Galway the new San Fran!

The roll-out of high-speed broadband is crucial to enabling business in the west address the global market, a conference heard last week.

Enterprise Ireland division manager Kevin Sherry was speaking at TechWEST, an exciting new networking event held in Dublin last Thursday.

He was one of a number of speakers at the event which was aimed at positioning the West of Ireland as ‘the new San Francisco’.

The organisers of TechWest – chaired by Sunday Business Post’s Connected editor Emmet Ryan – described the west of Ireland was an unbeatable location for technology and startups.

Recruitment and HR services group Collins McNicholas hosted TechWEST at the Maldron Hotel, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin last Thursday.

The free event featured speakers from a number of successful IT businesses in the west, including Aongus O hEocha from Girt Mobile in Galway, Paul Montwill of Magico from Ennis and Pat Henry of Cora Systems from Carrick-on-Shannon.

It also heard from support organisations such as IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Start-Up Ireland.

Also speaking was online forum boards.ie founder John Breslin and Bank of Ireland executive vice president Derek Collins.

“We heard why Apple and other big companies consider the West the perfect location to grow their business,” said Michelle Murphy, manager of Collins McNicholas, Galway.

“We literally have dozens of open vacancies at growing companies that we are looking to fill.”