Highlights from November 18th and announcement of IBM Global Entrpreneur of the year in Dublin : Streetline
Ever try to finding parking in, say, downtown San Francisco? How about Manhattan? Tokyo? Good luck. But thanks to SF-based startup Streetline, your luck just might improve. The company makes sensors for emerging “smart” systems designed to improve a city’s parking and traffic. For helping with such a practical, and desperate, need, the company has been named IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year. — Investors Business Daily
The announcement of the winner was the culmination of the IBMSmartCamp — a global initiative to seek out start-ups that match IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. IBM deserves credit for the way it has managed the whole initiative. It is easy to look at a 99-year old tech company and think there is no way it can possibly get it, but the company showed genuine humility. What could easily have just been an enormous sales pitch for IBM was actually a lesson in how to take a back seat and simply act as the facilitator. — Wall Street Journal
For IBM, the smartcamp competition isn’t just a marketing exercise. 35 percent of IBM’s $100+ billion in revenue is driven by partners including startups. Irish social security software company Cúram Software, for example, has alone driven 1 billion EU in sales for IBM over the course of their partnership….Most of the competing startups had deep domain knowledge in areas like healthcare, forestry, water treatment and seismic measurement as well as technical expertise. This fits well into IBM’s focus on vertical markets. — Reuters
An Taoiseach Brian Cowen, TD, praised the competition, saying it was his intention to make Ireland a global hub for innovation. “This IBM SmartCamp competition shows that despite the recent global economic difficulties, there are ambitious, dynamic entrepreneurs with new ideas all over the world, developing products and services and creating jobs. — Prime Minister of Ireland quoted in Silicon Republic
Coverage:
Winning Technology Locates Parking Spaces Across Cities (Wall Street Journal)->
IBM: Parking spot tracker Streetline is the world’s smartest startup (Reuters)->
Parking-Finder Startup Wins, As It Should, Entrepreneur of Year (Investor.com)->
Wall Street Journal-November 16th 2010
SmartCamp Final Opens in Dublin
IBM’s Global SmartCamp 2010 final opens today in Dublin, culminating in the announcement of the Global Entrepreneur of the Year award on Thursday (which Tech Europe will be covering).
Heats were held in North America, Europe and Israel. Six of the nine regional finalists were from outside the U.S.Full story->
November 11th – Press Release announcing IBM SmartCamp Finals:
Top Entrepreneurs Vie to Become IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year
Companies in Smarter Healthcare, Energy, Water and Transportation Head to IBM SmartCamp World Finals in Dublin
Nine technology startups from around the globe are set to travel to Dublin, Ireland next week to compete in the IBM (NYSE: IBM) SmartCamp World Finals from November 16-18, 2010. The winner will claim the title of IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year by successfully pitching their unique Smarter Planet business idea to a panel of industry experts.
Select portions of the three day SmartCamp World Finals event will be webcast live at www.livestream.com/ibmsoftware beginning at 10:00 a.m. GMT in Dublin on November 16.
IBM SmartCamps are one aspect of IBM’s Global Entrepreneur initiative designed to stimulate innovation and build skills for startups from around the world that are building new technologies to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues such as energy efficiency, the environment, and personalized healthcare. SmartCamp winners receive mentoring, access to industry experts and technology, and deeper partnership opportunities from IBM, venture capital firms and industry partners.
Other Coverage throughout the global event:
The I.B.M. program points to the company’s broader designs. To really succeed, the Smarter Planet campaign has to go beyond being a deft marketing concept. It must also be the foundation for I.B.M.’s future growth, and the company’s $24 billion-a-year software business is vital to that strategy. — New York Times
Key obstacles faced by startups, said Promod Haque, managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners, are controlling costs, getting the right technology tools, gaining access to customers, and developing business plans. “The I.B.M. program addresses all those issues,” Mr. Haque noted. – New York Times
While many companies make their technologies readily available to entrepreneurs, only IBM also has the relationships with large clients and the skills of its business, technical, and marketing leaders. — Venture Beat
Claudia Fan Munce of IBM Venture Capital Group says, “Our vision of a smarter planet is really a collaborative vision. It’s about collaborating with all aspects of the ecosystem: with academia, with government, and more importantly, with the real innovators.” — Read Write Web
Free access to IBM software through a cloud-computing environment is perhaps the biggest benefit of the program. Startups will be able to work with the IBM software, including the company’s industry frameworks targeted toward specific vertical markets, to help develop their own applications. — CRN
“Our goal is to expose our startups to IBM early on in their existence and to partner with IBM so that they can benefit from the IBM reach and credibility in the marketplace,” Haque (Norwest Venture Partners) says. — Bloomberg
Mr. Corgel pointed to young companies that have been working with I.B.M. technology to develop such applications, like TaKaDu, an Israeli startup that makes software to curb water leakage and loss by utilities, and TreeMetrics, an Irish startup whose software helps lumber companies optimized tree-harvesting. — New York Times
