Today we have some fantastic news to share with you. We won the €10,000 iQ Prize judged by Facebook’s EMEA Head of Online Operations, Google UK and Ireland's Online Sales & Operations manager, the CEO of Ireland’s largest online media group, a Golden Spider Internet Hero and the 2007 Businessweek Young European Entrepreneur of the Year, Microsofts Internet Evangelist, and an Irish start-up community lead.

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Thanks all,

-Robin.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DUBLIN, IRELAND - Out of a total of 249 entrants, 8 ambitious companies were shortlisted and took part in Dragon’s Den style presentations to the panel of 5 judges. After their gruelling presentations, the 8 shortlisted candidates had to do it all again and present their elevator pitches to 200 people in the audience at the iQ Prize award night in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin.

Founded by young Irish entrepreneur Robin Blandford, iQ Prize winner, Decisions For Heroes helps rescue teams 'save more lives'. Identifying a common set of problems found in emergency services, the software was created to capture the information surrounding their rescue operations and training exercises. The system automatically performs analytical charting, draws heatmaps, and benchmarks reports to outline areas of strength, weakness, and expertise.

"The iQ Prize is a fantastic community driven opportunity for an Irish Start-up" said Blandford, speaking at the awards ceremony. Asked how he was going to spend the prize money, "I intend to use the prize fund to travel to the United States to launch trials with their emergency services". Once back home in Dublin, Blandford will "grow the company by taking on an operations expert to focus on data security and scalability".






iQ Content Managing Director Morgan McKeagney, who created the iQ Prize, was full of praise for the winner and shortlist, "I'm delighted for Robin, he's a worthy winner and a great model for young Irish entrepreneurs. His story, and the phenomenonal response to the iQ Prize, shows that Ireland is a hotbed of entreprenuerial talent. Given the right support, we believe that many of these young entrepreneurs can go on to create world-class technology companies."

McKeagney reaffirmed the quality of the entries and urged others to repeat the initiative of the iQ Prize, "If organisations like Enterprise Ireland matched the €10,000 we gave to each of our shortlist, it would be the best investment they could make."