DUBLIN, IRELAND - Oh have I got stuff to tell you about progress! But I can’t now, I’m late to go train in being winched up by a helicopter from a boat (no joke!). In the meantime enjoy this great article about me in our local paper. I love local papers ;-)
I tried about as hard as I could to avoid it being a person+laptop=technology photo but they insisted on me having a laptop in it. Thanks to Darren who came to do the shoot.
Thursday, 02 October 2008, Full text.
A YOUNG Northside entrepreneur has combined his talent for computer programming with his passion for the emergency rescue services to create a new potentially life saving technology.
‘Decisions for Heroes’ is a new computer management system, which Robin Blandford hopes will help emergency services save lives by allowing them to make better decisions in the field.
Howth local Robin is a cliff rescue climber as well as an experienced programmer and he now hopes to combine his talents and become a young entrepreneur.
Earlier this month Robin spent a week at Seedcamp, an event where business ideas compete for funding from venture capitalists.
The Decisions for Heroes team, consisting of Robin and his business partner David Doran, weren’t selected for funding at the end of the week, but Robin says he learned a lot and met some of the top names in the industry, leaving him more determined than ever.
“There were over 400 applications from across Europe and we were among just 23 people who made it to the final selection process,” he told Northside People.
“From this, only seven groups were able to win but we still got to meet teams of advisors as well as some of the top executives in the business.”
Robin came up with the idea for his programme while volunteering as a cliff rescue climber with the Irish Coast Guard in Howth.
He gained professional experience in digital media after leaving university, being identified early in his graduate recruitment cycle at Thomson Reuters as “one to watch” and placed on an accelerated management programme within the company.
“I realised that there were no good rescue team management applications which could analyse rescues and help decision making,” he explained.
“I decided that I would work on it and create something for my team to use, I was so happy with my work that I thought I would make a business out of it.
“The good thing about it is it’s based on practical experience of how search and rescue operations work and what they need.”
Robin’s philosophy is that things should be kept as easy to understand for the user as possible, believing user requirements to use his application should be nil.
“Nobody likes reading manuals - if we have to write one, we’ve got too complicated,” he said.
“Before this there was an awful lot of paperwork involved in rescue which could not be instantly accessed.
“Instead of archiving the information as paperwork, we act as a platform, generating real-time profiles of members, available resources, and activities.
“Decisions for Heroes uses this data to deliver live and intelligent information to devices in the field.
“It is a powerful application and I am lucky to be working with David as he is young but is one of Ireland’s best developers.”
The Decisions For Heroes application is currently being tested out by a number of groups and Robin hopes to begin charging for it in the coming months.
-Robin.
(Image Credit: Northside People)
DUBLIN, IRELAND - Tonight, Damien reminded me the closing date for the €5,000 innovation vouchers from Enterprise Ireland is at midnight.
I went through a range of emotions…Damn, I thought. I am so bad not applying for money, funding, and grants. Kick yourself together, just do it. Fill it in - you can use it to seed your concept that if we were to create an API for disaster relief we could focus coder’s attention on building apps to save lives rather than building gimmicky iPhone Apps and social aggregation mashups. We could rank our apps not by download but by lives saves. Imagine!
I spent 40 minutes completing the form and trying to mould my idea into one of the e-commerce, communications or digital media categories. In the background, my continuous partial attention caught a Twitter message from @tferriss (author of ‘the 4 hour work week’). Tim linked to “Tyler Durden’s Rules Of Innovation” - a mock-up of Fight Club script.
Tyler’s First Rule of Innovation really cut it with me:
“No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.”
I then read Tyler’s Second Rule of Innovation:
“No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.”
And with that I looked back to our Seedcamp mantra “The main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing.” Focus, Focus, Focus. My API for rescue is for tomorrow, not for today. I need to focus. Getting that €5,000 could be disastrous. With that - I hit [Discard].
And wrote this on the whiteboard above my head instead…
This is the date by which I want my first revenue.
-Robin.
1 Comments
DUBLIN, IRELAND - Web2Ireland put out a call for all Irish web applications to add themselves to CrunchBase. I love CrunchBase and Crunchbase-y type sites.
Here are all the companies who’ve done it so far. It’s so important people in Ireland talk with each other - join the online community of people doing the same thing as you and shout out to the world about your stuff. Thanks to Crunchbase today I found some new Irish start-ups Hobeze.com, Babelgum & Iceberg.
Here’s our widget.
-Robin.
1 Comments
DUBLIN, IRELAND - As I move ever closer to my first paying customer I need to implement an online payment system.
As the ‘Basecamp for Danger’ (more on that later), I’d like to implement a payment system similar to 37Signals (read this great post). Monthly subscriptions with easy money back, vouchers, offers, etc. all automated. I’ve worked with Realex before, but only their online terminal and single transaction processing.
What other options are there for an Irish business who wants to do this…
- Roll our own payment processing engine. Where we control customer experience, exact emails, account freezing choice, etc. Run a nightly payment check.
- Not store any credit card numbers, keep them at the payment gateway and interact with tokens only.
- Have the freedom to put through larger single transactions manually.
- Take multiple currencies.
- Easily and cheaply transfer the money to our own AIB Euro Business bank account.
?
-Robin.
(Image Credit: I took this photo from inside Alcatraz Prison looking back out at San Francisco. Prison is a place where I don’t want to end back up with this payment processing system!)
21 Comments
DUBLIN, IRELAND - Our product Decisions for Heroes is into the final short-list for ‘Most Innovative Web Site’ at the Irish Web Awards. The ByteSurgery blog (the one you’re on!) is up for ‘Best Technology Site’.
Below are the other finalists in our categories. Well cool.
Most Innovative Website - Sponsored by iQ content
Best Technology Site - Sponsored by BH Consulting
(Image Credit: 300 “Prepare For Glory” poster by Ken McGuire. Nice!)
5 Comments
![Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com ]](http://www.bytesurgery.com/blog/wp-content/themes/starkers/images/blank.gif)
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