For a lively timely look at all matters tech and digital in Ireland and beyond, bookmark SiliconRepublic.com, founded a decade ago when the internet was only a PC-centric experience, Facebook didn’t exist and Google had only embarked on its commercial model. Contrast that bygone era (in digital terms) with today when one billion people are online and the next three billion people will be carrying mobile devices.

Ten years ago Silicone Republic’s goal was to become Ireland’s top tech news source. They got props for hitting that target starting in 2008 when the site won the first of four consecutive annual Realex Irish Web Awards as Ireland's leading technology website.

Award winning technology journalist John Kennedy is Silicon Republic’s editor (as well as editor of the weekly E-Thursday section in the Irish Independent). Kennedy occasionally steps in front of the camera to create original video content, for example this interview with the world’s youngest Mac app developer, 12-year-old Harry Moran of Cork: LINK.

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Laura O’Brien covers gadgets, new media and tech jobs news, while Carmel Doyle’s beats are green-tech, innovation, the smart grid, nanotech, university spin-outs, technology transfer and space exploration.

Doyle’s recent space exploration piece drew my eyeballs to the site with news that the US Embassy in Dublin will be sending one teacher, and two students between the ages of 13 and 17, from Ireland to the Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. I also read a report on Dr. Dónal O'Gorman at Dublin City University (DCU) and Dr. Brian Caulfield at University College Dublin (UCD) who are under contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to identify ways to keep astronauts fit and healthy in space.

The editorial staff rounds out with Tina Contanza, a Canadian émigré who serves as production editor, and social media saineolai Adam Renardson, Head of Online & New Media.

Front page headlines are dominated by news on such dominant digital names as Apple, Samsung, Facebook, HTC, Nokia, Twitter, IBM. In advance of “Dublin, European City of Science 2012”, Siliconrepublic.com is reporting on a wide range of Irish science, research and innovation.


I’m sure the “careers centre” tab gets a lot of clicks and there’s an I.T. jobs board listing about 100 openings.

Silicon Ireland’s sister site, Digital 21 is an online campaign to stress the importance of Ireland’s digital economy and promotes “THE DIGITAL IMPERATIVE,” an initiative built on the premise that quality broadband coverage should be a national priority in these tough times.

This Nov. 1, about ten years to the day after its journalists first met to discuss the Silicon Republic start-up, Silicon Republic announced it had secured a significant investment from international venture capital firm SOSventures, founded by Sean O’Sullivan, the Irish American behind Kinsale-based tech start-up Avego and whose previous investments include Harmonix, which created Guitar Hero, innovative Irish-based newsite Storyful and Netfilx. The investment will see Silicon Republic spin out as a new company, Silicon Republic Knowledge and Events Management Ltd, with Siliconrepublic.com at its heart. The move is designed to create an Irish-based international brand.

And that sounds like a good thing. Congrats!
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MEDIA PINGS: Congrats also to Tourism Ireland, for taking the “Best Use of Social Media” in the recent Travolution Awards in London beating Virgin Atlantic, Cunard and Radisson Edwardian Hotels to cop the top prize with a Twitter-driven campaign dubbed “My Irish 140” which connected everyone with Irish blood, or who felt connected to Ireland, to Tweet about it. An article in Technorati stated “Public Relations researcher, Carol Geraghty reports that since the beginning of 2010 Tourism Ireland has grown its Facebook fan base from 75 fans to more than a half million. This makes Ireland the third most popular tourist board in the world on Facebook, after Great Britain and perennial favorite, Australia.”...The Irish American Writers and Artists’ upcoming NYC Salons will be on Tues., Dec. 6 at the Thalia Cafe, Symphony Space on 95th Street, just off Broadway, and at The Cell on Tues., Dec. 20. The Cell is located at 338 W. 23rd Street.