Press Release
HEROIC WEB BUSINESS WINS €10,000 IQ PRIZE
Thursday, 9th July 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Robin Blandford's Decisions for Heroes (decisionsforheroes.com) announced as winner of iQ Content's €10,000 internet startup competition, the iQ Prize.
DUBLIN, IRELAND (Thursday 9th July 2009) - Out of a total of 249 entrants, 8 ambitious start-ups 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.
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".
Not all of the seven runners-up left empty-handed, with image-driven search engine Plink receiving the €1,000 People’s Choice Prize and an honourable mention from the judging panel. Plink, described as “game-changing technology” by Facebook’s EMEA Head of Online Operations and iQ Prize judge, Colm Long, is an image-driven search engine. Plink makes it possible to take a photo of a book cover on your phone and instantly receive a review of it, price comparisons from the web, or information about the author from Wikipedia.
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."
-ENDS-
Download Hi-res photos and further information:
Please visit our press kit to download images, factsheets, and hear pre-recorded audio interviews.
http://www.decisionsforheroes.com/press
About the iQ Prize
In March, Dublin internet consultancy iQ Content decided to take action to get the "smart economy" ball rolling. The company launched the iQ Prize (http://www.iqprize.ie) - a no-strings-attached grand prize of 10,000 euro for the best business plan from an Irish internet start-up. The idea caught the imagination of the online community and budding entrepreneurs - with 249 entries received in advance of the May 12 deadline. A six-strong judging panel consisting of internet heavyweights from Google, Facebook, and Microsoft plus local heroes from Daft, Statcounter and LouderVoice whittled this down to a shortlist of 8 entries which was announced in June. http://iqprize.ie.
About Decisions For Heroes (ByteSurgery Ltd):
Dublin based ByteSurgery Ltd. has contagious enthusiasm to plan, design, and implement really exciting digital media. They have been acknowledged and awarded as a 2008 European Seedcamp finalist; 2008 Irish Web Awards finalist for 'Most Innovative', 'Best Web App', 'Best Technical'; and 2008 winner of Best Irish 'Technology Blog'.
For interview, please contact Robin Blandford robin@bytesurgery.com, mob: +353 (0)86 328 7563 or Morgan McKeagney, morgan@iqcontent.com, mob: +353 (0)87 629 3450
Further information
For photos, video, audio, and background information, check out our electronic press kit.