About
Co-Founder of MiCandidate
UN Global e-Leader for ICT & Youth
Co-Founder of the Undergraduate Awards of Ireland
Former Chairman of the International Telecommunications Union Global Youth Forum
Curator of the Dublin Web Summit
Founder of Rock the Vote Ireland
Founder of Phil Speaks
Helper for Founders
I set things up. Some things work, some don’t.
I’ve also started a few not-for-profits with the help of some great people.
In early 2009, I started MiCandidate, a little political platform that aggregated political content and syndicated it to media organisations. Think Bloomberg but for political information. It grew into about 25 countries and was used by about 80 media organizations before being acquired in late 2009. It also gave grass root politicians a useful set of tools to organise, fund and reach a wide audience of voters. See Silicon Republic news story.
Since then, I’ve come back to Ireland and tried to help invigorate the start up ecosystem. I started a little tech event called the Dublin Web Summit in late 2009, which brings some interesting folks from the tech world to Ireland to speak to entrepreneurs, starts ups and investors. Over the last few months speakers have included the founders of Wordpress, Wikipedia and Craigslist, as well as the Editor at Large of Wired, Editor of TechCrunch Europe, and the all-singing all-dancing Tim Draper, of DFJ. It’s now the biggest tech event in Ireland, hopefully it’s helpful.
In late 2008, I set up the Undergraduate Awards of Ireland and Northern Ireland with Oisin Hanrahan. The Awards are a collaboration between Ireland’s 9 universities, involving over 250 academics, in a search for Ireland’s 30 brightest undergraduates across 30 distinct fields of study. The inaugural awards were presented by the President of Ireland Mary McAleese in 2009. The 2010 awards were opened by Peter Sutherland, International Chairman of Goldman Sachs. It’s like a Junior Nobel Prize for scarily bright undergrads and hopefully it helps both reward and encourage excellent scholarship at an undergraduate level. Maybe one day we’ll figure out how to go global.
In early 2008, I was appointed by the United Nation’s as an eLeader’s for ICT and Youth along with nine other interesting young entrepreneurs and change-makers from around the world.
From 2006 to 2009, I was chairman of the International Telecommunications Union Global Youth Forum having been elected by 300 young ICT leaders drawn from 150 UN member states in 2006.
In 2006, I graduated from Trinity College Dublin.