Hard to believe it’s been six months since Portershed opened — it is as if it has been there forever as it has delivered so much innovation and motivation to its users. It is home to some great motivational speakers.This week Portershed was thrilled to welcome back Professor Bob Rosenberg for an eagerly anticipated discussion on money — your fantasies and fears, what it’s worth, where it comes from, and why a pound of flesh can look like a bargain.
Professor Rosenberg is the director of entrepreneurship programs in the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (consistently ranked among the top five business schools in the world ), and is an adjunct associate professor of entrepreneurship there.
He works at the intersection of entrepreneurship and marketing communications. Robert’s skills include branding, fundraising, business development, licensing and merchandising, human resources and strategic planning/implementation.
He is a resource and mentor, as well as clinical faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Robert has supported startups in a variety of capacities, from business plan development to investing.
Among these are Advanced Diamond Technologies, Brilliant.org, CareMerge, Chromatin, Congressional Pharmaceuticals, Maroon Pharmaceuticals, NephRx, SloWave, Sonarmed, Spin Networks, Tolerance Therapeutics, and Xcyte Therapies.
He currently serves on several boards, including the Illinois Technology Development Fund, Manufacturing Renaissance, and the Midwest Research University Network. Robert is also faculty liaison to Hyde ParkAngels (the largest and most active angel group in the Midwest ), and is co-chair of HPA’s Healthcare Ambassador Circle.
Tonight (Thursday 24 ) in another event, the guest speaker at a Portershed event will be Jerry Kennelly, founder and CEO of Tweak.com He previously founded Stockbyte and Stockdisc, two companies based in Tralee that captured 10% of the global royalty-free stock photography market in ten years.
In April 2006, both companies were sold to Getty Images (formerly GYI ) for a consideration of $135 million. Kennelly’s companies produced the highest pro-rata profit and profitability per employee in this worldwide industry. Kennelly, who started business as a freelance photojournalist in 1981, has been honoured by the Deloitte Fast 50 Awards and was selected as the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005.
Stockbyte is also a former winner of the DHL Exporter of the Year Award. Kennelly has spearheaded the Young Entrepreneur Programme since the concept was first mooted in 2006 and has collaborated with the poverty relief agency GOAL and the Press Photographers Association of Ireland in documenting their work abroad and using those creative images to spread their messages through the media, exhibitions and calendars.
It has been six months since Portershed opened its doors and found a home in the centre of Galway City. What was a neglected, unused building in the heart of the city is now a vibrant coworking and collaborative space for ICT companies. Portershed has embraced with enthusiasm the passion and many facets of innovation that Galway has to offer making it hard to believe that it was ever missing from Galway’s startup ecosystem.
Lots has been achieved since Portershed opened its doors on May 9th, It has hosted over 50 events, from the launch celebrations with over 200 people, to more recently 400 children visited PorterShed to take part in ‘Robot Wars’ as part of the Baboro Festival for Children. It has been a rollercoaster of networking and collaboration. In addition to formal events, PorterShed is also home for many Tech meetups including Women in Tech, Google Developers and GameJam. Portershed has also hosted community events including, Music for Galway and the JACK Quartet from New York. Described as the “superheroes of the new music world” by the Boston Globe, the quartet played to a packed event space which was an ideal setting to experience the ensemble’s work.
One of the highlights of the past six months has to be the IBM Watson IoT Hackathon which took place over 48 hours and was the home to over 100 developers creating solutions using IBM Watson and VT networks solutions. It was an intense weekend culminating in the presentation of projects with the ultimate winner being ‘UBER for Oil’. The Hackathon which attracted attendees from around the country and internationally is expected to run again in early 2017.
There are currently 56 members and 18 member companies based in Portershed, with additional members expected in the coming weeks with the roll out of the recently launched PorterShed membership plans and Hot desk offering. To find out more about any of the offerings email [email protected].
For more information on how to attend Portershed events, and for full listings visit portershed.com
