Winner of the Small Business Innovation Research challenge ‘Fire Safety in Historic Buildings’ announced during City Engage Week

Pictured at the Small Business Innovation Research Award (SBIR) at Fab Lab are Tom Cassidy, Conservation Officer, Marguerite Bourke, Enterprise Ireland, Ciaran Reeves, Senior Executive Planner, Mike Cantwell, Innovate Limerick, Rosie Webb, Senior Architect in Economic Development, Cian O’Flaherty, Ceo of Safecility, Nessie Roche, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and Vincent Murray, New Director of Economic Development. Picture: Kate Devaney/ilovelimerick.

Winner of the Small Business Innovation Research challenge ‘Fire Safety in Historic Buildings’ announced during City Engage Week S

Are you a public sector employee interested in finding innovative ways to solve societal problems? @SBIRIreland are opening a new call to the public sector to come forward with your challenges and register here for our launch event: https://t.co/2PVlcevKWL pic.twitter.com/KBZt6SoTFT

— Enterprise Ireland (@Entirl) September 19, 2019

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By I Love Limerick Correspondent Mia Wang

Limerick City and County Council in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland, Local Enterprise Office Limerick, Innovate Limerick and Dublin City Council has announced on Wednesday, September 18 at Fab Lab that the winner of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award for the Fire Safety in Historic Buildings project is ‘Safecility.’

The project is primarily organised by Enterprise Ireland to provide small business companies with an opportunity to come up with a viable idea for the renovation of the Georgian area. The winner was awarded €59,500 out of the total original Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) challenge fund of €80,000.

Marguerite Bourke from Enterprise Ireland said, “Enterprise Ireland received support from the local City and County Council and there are plenty of unique ideas coming up from the creative small business sector. Enterprise Ireland is opening a new call to the public sector for Challenges in October to find out more about the potential for SBIR to solve challenges and the launch will be on October 14, 2019, and we are urging everyone to join in.”

Pictured at the Small Business Innovation Research Award (SBIR) at Fab Lab are Marguerite Bourke, Enterprise Ireland, Mike Cantwell, Innovate Ireland, Rosie Webb, Senior Architect in Economic Development, and Cian O’Flaherty, Ceo of Safecility. Pictures: Kate Devaney/ilovelimerick.

Ciaran Reeves, Senior Executive Planner City, and County Council are looking forward to the next challenge. He mentioned that the main factor driving the development of this project is the need. Mr.Reeves said, “there should be a need if we do not have a need, we do not have a challenge, so we are welcome people to come with a great challenge so we can begin to frame. ”

SBIR Ireland is administered by Enterprise Ireland. SBIR Ireland aims to drive innovation across all sections of the Irish Public Sector via robust engagement with technology-rich companies and organisations. Enterprise Ireland has established a dedicated fund to co-support innovative and competitive Challenges in partnership with Irish Contracting Authorities.

The aim of this project is to regenerate the city centre for people to live a better life. Rosie Webb, the senior architect in the economic development of Limerick City and County Council said, “In Limerick, we tried to create a co-design ecosystem so we can understand the typical problems people have like regenerating the city centre and come up with the new products and services to solve that so this is our first open challenge in which we look the issue of Fire Safety in Historic Buildings.

“It is often costly and very difficult to do so we put out a call to try and find enterprises and innovators come up some solutions so today we have announced the winner of that competition which is safe facility and we are looking forward to working them going forward try to develop a product that works for people,” she added.

The winner of the award is Cian O’Flaherty, CEO of ‘Safecility’ and their proposal is based on the data which can be used to analyse the situation of the building. Cian said, “In the next 10 years buildings will report to themselves, the technology is going to exist to tell buildings what happening, and capture the data from the building so it is all about building data on themselves.”

SBIR is glad to promote the development of the city centre area in Limerick through the project and provide support for the innovative and creative small business companies.

For more information on SBIR click here.

For more stories on Small Business Innovation Research click here.

Picture: Kate Devaney/ilovelimerick