We kinda fudged the F**k The Recession when we launched bizcamp.ie last year - but it is what we meant :-)
Your Country, Your Call
Over at www.yourcountryyourcall.com they do not use those kinda phrases - not with the president and her husband Martin involved. They do have a prize fund of 200k though - and a hint of up to 500k available for implementation thereafter.
What are they about?
The goal is to pick two truly transformational proposals so big that, when implemented, could secure prosperity and jobs for Ireland. Proposals that could help change the way we do things, allow businesses to grow, employment to be created and prosperity to flourish.
Interesting stuff - 8 categories involved so you should be able to find one you fit into.
Website is kinda disappointing mind you - a strong branding exercise takes up half the screen throughout the site leading to small fonts and tiny video clips in the active half. Also in Firefox on Mac the last of the 8 categories is not visible. Update - there is a subtle scroll bar to the left of the box - have just noticed it. Appears to be an unfortunate example of what would appear to be a print designer running amock on the web.
It is also not clear exactly what a Proposal could be - avoiding being prescriptive could result in possible ideas not being put forward. Closing date is 17th February - any money on academics who are experienced at quickly putting project proposals together being dominant? I hope not.
I met with Padraig McKeon before Christmas (at his request) as he wanted to give me a heads up on this. The call and meeting was appreciated and glad to help spread the work - however the site needs to be reworked a little IMHO.
More information in their pdf which you can download by clicking here: YCYC Brochure.
Gateway Ireland
A second approach to this revitalisation of Ireland is the one suggested at Farmleigh by John McColgan - an online connection with the diaspora from what I can remember.
They are looking for a web specialist to drive all technological and technical aspects of taking the project from concept to a fully-specified feasibility report to be submitted at the end of May.
More in the pdf which you can download by clicking here: Technical Spec for WebmasterWeb Lead.
Update - contact details for Gateway Ireland
Tel: +353 1 889 4900
Gateway Ireland Project
13 Merrion Square
Dublin 2
No website yet that I can see
keith
YCYC beware para 7.2 of T&C - YCYc takes all IP in winning proposal - EvertBopp spotted this!
Posted by: Brian O'Kane | February 22, 2010 at 13:36
Keith,
Thanks for blogging Your Country Your Call. For the reference of others I'm on the steering committee for the initiative.
As you point out there are a few things on the website that we might need to look at and we have gotten feedback from different and unconnected sources in that regard. It is worth saying that the website was provided as a package to YCYC free gratis and that there are some limitations in the extent to which we can rework what was provided but we will seek to prioritise and adjust in response to the points raised here and elsewhere to the extent possible.
On the point re IP raised by Brian, the situation is as follows. An entrant to YCYC gives the competition organisers a licence over the idea that the entrant proposes. That licence lasts for the lifetime of the entrant's involvement in the competition. When he / she /they are no longer in the competition, the licence expires and they have full licence and ownership over anything they propose / have proposed. Therefore apart from two winners, there are no ongoing or permanent license or IP issues arising for entrants. The rights to the proposals of the two winners do remain with the organisers for which they (the winners) contractually receive €100k
It is not necessarily the case though that there would be significant or specific IP in the winning proposal. While the organisers do not wish to discourage any entrant or proposal, YCYC is looking for big impact proposals. The expectation is that the winning proposal will be a more general concept than anything that can be specifically corralled into a defined package that would be possible to patent / trademark etc… That is not to say that a winner may not have some IP within their anticipation of how the proposal they make will pan out, but that the proposal in itself is not dependant on that IP.
Posted by: Padraig McKeon | February 22, 2010 at 22:06
Any chance you could link to our blog: http://cousinsofcountoloughlin.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Thomas | February 26, 2010 at 21:49
Keith,
Both of these are really interesting. I am putting together an idea for the Your Country Your Vote. But on the second initiative, Gateway Ireland Project, it sounds like somebody has taken the initiative to actually taken up the idea put forward in The Next Leap, which I consulted you on when I wrote it at the IIEA. One of the ideas in that set of recommendations (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XZaChr0TDXIC&printsec=frontcover) was to examine the feasibility of a kind of content hub for rights trading, support etc. to be established here in Ireland. Follow on blog chat was at http://nextleap.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/8-questions-digital-content-hub/
Unfortunately I've been in Cambridge for the past year and a half so I couldn't follow up on it with the kind of energy it deserved. Can you let me know who is working on this? I'd love to get involved.
Posted by: Johnny Ryan | March 27, 2010 at 11:55