Press Clipping

Sunday Business Post - ByteSurgery developer wins €10,000 iQ prize

Tuesday, 14th July 2009

Transcript

Source: Sunday Business Post

Software developer Robin Blandford has won the inaugural iQ prize for new internet based businesses. Blandford is the founder of digital media firm ByteSurgery and received the award for the company’s main product, a software application targeted at emergency services named Decisions for Heroes.

Decisions for Heroes identifies a common set of problems found in emergency services and captures information on all rescue operations and training exercises.

This enables it to automatically perform analysis on the data and draw up charts on reports of strengths and weaknesses displayed during the operation.

Blandford said he plans to use the €10,000 prize money to travel to the US and begin official trials with emergency services over there.

He also plans to hire a new operations expert for the company, which will focus on issues such as data security, scalability and availability.

The prize was sponsored by Dublin-based web firm iQ Content, which devised it as a means of helping foster new business ideas during the recession.

Out of almost 250 entrants, a shortlist of eight was selected. These then had to go through a Dragons’ Den-style presentation before the winner was announced. The runner-up award of €1,000 went to Plink, a developer of image-based search software.

Plink’s product allows someone to take a photo of an object with their mobile phone and instantly get more information on it.

For example, the cover of a book could yield reviews and prices, while a CD cover could direct the user to hear the song on iTunes. Even photos of paintings could direct a user to a Wikipedia article about the painter.

The system is designed to work without barcodes or any other markers and is instead powered by a database of millions of images of different items.

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