UCD, Econiq and HP win research awards

UCD, Hewlett Packard and Galway-based start-up Econiq were the winners at this year's US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards.

Over 600 people attended the awards ceremony in Dublin on Friday night, marking the second year of a joint initiative between the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy to recognise research innovation carried out on the island of Ireland as a result of US business investment.

Speaking at the event, the Minister for Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor said: “Continued American investment here has created tens of thousands of jobs and driven growth in exports, in particular. The US-Ireland economic relationship has never been better and I look forward to working to help those ties become ever stronger.”

Galway-based software firm Econiq won the SME category with its Conversation Hub, which senses and responds to business conversations and offers live analysis and transcripts of conversations. Developed for contact centres and banks in the US market, it records information that's collected in conversations with front-line staff and identifies opportunities for additional saes. The firm employs 23 staff between its Galway headquarter and its Boston sales and customer research subsidiary.

In the age of Big Data, UCD picked up the Higher Education Institute award for its work with IBM on the Real Time Correlation Engine (RTCE). Processing large volumes of data in real time is increasing critical to the connected world, from monitoring CCTV footage for security to managing health data. The RTCE uses a novel combination of data normalisation, clustering and filtering techniques within a high-performance framework to extract relevant information from very large and diverse data sets. RTCE finishes in minutes tasks that take skilled IBM specialists days to complete, and outperforms competing tools on speed and scope. It can identify signs of trouble ahead and trigger corrective action.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise team in Galway won the multinational category award for its Global Product Authentication Service. Offer firms a new level of brand protection, the service allows products to be uniquely marked and tracked throughout the client’s supply chain. Consumers can also verify the product’s authenticity using a smartphone app.

A lifetime achievement award was presented to musician, film maker and broadcaster Philip King. President Michael D Higgins said: "Philip King's contribution to the cultural life of Ireland over several decades has been profound. He has a played a critical role in sustaining and enriching the musical tradition of our nation."