provide 4,550 of its ActivBoard+2 interactive whiteboards plus software to 1,900 schools in the Spanish region of Andalucia. . |
 | Intel leads venture and graduate push in USIntel is to drive a US$3.5-billion venture capital initiative to grow US industries in a move that will also increase jobs that will be available to college graduates. |
 | Ireland must learn to commercialise its researchIreland, like Germany, must do more than just create clever technologies to succeed commercially. |
 | Europe’s €700bn ICT industry calls on govts to get digitalBroadband-based innovation has the potential to create up to 1 million jobs and generate economic activity worth €849 billion, groups representing Europe’s ICT industry have told European governments. |
 | BT calls on rivals to open up fibre ductingIn the UK, BT has called on fellow telecoms operators to open their telecoms infrastructure and fibre ducting and up investment in the area. |
 | UK Tories: 100Mbps broadband by 2017The UK Conservative Party has unveiled a broadband plan to provide 100Mbps to most UK homes by 2017. |
 | Berners-Lee weaves semantic web for UK govtGovernment worldwide holds vast quantities of data. What is being done with non-personal data that is potentially useful? |
 | Obama’s IT guru urges inclusion of IT in stimulus plansGovernments must move swiftly to include more IT and ICT investments in their economic stimulus plans. |
