VITAL - Open Innovation Project ends on a high

Described as the ‘match.com’ for business, the VITAL - Ideas Connected to Business project officially marked the close of its activities with a special showcase event hosted by Conall Ó’Móráin, Today FM Sunday Business Show presenter, in Monaghan’s Nuremore Hotel on June 18.

The €2.56m VITAL initiative, funded by the EU’s INTERREG IVA Programme was designed to link innovative business ideas to SMEs and entrepreneurs in the hope of sustaining more innovative start-up projects in Northern Ireland and across the southern border counties.  In the short 2 year history of VITAL, it successfully established 34 product and technology matches, by far exceeding initial targets set by the funder.

Implemented in partnership between Dublin City University, Queen’s University Belfast, led by Dundalk Institute of Technology, the €2.56m VITAL initiative created a pilot initiative support framework to allow good ideas to be commercialised effectively through a matching process. It further enabled SMEs and entrepreneurs to access new channels to market through targeted supports.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Kieran Fegan, Project Director was proud to report on the success of the scheme and the long-term impact it will have.

“Many promising inventions never come to fruition because of a lack of distinction between the concept owner and its executor. By creating a model which separates the idea generator from the implementer, this project ensured that fewer innovations would fail due to poor commercial awareness.”

“Through VITAL we identified and engaged with more than 400 ideas and innovations which have been assessed by our technology and commercial teams. Of these, we have facilitated agreement between 34 idea owners and entrepreneurs which when fully operational, will be worth Millions to the cross border economy, will create and sustain  jobs in the region and permit a higher number of knowledge based start-ups” he added.

Another key benefit of VITAL was the opportunity to further develop the links between Dublin and Belfast and strengthen the economic corridor between the two cities. Denis Cummins, President of DkIT explained to delegates that “…increased north/south co-operation will lead to a more prosperous cross-border region. As a supporter of regional development, the VITAL project has played a key role in promoting cross-border partnerships and I would encourage that this model be deployed on a national level.”

Such sentiments were echoed by each of the speakers who hope that the model developed and validated through VITAL can be utilised again in order to support SMEs and will watch with great interest how the products and ideas matched by VITAL continue to grow.

One such match helped Tom Finnegan, a Co. Leitrim inventor, make his dream for a better range of electrical cars a reality, having been matched by VITAL with Louth based Swift Composite Prototypes Ltd. Despite electrical cars becoming increasingly popular, Mr. Finnegan felt that the range of cars available to consumers was limited and didn’t allow them to be fully comfortable.

VITAL introduced Tom to Swift Composite Prototypes Ltd, an innovative Dunleer based company manufacturing wind turbine blades and a various composite components for land transport vehicles. With assistance from VITAL, the coupling has made plans to manufacture the small, fully-electric car from light-weight, composite materials resulting in a vehicle 30% lighter than most similar sized cars which is both stronger and safer.

Swift Composite Prototypes Ltd Ceo, Gabriel Matthews said that “participating in the VITAL project has been very straightforward and the managers have all been helpful throughout. Currently our idea is still very much in the design stage but we hope to have a prototype developed in 2016 with the idea of manufacturing one car per week using as many Irish sourced products as possible. We look forward to fully commercialising our product and the process of infiltrating new markets, none of which would have been possible without the support and advice from the VITAL team.”

A case study booklet was launched and distributed at the event to showcase a sample of VITAL’s activities and is available to download at www.vitalforideas.com