Techie with Midas touch for project fund-raising

Despite having to re-sit the Leaving Cert, Willie Donnelly went on to master the difficult area of particle physics and in which he went on to take his doctorate. Anne Byrne reports.

Dr Willie Donnelly agrees to remove his Aran jumper for the photographer, but baulks at the suggestion that he smooth his hair.

The quintessential techie? The advance press release promises a conversation laced with unfamiliar acronyms such as TSSG, PDA hydrids and European IST/ACTS. This is the man who recently secured €5 million funding from the Higher Education Authority for his research group based in Waterford IT - no mean achievement for an institute of technology.

And to complete the picture, Donnelly sports a PhD in particle physics, that most inaccessible of sciences. Photographs over, it's time to take the plunge into the world of unified messaging systems, smart devices and intelligent wireless.

Donnelly grins and tells of his lack of achievement in the Leaving Cert, first time round. After leaving school, he spent six years on shift work as a factory operative before deciding it was time to re-enter the world of education. He attended night classes and re-sat seven subjects in the Leaving Cert, doing sufficiently well to gain a place in DIT Kevin Street's degree in applied sciences.

"My dream was to become a second-level teacher, but I did better than I expected in my final year exam, getting a 2.1." His French wife, Manuelle, encouraged him to continue his studies and he registered for a PhD in particle physics in UCD under Professor Alex Montwell.

"I graduated in 1988. The economic climate was such that there wasn't much of a demand for PhDs in particle physics," he laughs. So, he got a more prosaic job with Process Control and Automation Systems in Carlow and after two years, answered an ad by Broadcom Eireann Research. They were looking for people with an interest in telecommunications research. Donnelly had no background in the area, but, undaunted, he applied.

Securing this job was to set him on the path towards his present success. He worked as a technical expert and project manager in a number of telecommunications management projects.

"I fell in love with the subject matter," he says. "I decided I wanted to go back into research, but in the applied rather than the pure area. It's not just the search for truth. There's a sense it's valid to people's lives. Your output will be useful. Also, I went back to do a degree because I wanted to teach. It was like an unfinished chapter.

"The problem was I had zero publications. I had to focus my efforts and build a research background. That was easy to do in Broadcom. I positioned myself in the industry so that I was involved in EU-funded projects - with a lot of support from the company." In 1996, he began to look around for an academic/research position and the first one that came up was in Waterford IT - a lectureship in computer science. At his job interview, Donnelly revealed his desire to set up a research group. It may have sounded like a perfect interview ploy, he says, but it was a very real ambition. "I had negotiated a contract to do some EU-funded projects, prior to the interview and I brought those with me." He duly set up the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group.

Very quickly, he was grappling with the particular problems that face most researchers in the IT sector. "There was no research infrastructure, no room, no PCs and no students. Luckily, I had time. I arrived in April and the academic year finishes in May. When I arrived in during the holidays, there were two guys standing outside. They ended up being my first research students. They were there, even though it was holiday time, because they were interested. I was very fortunate to get such good students, one from engineering and the other from computer science. I had to get someone to give me money. The ideal environment for me was EU funding so I put a lot of energy into getting European research projects."

Unsurprisingly (this is a man who talks a good research project), he had phenomenal success, winning contracts for 15 of the 17 projects he submitted. In the five years, from 1997 to date, the research group, which includes researchers from the science, engineering and business schools, has attracted €5.08 million from the EU, €5.08 million from the HEA (although he did not get the funding for a building which was included in this proposal), €482,500 from Enterprise Ireland and industry and €835,490 from other sources.

"To grow so fast created a tension in an environment where facilities are so few and the focus is mainly on undergraduates (Waterford IT's postgraduate students account for 2 per cent of the total student body). It seemed I was saying I wanted more and more space." So, he had to move off campus, last June, to a rented building which accommodates his 30-strong research group. The size of the group is very large in Irish terms and he had hoped the HEA funding would also include provision for a building.

EVEN without the building, this funding was a major boost. M-zones, the HEA-funded research, is a five-year project to develop state-of-the-art telecommunications technology for the management of intelligent wireless devices. In crude terms, an area such as a campus, a workplace, or a home could become a "smart space" where smart devices are operated by a personal digital assistant/mobile phone, and where information and messaging is always available. The project is a joint collaboration with research groups in TCD and Cork IT, with Waterford IT as the lead institution.

So, what does the head of a telecommunications software and systems group when he's not developing smart systems? "The TSSG is actually 2.5 jobs in one, managing the group as well as project manager on European projects and committee work, so what little free time I get I like to spend with my family." He enjoys walking, especially in the Wicklow Mountains or the French Pyrenees (where he spends three weeks every year).

When relaxing at home, Donnelly listens to country blues and reads non-techie literature by authors such as Mary Lavin, Josef Skovecky and Camus.

Interview over, he dons his Aran, and wanders off to re-enter the land of the acronym.