Eircom pledges €100,000 to assist web pioneers

Eircom has today announced details of its second Web Innovation Fund which will award €100,000 to a selection of promising web-based applications.

The company's fund was first launched in November 2007 to promote, mentor and sponsor innovative web applications in the Irish Internet industry.

Applicants are invited to submit concepts across seven key categories including games, sports, news and widgets.

Up to four applications will be selected to share in the fund. In addition to funding to help develop their product, the winners will receive access to training and business mentoring.

Last year's winners included Locle, a social mapping application for mobile phones, TouristR, an integrated full-service trip-planning advisor, a new social gaming application known as Playza and a browser plug-in known as Heystaks.

The winners all signed a commercial agreement whereby the telco had first refusal to launch their application on eircom.net.

"Ireland has a strong reputation as a pro business environment and in these tough times it is more important than ever to support start ups and encourage innovation. We have a huge pool of talent in this country and our innovators are among the best in the world," said Cathal Magee, managing director of Eircom Retail.

“There was a very positive response to last year’s Innovation Fund, the interest was huge and the diversity and standard of the applications received were clear evidence of the level of ambition and talent in Ireland. This year we are increasing the amount of upfront cash to €16,000 for each of the four winners which will benefit them greatly. We hope to build on the success of the first fund and look forward to receiving even more applications this year," he added.

Further details and application forms are available at http://labs.eircom.net. The closing date for submissions is Thursday, 30th April.