BizCamp

At 2pm for an hour on Saturday we will be hosting a panel discussion in the main networking area on the Second Floor of Guinness Storehouse.

Theme: Taking the Rough with the Smooth - entrepreneurs talking about the challenging times they have been through, the impact on them personally as well as the business and to end - how they got through it to make a success of things.

Format: Off the cuff for 8-10 minutes each, no powerpoint - just passion . Followed by Q&A

Panelists & Moderator (biogs at end):

• Kevin Traynor, Sonic Academy
• Colm Lyon, Realex Payments
• Jerry Kennelly, Founder & former CEO of Stockbyte, Endeavor
• Asheesh Dewan, Jaipur
• Martin Kelleher, Mason, Hayes+Curran: Moderator

I am looking forward to it - I have seen Kevin and Colm talk before and they do bring a love of what they do to the table. Jerry and Asheesh will be new to me.

keith

Biogs:

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Kevin Traynor is the founder of Sonic Academy which he set up in Belfast in 2004 as a training facility for DJs and music technology enthusiasts, which has since become the premier facility of its kind in Ireland. A former drummer with one of Ireland’s most successful bands The Divine Comedy, it wasn’t long before he dumped the drums in favour of decks and began DJing and promoting club nights between London and Belfast. Since then he has notched up appearances in Holland, France, Italy and Australia and played alongside some of the worlds’ best DJs from James Zabiela to Adam Freeland and DJ Dexter to Tiefschwarz.
Kevin was awarded the Prince’s Trust Young Achiever of the Year Award in 2005 for his work in setting up Sonic Academy. He also sits on the board of Disability Action Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Employers Group of Creative & Cultural Skills (the Sector Skills Council for the Creative and Cultural Industries).
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Colm Lyon is Founder and Managing Director of Realex Payments. He is highly regarded as one of the foremost innovation leaders in the online payment processing business. His career has spanned almost twenty five years in payment related businesses, starting with fourteen years in the financial service sector.
He founded Realex Payments in 2000 and since then the business has grown rapidly to a position of inspired leadership in the online payment processing business. The payment exchange concept, which he conceived has provento be the market winning approach in that it offers a strategic solution which addresses the core issues. Today Realex Payments process in excess of €6bn for 3,000 businesses.

Colm is a regular industry speaker. In 2005 he was acclaimed and rewarded for his leadership when he was a finalist of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. As an industry figure he was Director and Chairman of the Irish Internet Association for over four years - during which time the association significantly enhanced its position. He was invited (2008) by Enterprise Ireland to participate in the Steering Group to devise the strategy for the Irish Software Sector. He is a graduate of University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Management Science Degree.
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Jerry Kennelly (Founder & former CEO of Stockbyte and Stockdisc *- sold to Getty Images for over €110 Million). Jerry has been honoured by the Deloitte Fast 50 Awards and was named the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. Jerry has been instrumental in the launch and roll out of the very successful Young Entrepreneur Programme which is aimed at fostering an entrepreneurship culture among second and third level students.
He has been involved in the recent launch of Endeavour which is located at Shannon Development’s Kerry Technology Park in association with Institute of Technology. Endeavour is a national campaign to search find, grow and launch Ireland’s next generation of global entrepreneurs - featuring one-to-one by Ireland’s most successful entrepreneurs.
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Asheesh Dewan is the founder of Jaipur Indian restaurants, which employ over 100 people.  With six restaurants in his group in Ireland, the most recent one being Ananda in Dundrum shopping centre, Asheesh is also the proprietor of Benares in London, one of the first Indian restaurants in the UK to be awarded a Michelin star.   In March 2009, Asheesh was awarded the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Award and last year was named Permanent TSB Ethnic Entrepreneur of the Year 2008.  He is also a co-founder of Segala, an IT company which specialises in web accessibility and mobile web standards compliance certification.

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Martin Kelleher is a partner in the corporate group and head of life sciences. He previously worked for eight years with Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE:ELN), a global biotechnology company.

From 1996 to 2001, Martin worked as an in-house counsel for Elan in Ireland and advised on the commercial aspects of Elan’s global business. In 2002, Martin transferred to New York and played an important role in Elan’s successful restructuring. During this period, Martin passed the New York Bar exam. He returned to Ireland in late 2003.

Martin has significant international transactional experience. He also has particular experience in advising early stage companies on funding corporate matters. Martin has an MBA from Cranfield University, School of Management and was a recipient of the J.P. O’Reilly Scholarship from the Law Society of Ireland.

RTE coverage of the last Dublin Bizcamp back in March.

Register here for the next Dublin Bizcamp on September 19th ‘09.

I made this to give a quick flavour of what bizcamp is all about and what you might expect on the day.

keith