Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD, will give the opening address at Silicon Republic’s inaugural Cloud Capital Forum this morning in the Convention Centre in Dublin.
The Minister will open proceedings at this year’s Cloud Capital Forum where keynote speakers include Simon Wardley of the Leading Edge Forum. Voted as one of the UK’s Top 50 Most Influential People in IT in ComputerWeekly‘s 2011 poll, Wardley’s research focuses on the intersection of IT strategy and new technologies. He is also a regular presenter at conferences worldwide, like OSCON and the Cloud Computing World Forum. The Next Web cites Simon in its 25 Most Influential People Tweeting About Cloud Computing.
Back in April of this year, Minister Bruton announced details of a €1.2million initial research programme in the Cloud Computing Technology Research Centre, aimed at helping to make Ireland a world leader in this fast-growing area, and Cloud computing is a key target sector identified in the Action Plan for Jobs.
"A key part of this Government’s plan for growth and jobs is identifying areas where we believe Ireland has distinct advantages compared to other countries, and taking steps necessary to ensure that we realise our potential in those areas. Cloud computing is one such sector," said Minister Bruton at the time.
"The Government believes that between our climate, skills base, telecoms connectivity and existing strengths in ICT, we have the potential to reap substantial benefits in terms of jobs and growth from the global expansion of this sector. I am delighted to be contributing to this Forum where industry leaders will discuss just such expansion."
The Minister’s opening and Simon Wardley’s keynote will be followed by a mediated panel discussion with some of Ireland’s leaders in the cloud sphere – Grace O’Rourke Veitch, Ireland country manager, Citrix Systems; Brian Larkin, group operations director, Hibernia Evros; Anthony O’Mara, head of Global Business Operations, Trend Micro; and Alan Brown, business director, O2 (Telefónica Ireland).
The forum will also focus on Ireland’s opportunity in the era of cloud computing, including a discussion on the sustainable cloud. Short keynotes from Ray Walshe, director of the Cloud Computing Research Centre (cloudCORE), DCU, and John Shaw, CIO at Mainstream Renewables, will be followed by a leaders panel that includes Martin Murphy, managing director, HP Ireland; Maurice Mortell, managing director, Ireland, TelecityGroup; and Rob Bath, director of engineering, Europe, Digital Realty.
The Twitter hashtag for the morning is #CloudCapital and video reports and highlights will be availble from Monday November 26 on the Cloud Capital Forum site.