New Facility!! Green Screen for Hire

Green Screen at Dungarvan Enterprise  Centre

We are delighted to announce that we have a new facility available at Dungarvan Enterprise Centre – we have a green screen and professional lighting available for hire. We will explain how it works, why you need a green screen, and we also will try to help you to find the best programme to edit your video with here in this article.

The green screen allows you to make video advertising for your business, which is proven to help with SEO, to engage customers better and to have high share value. With some very easy and simple techniques your promotional video can and will look like a professional video. What are you waiting for? Try it out today.

What is Keying?

Keying is the process of isolating a single colour or brightness value in an electronic image and using software to make that value transparent, allowing another image to show through the affected areas. Luminance keying, or luma keying, is the process of keying out a brightness value or range, like black or white. Luminance keys are often used for applying mattes. Colour keying, or chroma keying, identifies a specific colour to remove – hence the green screen.

Why Green?

Many people use the terms chroma keying and green screening interchangeably, but the principle that powers chrominance keying is not limited to the green parts of the spectrum. In the visual effects world of Hollywood, blue screens are far more common than green. In fact, you can key out any colour; red, yellow, purple or pink, blue and yes, green. So why is it that an ugly shade of green is the hue of choice for television and video? The biggest factor is contrast. In order to isolate one area from the rest, the background colour must be distinctly different. Bright green beats blue partially because it is not a colour commonly worn by people. Any clothing that matches the background too closely will also key out, punching a hole in your subject’s body, or making him invisible altogether. The likelihood of someone rocking up in green screen green is fairly low!!

Here is a short video that explains how a green screen works, it’s short and it simplifies the process. Click here to watch and learn how easy it is to work with a green screen.

What do I Need?

You can erect a simple chromakey setup almost anywhere with just a few basic tools. In order to shoot footage that will key cleanly, you will need a green background, a source of bright, even lighting, and a tripod to lock your camcorder in place.

You can find all these things at Dungarvan Enterprise Centre, so all you need is to find a video editor that works for you.

We can also recommend a few video editors that have great reviews, the decision about what you use is yours:

1.      The guy in our video uses Adobe Premiere The fastest and most efficient nonlinear video editor is now also the first to offer an intuitive, dedicated Lumetri Color panel for manipulating colour and light, plus a Morph Cut transition that lets you quickly create the most seamless talking-head scenes imaginable. The app also delivers dozens of features designed to help you make the switch from Final Cut or Avid, including common commands, panels, and keyboard shortcuts. There are few package you can choose, the cheapest one costs just €24.99 per month.

2.      Another program is Jahshaka  this application is completely free. Jahshaka is a program for editing, printing and an applicator of special effects. It uses the power of your processor to give you a real – time rendering. You can edit your videos quickly and with flexibility. Features include; Create real-time effects, animate with unlimited features, draw and tag on video playback, create background music with the tools used by the pros. Working with multiple formats on any resolution you can share your projects, your files, music with all internet users around the world.

3.      Movavi Video Editor  looks really nice and easy to use. Cut and join video clips with zero quality loss, apply stylish video effects and filters, add music, titles, and much more!!! Movavi’s video editing software is very easy to work with, it has a simple and user-friendly interface: take a pinch of imagination, mix it with some free time and some professional shots of your business/product, and you will have a Hollywood – like video with a lot less effort. Cost of this application is €35.87 but you can do a free trial before you pay

4.      Pinnacle Studio Plus  is considered one of the most powerful video editors by multimedia users, Pinnacle Studio Plus enables you to create videos, to organize, edit and enhance their quality and also share them with other people. Once imported you can edit your video and start to increase the quality of your video file simply and with ease. The cost is €89.75 for the full version of Pinnacle Studio Plus, there is also Pinnacle Studio 18.5 for €53.62 or Pinnacle Studio 18.5 Ultimate which is more expensive but has more professional features and costs €116.24. .

5.      Muvee Reveal  is a complete mounting software. It has features allowing you to split your video into several parts; it can also be merged with others, helping you to make video montages of your choice. This software also has features that allow you to customize the image being edited, such as adding captions and voiceover. Moreover, with a special system detecting facial movements, the videos can be perfectly synchronized with the rhythm of your chosen background music. You also have the ability to customize your creation. There is a library of pre-defined templates which include styles, animations and transitions. With Muvee Reveal, you can also export your finished works on Youtube, Facebook and other video sharing websites. This application costs €71.83 to buy

These are our top picks but there are lots of options for video editing, shop around and find the best for you.  

 

For more information please contact Dungarvan Enterprise Centre at (058) 23598 or dungarvanec@gmail.com .

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre Launches Business Needs Survey in Waterford & Dungarvan

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre

Launches Business Needs Survey in Waterford & Dungarvan

We are delighted to say that we are developing and lunching a ‘Voice of the Customer’ survey, which will help to establish the gaps in support for micro and start-up business, and determine what supports business really need in order to grow.

Why we are doing this?

We want to make sure we are providing supports and services that business need. And we want to improve our offering by filling any gaps in our services.

We are urging all involved in business in Waterford city and county to have their say in our survey, we are taking this exercise very seriously and will be taking action based on the feedback that we receive.

It is our intention to further develop our facilities and services around the needs of the business community, based on the findings of this survey. We want to hear about your issues, challenges and needs so that we can make the right decisions to support you.

You can take part in the lottery for €100 for respondents to the survey, which is a further incentive. Everybody who responds to our survey and leaves their contact details will be entered into a draw for €100 cash.

We have contracted RIKON to help develop the survey and will work closely with the leading research experts to deliver a robust and comprehensive piece of research that can offer genuine insights into the needs of the business community.

RIKON are Ireland’s leading service innovation centre located in WIT and is staffed by doctoral and post- doctoral researcher along with industry experts.

The survey is online and will take just 6 minutes to complete. 

For further information please contact Dungarvan Enterprise Centre at (058) 23598 or dungarvanec@gmail.com .

Lunch with Heather Reynolds of Eisthec

Join us For Lunch with Heather Reynolds of Eishtec

We are more than happy to introduce you to Heather Reynolds who is one of the owners of a new Irish company called Eishtec. Based in the South-East of Ireland, Eishtec is an outsourced contact centre providing tailored customer service solutions.

Heather is an exceptional  business woman but she is also a wife and mother of three children and she has decided to share with us her story of how she grew a business from 0 to 950 employees in just 3 years.

You will get  more interesting information and  advice  face to face at Dungarvan Enterprise Centre 27th May 2015 at 12 -2 pm.

Heather has over 20 years industry experience in the services sector across a number of Blue Chip organisations including AOL Inc, Dell UK and TalkTalk Group. Heather holds a Degree in Business Management and is a confident, decisive leader who is able to clearly develop, deliver and achieve superior results.

Heather is a motivated leader focused on creating high performance teams to drive innovation and best in class service. 

An ability to clearly develop, articulate and direct operational support Heather is a leader who transforms business practices through stakeholder engagement and working relationships. Experienced in contact centre management across Ireland, UK, India, and Holland,

Heather was awarded Irish Contact Centre Manager of the year 2007. Heather holds a Higher Diploma in Business & Professional Management.

We hope everyone who will attend the Dungarvan Enterprise Centre and take a lunch with Heather Reynolds will find the presentation informative and worthwhile.

The lunch with Heather Reynolds is in Dungarvan Enterprise Centre 27th May 2015 at 12-2pm  The cost is €15 per person,lunch included. 

To reserve your place call on (058)23598 or email dungarvanec@gmail.com

It's all about the money!

I was at a very interesting Dungarvan & West Waterford Chamber event this morning about the Funding available to enterprise in Ireland. There were speakers there from Enterprise Ireland, LEO, Waterford LEADER Partnership, Department of Social Protection, Glor na nGael and RIKON, all of whom have attractive funding and enterprise support services on offer.





The following is a summary of my key takeaways from this morning, along with links to the various agencies - there is help out there

Enterprise Ireland 

Enterprise Ireland supports high potential start-ups and existing businesses with propensity to trade internationally. They work mainly with manufacturing and internationally traded services, with the potential to create >10 jobs within a short timeframe. Grants include:

Competitive Start: Aimed at start-ups this grant is for €50,000 with the client raising €5000 themselves. The trade-off is 10% equity goes to Enterprise Ireland. The fund accommodates 15 businesses per call and is a highly competitive process.

New Frontiers: Aimed at individuals with innovative business ideas the programme is delivered over two phases. Phase 1 is a 6 week free training programme and phase 2 is an intensive fulltime development programme with a €15,000 stipend paid to participants

Get more information on the various Enterprise Ireland supports available here

LEO 

LEO supports micro business (<10 employees) from start-up through all stages of business. Their supports are broken into two measures; Measure 1 and Measure 2

Measure 1
Measure 1 supports are open to manufacturing (including craft, software & food) clients and can be used for innovation and capital projects.

Measure 2 
Measure 2 supports are broader and can be used by any micro enterprise. The following are some very attractive grants available:

• Trading Online Vouchers: 50% of up to €5,000 to be used for website development, e-commerce, web photography, online advertising and digital marketing 
• Marketing Assistance Grant: 50% of €800-€2,000 for marketing, can be used for trade fairs, marketing collateral, etc 
• Employment Grant: Between €8,000 to €15,000 for creating a job 

Get more information on the various LEO supports here


Department of Social Protection 

Employment Services through the Department of Social Protection incentivises the creation of jobs.

• There is a free recruitment website called www.jobsireland.ie where employers can advertise roles for free. 
• The Jobbridge scheme allows enterprises to take on an intern for a period of 6-9 months www.jobbridge.ie
• The Jobsplus scheme rewards employers for taking on someone from the live register with grants of up to €10,000 www.jobsplus.ie 
• If a small business owner is self-employed and encounters a serious drop in turnover, that person may be eligible for a Jobseekers payment www.welfare.ie 

Waterford LEADER Partnership 

Waterford LEADER Partnership support rural development and regeneration. Their next funding cycle will run from 2015-2020 but hasn't been finalised yet.

They are eager to hear from you so that you can start your application process prior to the release of funds - contact your local office here

Udaras na Gaeltachta 

• There is limited funding available for gno as Gaeilge 
• Signage: 50% of up to €6,000 
• Bilingual website or literature: 50% of up to €2,000 

More information here 

Glor na nGael 

Glor na nGael are a new support centre for those who wish to work through Irish and you can contact them here  

RIKON 

RIKON help to design sustainable business models. They have a raft of expertise in business, marketing, operations, lean manufacturing and other business related areas. There are 45 members of staff, each with specialist knowledge. RIKON administer the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of Enterprise Ireland - a fund worth up to €5,000 per voucher 

More information here 

Easter Coding Camp Offers Great Chance for Children to Learn Computer Skills

Easter Coding Camp Offers Great Chance for 

Children to Learn Computer Skills

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre in association with Local Enterprise Office will be running a Coding Camp for children aged between 8 and 14 from Tuesday 7^th April to Friday 10^th April 2015.

The Action Plan for Jobs 2015 emphasises the importance of computer literacy to the future. Jordan Casey is a fine example of the benefits of learning digital language from a young age. The 14 years old Waterford entrepreneur is the CEO of his own company, Casey Games-an award winning independent video game company. Click here and watch a short movie  about Jordan . 

The teenage tech prodigy’s company has had success developing apps for mobiles and the web such as Greenboy Touch, Alien Ball versus Humans, and Food World.

The Dungarvan Enterprise Centre's Coding Camp will be run in association with Calypso IT local based apps as well as developing skills in writing HTML, using quiz HTML, and coding CSS.

The week long camp will be delivered by the teacher and industry professional who also volunteers at Tramore Coder Dojo.

The camp is suitable and will be beneficial for children with an interest in computers, gaming and coding or children who have a keen interest to develop skills in these areas.

The camp will run from 10am to 1pm. The cost is €80 per child.

For further enquiries or to book now, call (058) 23598 or email dungarvanec@gmail.com. 

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre launches Help4Biz Infograph

Check out Dungarvan Enterprise Centre's “Help4Biz” Infographic! The cool, new tool is aimed at helping local businesses find local resources in a quick and easy manner!

With Help4Biz entrepreneurs will now be able to smoothly navigate the daunting landscape of trying to find what business assistance is available to them and where it is.

Basic needs available on the Infograph include: 

• Planning and Strategy
• Research and Product Development
• Sales and Marketing
• Legal Assistance
• Financial Management
• Workforce
• Funding
• Production Space
• Office Space
• Real Estate Assistance. 

By simply identifying the needs you require, Help4Biz - which acts as a map, will lead you to contact information on local organisations that can help fulfill your service requirements.

The goal of the Infographic is to provide useful information to entrepreneurs, whether they are pre-startup, startup or growth businesses, and let them know what resources are and are not available to them in a simple but effective manner.

When it comes to such assistance in County Waterford, Help4Biz is one of a kind. There is no other resource kit that that brings entrepreneurs, agencies and services together all under the one umbrella!

Help4Biz is available via download at www.dungarvanec.com or can be picked up in hard copy at the Dungarvan Enterprise Centre.

Action Plan for Jobs 2015-Whats It Means for Enterprise

‘’Action Plan for Jobs 2015 – What It Means for Enterprise ‘’

The Action Plan for Jobs 2015 was launched a Thursday 30.01.2015 but what does it mean for Enterprise ?

         According to OECD  "the achievement of 100,000 additional jobs by 2016 will be an important milestone and we are confident that this will be achieved. Beyond this, we need to set an even more challenging goal for the country – we want to replace all of the jobs lost during the economic crisis and bring employment to 2.1 million in 2018."

 They say that  Action Plan for Jobs 2015 will be a further step along the way in meeting this medium-term goal for Ireland.

The themes in this year’s Action Plan for Jobs build on the reforms of previous years in the areas of competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship and in fostering new sources of growth for the economy.

A significant regional fund of up to €25 million in competitive funding will be announced to support regional initiatives through Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the LEOs, in particular.

The key target contained in the plan is to double the jobs impact of start-ups in Ireland over the next five years, from the current level of 93,000.

• ·         Increase the number of starts –ups by  25 per cent – representing 3,000 more start-ups per annum;
• ·         Increase the survival rate in the first five years by 25 per cent – 1,800 more survivors per annum; and
• ·         Improve the capacity of start-ups to grow to scale by 25 per cent

To achieve the ambition, the Government will improve the key interlocking elements that impact on entrepreneurship and make up the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Ireland like a business environment and supports. In addition over the coming year, the Government will bring forward a new Enterprise Policy and Strategy Statement for the period to 2025, setting out the vision for enterprise development over that period to secure full employment, and the key supports and business environment measures to be taken to ensure Irish based enterprises are among the most innovative, productive, competitive and entrepreneurial in the world.

Very good news for Small Business 

The digital economy represents 5 per cent of GDP, is growing at approximately 20 per cent per year and supports almost 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Irish consumers spend around €700,000 per hour, 24 hours a day online. With up to 70 per cent of Ireland's annual online spend currently going overseas, targeting Irish businesses for online trading is a key jobs and economic imperative. In Ireland today, however, less than 1 in 4 small businesses are selling to customers online.

 European Commission research suggests that companies which develop a meaningful online trading presence grow twice as fast, export twice as much and employ twice as many people.

The Trading Online Voucher Scheme was introduced and piloted under the 2013 Action Plan for Jobs and rolled out nationally under the 2014 Action Plan. The Scheme is a key action under the National Digital Strategy (NDS) which was published in July 2013. It aims to get 2,000 more small businesses trading online by end 2015 and offers a financial incentive of up to €2,500 to small and micro businesses to develop their online trading capability. It is an example of an effective partnership between DCENR, DJEI, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) network.
More information on the Scheme can be found at www.dcenr.gov.ie/nds and on the website of each LEO.

Other Supports  

•  The development of an innovative SME State Support On-line tool (www.localenterprise.ie/smeonlinetool) to provide an individual with a list of the possible government business supports available to their particular business;
• Government agreement to amend the Credit Guarantee Act 2012 and introduce a new more flexible Credit Guarantee Scheme;
• The commitment by EI of €99.5 million to a number of funds under its Seed and Venture Capital Scheme (2013-2018);

Each LEO will identify how it can facilitate hubs where start-ups can be established in a supportive network before moving on to accommodate for the next cohort of emerging enterprises. A key approach will be to build on the 100+ Community Enterprise Centres across the country by implementing local protocols to ensure the LEOs are fully integrated into the enterprise development plans of each county.

A national week of events promoting entrepreneurship and showcasing Ireland’s start-up sector to entrepreneurs from all over the globe including the Irish diaspora, with the message ‘Start, Scale, Succeed from Ireland’.

• ‘The Start-up Gathering’ is a new initiative which will be led by the not-for-profit organisation Start-up Ireland as a key building block towards making Ireland a global start-up hub by 2020.
• The Start-up Gathering is an ambitious project which at its heart is ‘of the start-up sector, by the start-up sector and for the start-up sector in Ireland’.

 It builds on the success of initiatives such as ‘The Gathering’ and ‘The Wild Atlantic Way’ in a sustainable, regionally balanced way. To help make Ireland the best place in the world to establish/locate a high impact start-up, five days of events will take place annually in the second week of October (from October 5th to 10th in 2015) in each of Ireland’s cities (Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford) with a focus on the industry strengths present in each city. Using the successful model of ‘The Gathering’ the week will leverage and augment many existing events and projects that are themed around entrepreneurship, start-ups and existing industry clusters present in each city.

 The five industries will be those ‘strength in depth’ sectors currently located in Ireland namely ICT, Medical Devices, BioPharma, Agri/Food and Business Services.

 The goal for the Start-up Gathering 2015 is to facilitate in excess of 50 events and networking opportunities nationally during the week for at least 15,000 members of the Irish public and international visitors thereby creating the conditions for the creation of at least 2,500 new jobs in the following 12 months.

It seems that the Government will support small business but whether it meets its lofty targets remains to be seen. 

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre’s “Lunch with Bill Liao” deemed a huge success

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre’s “Lunch with Bill Liao” deemed a huge success

Last Thursday marked the arrival of Dungarvan Enterprise Centre’s most ambitious event to date. The lunch time seminar with entrepreneur Bill Liao proved to be a huge success amongst all attendees and Dungarvan’s local businesses.

Our guest speaker Bill Liao delivered what was described by many attendees as an “Inspiring” and “Thought Provoking” seminar. Bill touched on a number of subjects such as his own background and rise to prominence in the business world, getting investment, value creation, the key aspects to being a successful entrepreneur and the importance of networking. The speech itself was preceded by an informal buffet lunch where the participants in the seminar could network and we are pleased to announce that a number of exciting new business contacts were created.

The topic of entrepreneurship was something that Bill Liao was keen to discuss as he explained the importance of learning from ones mistakes, “Failure is the number one aspect of entrepreneurialism, it is all about how you handle and learn from failure.” A particularly interesting piece Bill spoke about was a concept that he learnt form Daniel Pink called “The ABC’s of Enterprise and Selling.” In this Bill explained that in order to increase sales one must adopt:

•  Atunement – “Be friendly, polite and increase your listening skills…atunement with investors is very important.”

• Buoyancy – “You want opinions of and interactions with your product to be resilient and positive.”

• Clarity – “More Simple instructions or brand will be chosen over all other cheaper alternatives.”

Bill went on to say that he became the man he is today because of a single question “Imagine handing over fifty grand without suffering any pain or loss. Imagine who you would have to become.” His understanding of the power of networking is something that really shined through in his visit. He made various new contacts and connected the seminars participants with his own contacts. Even during the seminar he promoted a number of businesses he was working with such as Sunzu and Task Messenger. This showed his extraordinary ability to constantly make introductions.

We couldn't be more pleased with the turnout to this event and would like to thank you everyone who came or helped out. Hopefully all our seminars in the future will be as successful as this one!

A Shot of Mags Durand O' Connor, Bill Liao and Anike Tyrell.

A group shot of entrepreneurs networking.

Who is Bill Liao? The entrepreneur and self-made millionaire comes to Dungarvan.

The 16^th of May 2013 marks a very important date in Dungarvan Enterprise Centre’s calendar as Bill Liao, investor, author and member of the entrepreneur hall of fame will be visiting us to give a once off seminar on the digital world.

So who is Bill Liao? Aside from his full time role as venture partner with the highly successful firm SOSventures, Bill Liao is also a founder of charity WeForest.org and co-founder of the innovative business social network XING. In 2011 Bill Liao co-founded the ground breaking Coder Dojo movement in an attempt to teach children how to write computer codes and programs. In relation to the movement he has stated that “Computer programming is a language skill and it needs to be learned young.” At this time Coder Dojo is operating in 22 countries and teaches 10,000 children every week. Bill Liao is also known for his involvement as investor and director in such companies as Silicon Republic, Storyful and many more and from his best-selling book “Stone Soup: The Secret Recipe for Making Something from Nothing.”

Having Bill Liao come to our Centre is an absolute privilege. Especially as DEC Coder Dojo has been such a success with the young people of Dungarvan. Anike Tyrrell, CEO of Waterford County Enterprise Board noted that “Dungarvan has one of the best fibre optics networks in Ireland and Bill Liao is a huge name in the digital world, his presence in Dungarvan only further pushes the notion that we could transform our town into the digital centre of the south-east.”

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre Celebrates First Birthday

Dungarvan Enterprise Centre first opened its doors on 5th December 2011. In the past twelve months the centre has become a key player in the business landscape, offering a comprehensive range of services to the local business community. The centre is almost at full occupancy, with just one office space remaining free. 

The aim of Dungarvan Enterprise Centre is to stimulate and encourage enterprise in West Waterford, while acting as a support to the local business community. The centre achieves this through letting affordable office space, meeting room hire, training, mentoring and event management. The centre offers a number of free services to start-up and growing businesses including flyer display, promotion through our newsletter and social media sites, general business advice and facilitation of networking and seminars. The centre also offers affordable practical business training and has provided training in areas as diverse as social media, cloud computing, self-effectiveness, e-tendering and marketing over the last year. To date the centre has provided training to over 100 local businesses.

The office spaces at the centre are of a very high spec and are offered at affordable rates, starting at €180 per month including management fee and VAT. The centre also offers subsidised high speed broadband with speeds of up to 120mg and VOIP telephony, with built-in IT support. “We are delighted to have eight businesses on board to date, this equates to 18 people employed within the centre,” says Mags Durand O’Connor, centre manager, “We have also provided room hire to a variety of clients including FAS, LEADER and Waterford WEN, numbering over 200 people having accessed our facilities over the past year. We have been fortunate to work closely with Waterford County Enterprise Board, Dungarvan Chamber and Waterford County Council in our endeavours and we will continue to do so in our mission to find practical means of supporting business in the local community.”

The next big project for the centre is a Coder Dojo in association with Waterford County Enterprise Board, who are driving the initiative through their Student Enterprise Programme. This free programme which helps children to develop essential IT skills will be available from January. The centre has already received a generous donation of two laptops for the programme from TQS Integration and would ask any other businesses who might be able to donate old laptops to get in touch with the centre as it is the aim of the programme to be inclusive.