Waterford Gift Voucher scheme to build local business

 











Delighted to see the B2B Communications' designed Waterford Gift Vouchers hitting the streets of Waterford.
The scheme was launched by Waterford Chamber and Waterford City Centre Business Group (WCCBG) and supported by Waterford City Council.
 
The vouchers, in denominations of €10, €25 and €50 are available from Waterford Chamber Offices in George's Street and a  list of participating businesses can be found on www.waterfordchamber.ie and www.waterfordcitycentre.ie.

Waterford’s Kite Design Studio celebrates two enterprising years!

The Kite Design Studio, a pilot project spearheaded by Waterford City Council and Waterford City Enterprise Board is, this month, celebrating two enterprising years in business in the heart of Waterford’s Viking Triangle.

Situated in a state of the art facility in Henrietta Street this unique design collective houses some of Waterford’s most talented designers and artists including glass blowers, crystal engraver, a goldsmith and several start up design enterprises.

The project initiated by Waterford City Manager, Michael Walsh and former Chief Executive of Waterford City Enterprise Board Bill Rafter, back in 2009, took almost two years to complete and was formulated to develop the Viking Triangle as a key tourism area in the city and to showcase Waterford’s long crystal making tradition.

Today the Kite Design Studio is home to a host of craft and design micro enterprises including Sean Egan Artglass.  Sean Egan, a Master Engraver with over 40 years experience, has built up a global reputation as a talented and creative craftsman, whose work has been presented to celebrities and presidents.

 In the world of show biz, Sean was commissioned to create a piece honouring the Monty Python member Graham Chapman who died in 1989.  In addition to this, one of the most renowned crystal pieces remembering those who perished on September, 11^th, 2001 was crafted by Sean and presented to then US Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney.

In 2013, Sean had the great honour of designing and crafting the stunning crystal piece, entitled the “Gathering Bowl”, which was presented to US President Barack Obama by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD following the traditional St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Sharing floor space with Sean is The Irish Handmade Glass Company, which rose from the ashes of the closure of the Waterford Crystal plant in 2009.  The founders Danny Murphy, Tony Hayes, Derek Smith and Richard Rowe established the company in order to preserve Waterford’s proud glassmaking tradition and have almost 150 years cumulative experience in glass blowing and cutting.

Producing 100% mouth blown and hand cut coloured crystal the Irish Handmade Glass Company has quickly become one of Ireland’s leading crystal manufacturers.

One of the newest tenants at the Kite Design Studio is Button and Co.  The company, established by Waterford goldsmith Elaine Sarah Comerford, creates unique and innovative jewellery collections.

No stranger to accolades, in 2009, Elaine Sarah was a contestant on RTE’s Dragons’ Den and was backed by then Dragon, Niall O’ Farrell.  She was on the judge’s panel for the Young Entrepreneur Awards in Kerry, guest speaker at Dublin’s Rotary Club as part of their International Women’s Day Celebrations and Button and Co. has won several industry awards including Best Product and Editor’s Choice at the London International Jewellery Show.

Most recently Waterford City Enterprise Board and Waterford Adult Education Centre (WAEC) launched “First Flight”, an enterprise programme which assists small craft start-ups.  First Flight is working with a group of craft and fashion design students, providing them with workspace, mentoring assistance and practical business advice. 

The three businesses currently undertaking the First Flight Programme are Andrew Phelan of Crea Jewellery Design, Lucia Domoradova of Lutsia Fashions and Lenka Jindrichova of Blossom Jewellery Design.

According to Mr. Ciaran Cullen, CEO, Waterford City Enterprise Board, the Kite Design Studio project has had two great years assisting start – up craft enterprises.  “The premise of the Kite Design Studio is simply to encourage, harness, and showcase the high calibre of creative talent in Waterford.”

“We are delighted that the businesses within the Kite Studio have flourished and as we see them more and more in an international platform it acts as a reminder of the phenomenal artistic talent in Waterford.”

“Over the last two years some of the start-ups which were housed at the Studio have moved on to bigger premises.  We are delighted to have worked from the outset with such talent on their path to success; Bonzie Crotty, a vintage inspired designer, Stradbally Jewellery, which produces quality handmade silver jewellery and fine art printer Anne McDonnell Murphy.”
 From jewellery makers to glass engravers and silversmiths to fashion designers, the Kite Design Studio is an enviable and ambitious design centre that showcases the imagination and talent that Waterford proudly possesses.

The design studio is open to the public six days a week and visitors have the unique opportunity to experience in-house designers working on their

designs in situ.

For more information about the Kite Design Studio call along to the Henrietta Street premises, call 051 858914, or check out Kite Design Studio on Facebook.

13 year old Waterford student to address world’s largest entrepreneur conference

What do LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon and Waterford’s Casey Games have in common? They will all be speaking at the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs in the U.S. on May 17^th and18th.

Jordan Casey is the 13 year old Waterford student who rose to fame last year as the youngest person in Europe to develop an app for sale on the Apple App Store.

Following a year of worldwide seminars, conferences, innovation awards and four further successful game launches Jordan has been invited to speak at the prestigious 20^th Annual TiEcon conference, to be held in Santa Clara, California. Jordan is the youngest entrepreneur ever to speak at the Conference and will address the 4,000 delegates on the topic, “Things I learned the hard way as a young CEO.”

TiE is a global not for profit organisation focused on fostering and enabling entrepreneurship through mentoring, education and networking and is the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs. The main speakers include Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn; Sajai Krishnan, GM of Amazon Web Services; Satya Nadella, President of Server & Tools Business at Microsoft, while other speakers are from Net flicks, Pay Pal, IBM, Intel, ESPN, Facebook, Twitter and Ericsson.

Since the age of 9 Jordan has been putting content on the web. In January 2012 he released the app, ‘Alien Ball vs. Humans’, described by Apple executives as a version of the classic ‘Space Invaders’ and was the first step on the ladder for this talented young developer.

In October 2012 he released a game called “Save the Day”; it was the official game for National Children’s day in Brazil. His first ‘complex’ game was called Greenboy Touch and was released in November 2012. It is based on a boy who finds himself lost in a forest. In early January this year he launched a multiplayer game called ‘Food World’ while in March he started working on his next game, ‘My Little World’ an adventure game about a tiny creature named JC who lives in a back garden and wants to see the real world. He is aiming for a June release.

Jordan is constantly in demand as a conference speaker, over the past few months he has spoken in Germany, England, France and India. He is just back from Amsterdam where he was invited to both the Festival of Games and the TNW Europe conference, labelled Europe’s most influential tech event. And while in California he has been invited to visit Adobe headquarters in San Jose.

At first Jordan’s parents, Clyde and Louise did not recognise the talent they had under their roof, “We are very of proud Jordan considering he taught himself how to code and write the programmes. He has worked so hard on this, but also gets lots of support. For instance Waterford City Council, Enterprise Ireland and Waterford City Enterprise Board are all supporting our trip to the States. We really could not have gone without their help,” said Clyde Casey.

So, what’s next for Jordan? As well as more games to be developed and launched, another aspect of the company is to encourage young kids to code. Jordan explained, “I’m just one of many young programmers in Waterford, I believe that if kids think ‘Coding is Cool’ they may develop an interest in increasing their own programming skills. Kids from seven years of age can learn some coding and programming themselves because of the technology available, however, coding and programming are not being taught as a subject in schools. I would like to make kids aware of coding and promote it.”

For more details on Casey Games follow Jordan’s blog on www.caseygameswebsite.blogspot.ie

Mr. Binman cleans up Waterford’s Harvest Festival

As Festival sponsor, Mr. Binman supplied the food, recycling and general waste disposal for the Waterford Harvest Festival outdoor events, including the Big Street Barbeque, Picnic in the Park, GIY Street Feast and the Amazing Grazing event on the South Quays.

Gary O’Keeffe, Mr. Binman Commercial Manager, said of the sponsorship “This is a wonderful opportunity for a company like Mr. Binman to partner with one of Ireland’s largest artisan natural food festivals.”

“Waterford Harvest Festival aims to educate people in the appreciation of good, clean, fair food. Similarly, Mr. Binman is encouraging people to make small changes in their attitudes towards recycling and to act more responsibly towards the environment.”

Mr Binman is constantly striving to increase the amount of waste recycled. The more material that is recycled, the less waste going to landfill which is better for this and future generations.

Mr. O’ Keeffe added, “The challenge for us all is to make small modifications in our day to day practises. Small but significant steps such as reducing, reusing and recycling our waste can make a big difference.”

Mr Binman is a family run waste and recycling company that employs over 150 people in the South East region. For further information and details about Mr. Binman log onto www.mrbinman.com or call 051 643144.

Pictured at the launch of the 2011 Waterford Harvest Festival were Michael Garland (Waterford Chamber of Commerce), Gary O’ Keeffe (Mr. Binman), Mayor of Waterford, Cllr. Pat Hayes and Lynn Cahill (Waterford City Council).