There is an exciting development for the small but vibrant business sector in Cork in Southern Ireland. The European Space Agency (ESA) is establishing a new center there to help support Irish companies start up particularly in the space sector. It will facilitate the provision of investment capital as well as providing practical guidance and support to companies. This will be provided primarily through the University College Cork, in particular through their Tyndall Institute.
Ireland has been particularly hard hit by the global recession and is extremely keen to encourage new companies particularly into more remote areas. Often technology companies can feel a bit isolated from the cutting edge silicon areas of Dublin, even just having an Irish IP address blocks access to many resources in the United Kingdom.
The Irish Government is hoping that the space sector could provide annual revenues of tens of millions of Euros in the next few years. It is a rapidly developing sector and having a presence of the ESA will be a huge boost to technology companies in the area. It is also hoped to attract new companies to the Cork area who wish to access research and support initiative set up by the ESA.
The agency hopes to encourage and develop new companies like ENBIO to start up. They are an Irish technology company who have developed a special thermal resistant coating used on the ESA Solar Orbiter satellite. Indeed the company even received backing for the research it undertook to develop the material.
The satellite will be launched in October 2018 and it’s mission is to explore the Sun in detail that has not been attempted before. The coating developed by ENBIO is designed to provide sufficient sun block on the surface to help protect it from solar radiation. The company has moved onto a new plateau thanks to this initial contract and the CEO, John O’Donoghue hopes that it’s success will help encourage other Irish start ups to follow the same route with the support of the ESA.
Additional:
Watching BBC iPlayer in Ireland – http://www.iplayerabroad.com/bbc-iplayer-ireland/
