Jay Bregman, founder and former chief executive of taxi app Hailo, will be the keynote speaker at the ISA software industry awards in Dublin this Friday.
Bregman founded Hailo in 2011 and raised $50 million in venture capital funding from investors to expand the service into a number of cities, including Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Twenty indigenous technology companies will vie for the title of Digital Technology Company of the Year at the awards ceremony on Friday.
In the emerging company of the year category, Boxever, Brite:Bill, Snapfile and Pharmapod will battle it out for the top prize. Other categories include outstanding achievement in international growth, technology innovation of the year, technology services project of the year, and the excellence in talent development award.
A judge and last year’s winner, S3 Group chief executive John O’Brien, said the shortlisted companies demonstrated “outstanding performance over the previous year”, combining aspects of technical innovation, sales achievements and successful partnering strategies.
“These companies exhibit a proven ability to attract financial resources, as well as showing a return for stakeholders, customers, staff and investors, thus demonstrating a real competitive differentiation.”
Recent figures from the ISA Digital Technology Index show that 87 per cent of Irish IT companies expect international sales to grow over the coming year and business sentiment continues to improve.
Elsewhere, the latest start-ups emerging from University College Dublin and the National College of Art and Design will be showcased at the VentureLaunch awards tonight. Seven new high-tech and knowledge-intensive ventures will pitch at the awards evening with the overall winner receiving a €25,000 prize. They include Atturos, BlackLabBio, Cara Mobility, Insight Renewables, Magnostics, NovoGrid and Sensible Solutions.
Serial entrepreneur Tom Morrisroe, the founder and chief executive of The Now Factory, which was sold to IBM in 2013, will be the guest speaker at the event.
* This article was amended on Monday, November 17th, 2014
