Published on: Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Tuesday 21st September - Nimbus Centre - 8.00am

Building the "Ideas Economy"- Establishing "The Innovation Island" is central to the Government Policy Building Ireland's Smart Economy. For many years, CIT has partnered successfully with a number of companies in their process and product development activity.

CIT’s Research and Industry Liaison Offices are hosting a short seminar on how CIT could be "Your First-Class Innovation Partner". The seminar takes place at the Nimbus Centre, CIT Bishopstown Campus Cork on Tuesday 21st, September and is directed at Food, BioPharma and Medical Device Companies.

To book a place, please contact: elizabeth.carrolltwomey@cit.ie (RSVP by Friday 17th September 2010).
Visitor car parking: first turn left after entering the main campus.

Speakers will include CIT’s newly appointed Entrepreneur in Residence, Kieran Moynihan. Kieran has worked as a management consultant, specialising in providing support to companies in the area of company strategy, go-to-market, fundraising, executive coaching, M&A and exit strategies. Kieran recently took up the position of Entrepreneur in Residence at CIT.

The speakers at the Seminar are Dr Jim O’Mahony, Senior Researcher BIO-EXPLORE Research Cluster & Lecturer in Biological Sciences; Dr Roy D. Sleator, Senior Researcher BIO-EXPLORE Research Cluster & Lecturer in Biological Sciences; Dr Ambrose Furey, Senior Researcher BIO-EXPLORE Research Cluster & Lecturer in Chemistry. They will be joined by Dr Eamonn O’Neill, Centre Manager, CAPPA (Centre for Advanced Photonics & Process Analysis) and Pat O’Connor, Centre Manager, MEDIC (Medical Engineering Design & Innovation Centre).

Dr Niall Smith, Head of Research and Josette O’Mullane, Industry Liaison Manager, will also be speaking before an opportunity for questions and networking.

Programme

Profiles of Speakers

• Kieran Moynihan works as a management consultant specialising in providing support to companies in the area of company strategy, go-to-market, fundraising, executive coaching, M&A and exit strategies. Kieran recently took up the position of Entrepreneur in Residence at CIT.
  
  Background: Kieran co-founded Comnitel, a telecoms software company in 1999 and led the company as CEO from initial start-up through a 30 million-dollar series of fundraising with leading international venture capitalists. After completing the CIT led Genesis Enterprise Programme in 1999/2000, Comnitel merged with Metrica and WatchMark to form Vallent, a 450 person global company with annual revenues of approx. $65 million.
  
  From 2003 – 2007 Kieran was CTO for Vallent driving the company’s product and market strategy up to the acquisition of the company by IBM in 2007. He then took on the role of VP and CTO for Telecoms for the IBM Tivoli division and has also been a key strategist & visionary for IBM’s overall telecoms business worldwide. He has extensive M&A experience both on the acquirer and acquired side.
• Jim O’Mahony joined the full time academic staff at CIT in 2005 having completed an MSc in Biotechnology and a PhD in Clinical Microbiology at UCC in 1994 and 1999 respectively. Jim’s post doctoral experience was gained at the Dept of Microbiology and the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (both UCC) between 1999 and 2005 where he developed significant expertise in molecular diagnostics and molecular microbiology. Specifically, his work focused on developing rapid and novel detection assays for a range of clinically relevant pathogens, and also elucidating their virulence mechanisms. Jim subsequently transferred the mycobacterial side of this work to CIT where he has rapidly developed a significant research team focused on isolating, profiling and controlling mycobacterial pathogens.
• Roy D. Sleator graduated top of his class with a first class honours degree in Microbiology from UCC in 1997 before completing a PhD in 2001 at the National Food Biotechnology Centre, BioResearch Ireland. Following hi PhD, Roy completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Molecular Biology Department of the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada and in 2003 secured a prestigious Government of Ireland research fellowship to work with Prof. Fergus Shanahan at the Department of Medicine, UCC. In 2004 Roy was awarded the inaugural ESCMID-FEMS Research Fellowship recognising the top young European in the fields of clinical microbiology and infectious diseases and in 2006 won the Oxoid W.H. Pierce Memorial Prize – the Society for Applied Microbiology’s most prestigious award honouring the top young International Microbiologist of the Year. In 2007 Roy was appointed as a Principal Investigator at the APC at UCC and has recently taken up a full time lectureship at the Department of Biological Sciences, CIT. In 2009 Roy became the founding Editor-in Chief of the scientific journal Bioengineered Bugs.
• Ambrose Furey is a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, CIT, Manager of the PROTEOBIO research group, Director of the Team Elucidate research group and a research supervisor of Master (4) /PhD (7) students in the area of Analytical Chemistry (AC), Food Testing, Environmental Testing, Natural Product Chemistry (NPC), Protein Chemistry, Water Quality, Method Development and Validation. Graduating from CIT with a 1st class BSc degree in AC with QA in 1995 and a PhD in AC and NPC in 1999, Ambrose was the first PhD graduate to receive a HEA post-doctoral fellowship in the IOT sector in 1999 specialising in the structural elucidation of a new Marine Toxin syndrome known as Azaspiracid Poisoning. Ambrose is highly experienced in mass spectrometric (MS) and is an expert in the isolation of biotoxins, bioactive compounds, proteins and chemical residues. Ambrose has secured funding to the value of €1.5 million from National and EU funding agencies since 2002.
• Eamonn O’Neill has a BSc and PhD in Physics from the National University of Ireland, Cork. After a number of industrial roles with Intel and Alcon Laboratories he began his current post in July 2008 as Manager of the Centre for Advanced Photonics & Process Analysis (CAPPA) at the Cork Institute of Technology where he directs and leads a team of researchers working at the academic-industrial interface. His doctoral research, in the field of photonics, focused on large aperture semiconductor lasers. Post-doctorate Eamonn worked in the semiconductor and medical device industries both in Ireland and the US. This has involved various process engineering roles in high-volume manufacturing sites as well as development facilities. Apart from his background in photonic device development Eamonn brings a broad range of experience of highly regulated industries to his current role including areas such as process development and transfer, factory start-up and ramp, process and equipment validation and new product introduction.

• Pat O’Connor received a B.Eng in Industrial Engineering and Post Graduate Diploma in AMT from University of Limerick. Pat’s career experiences include Production Manager in Tubex (IRL); Technical / Production Supervisor in Sherwood Medical, New Product Engineer and Mechanical Supplier Quality Engineer in Dell Computers. He spent several years in Boston Scientific (Galway and Cork plants) in a number of positions including Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Senior Product Development Engineer, Project & Program Manager - managing the development and commercialisation of medical devices for a range of clinical applications including neuro-vascular, peripheral vascular and billiary stone retrieval. In addition to product development experience at Boston Scientific, Pat was part of the Cork factory start up team in 1998 working on product transfers from the US which transfer, set up, calibration and validation of a range of production lines. Pat also spent a number of years as Product Innovation Manager at Stryker Orthopaedics (managing the team at both the Cork and Limerick plants). He holds patents in the Design of introducer sheaths for peripheral vascular embolic coils – these products are currently being sold globally by Boston Scientific.
  
  Pat is currently the PI and Centre Manager for MEDIC (Medical Engineering Design and Innovation Centre) with overall responsibility for research through to commercialisation.

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