Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan today (28/03/08) attended the one year anniversary of the successful enterprise development centre, Media Cube, based at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Dun Laoighaire.
The Minister paid tribute to IADT for being the first Institute of Technology in the country to have an enterprise development facility that focuses on a single sector, the digital media sector, which the Minister’s department is heavily involved in.
Media Cube, like many other enterprise development centres in the Dublin area is full to capacity with new start up companies. What makes the campus based incubation centres different from privately run facilities is that rents are usually incentivised and a wide range of supports are in place to assist companies to achieve success at an early stage in their development.
The issue currently facing many such centres is that they do not have any remaining space to accommodate new entrepreneurs. According to Media Cube Manager, Martin Hogan, “this is particularly the case in the in the digital media sector where there is currently no additional dedicated space available for new Irish companies anywhere in the country.”
The digital media area relies heavily on the creation of high quality content, including film, web-based and animation, and on innovation in the infrastructure technology needed to carry this content. As such new companies in this field benefit greatly from being centred in tailor made facilitates that promote innovation and creativity in this new area.
Digital media forms an important part of the strategy for growth under the technology section of the National Development Plan. Enterprise Ireland announced at the end of February that it was making a fund of between 15 and 20 million euro available to the third level sector to increase the level of enterprise development space available for start up businesses on their campuses. According to Hogan, “such space has been key to the growth of new businesses in Ireland in recent years. A third of the companies that Enterprise Ireland regards as high potential start-up businesses originated in campus based enterprise development facilities.”
Minister Ryan announced today that IADT would be submitting a proposal to Enterprise Ireland under this scheme for a further business development facility specifically to focus on the digital media sector. “This is an indication of the importance of the digital media sector to the Irish economy,” added the Mr. Ryan.
Currently Media Cube has 21 businesses located in its facility employing over 70 people and ranging from film production and animation companies to online marketing orgnaisations. “I am confident that we have several highly successful businesses of the future among the companies now based in Media Cube” asserted Mr. Hogan.
IADT specialises in digital media and content creation and has a well regarded business school. This provides a strong pool of talent for the companies in the Cube and within the last year over 20 recent graduates from IADT have been hired. According to Hogan, “the advantages for new business of locating there businesses on new modern industry focussed campuses provides significant rewards in terms expertise, joint research initiatives and access to a wealth of knowledge.”
Ends.
