“Creating opportunity in a downturn – Innovate or Die!” will be the theme of next week’s meeting of the Mayo Open Coffee Club, and the key speaker will be a Mayo man who has carved out a business niche in outer space.
Rory Casey is one of the founders and managing director of Fibrepulse, a Castlebar-based company involved in manufacturing fibreoptic cables for, among other things, satellites. He will speak at the Wednesday April 7 meeting of MOCC in GMIT’s Castlebar campus.
Apart from the novelty of Fibrepulse’s product, the company’s story is also one of hope for all businesses, as its latest phase of success came after the telecoms company reached a potentially disastrous crossroads in 2001.
The telecoms meltdown in 2001 hit Fibrepulse hard, but the turnaround came in December 2002 when Fibrepulse attended an Enterprise Ireland seminar focusing on opportunities in the space industry.
“We would not have even looked at the industry if it were not for the meltdown,” Mr Casey said. The move into outer space paid immediate dividends, and by 2004, Fibrepulse had signed a General Space Technology Programme contract with the European Space Agency that involved partners in several European countries.
MOCC is a business network run by businesspeople for businesspeople. The event is free of charge, and the aim is to let businesspeople make contacts, pitch their business, and get assistance on business issues and challenges.
All meetings start at 11am and last between one hour and 90 minutes. There will also be networking opportunities.
All you have to do is turn up on the day. More details on the Mayo Open Coffee Club are available on http://mayo-open-coffee-club.org, or you can email any of the organisers: Chris B Kerndter ([email protected] ), Robert Grealis ([email protected] ), Maria Staunton ([email protected] ), or Liam Horan ([email protected] ).
Start-up businesses, people with the germ of an idea, and established businesses all find the Open Coffee Club a useful vehicle to get in touch with what’s happening in the business world around Mayo.
