15th September, 2022. IDA Ireland and Skillnet Ireland have today announced a new collaboration between IDA Ireland’s Disruptive Technologies Partnering Portal (DTTP) and The Innovation Exchange from Skillnet Ireland. The partnership has an objective to accelerate world class partnerships between multinationals and Irish SMEs in digital, disruptive, and sustainable technology solutions that can drive enterprise competitiveness, growth, and transformation.
The Innovation Exchange - DTPP collaboration provides a new business-2-business engagement framework. This framework enables multinationals to raise business challenges and needs aligned to business objectives and provides a platform for Irish SMEs to present their innovative technology-based solutions to address such.
The engagement framework is enabled by the DTPP, an online searchable platform developed by IDA and Enterprise Ireland that profiles enterprise capacity and needs in digital, disruptive, and sustainable technologies, enabling companies to directly connect for partnership opportunities.
In addition to the DTPP, the engagement framework will include The Innovation Exchange programme, where multinationals will voice their challenges and needs and provide an opportunity for Irish SMEs to present solutions to accelerate innovation within both the large and smaller firms. Under this framework Irish SMEs can avail of mentoring, training and other supports to build the necessary skills to position these solutions to multinationals.
Skillnet Ireland will invest €5 million in The Innovation Exchange over the next 5 years to support more than 1000 businesses, while IDA will continue to offer free access to the DTPP for companies and access to a variety of supports to enable business transformation. This collaboration between Skillnet Ireland and IDA Ireland is a fantastic opportunity for Irish SMEs and multinational enterprises to work together in partnership to drive digitalisations and collaborative opportunities, utilising the best of the Irish innovative infrastructure.
IDA Ireland’s Michael Lohan, Head of Life Sciences and Talent Transformation & Innovation, commented: “This is a great example of the way the infrastructure works together for the benefit of enterprise. I welcome our on-going and close working partnership with Skillnet Ireland. A key objective for IDA Ireland is to engage SMEs and multinational companies for the benefit of enterprise and the economy. Irish companies are innovative and smart and are supporting our multinational community to thrive and innovate in Ireland. This is a very exciting initiative and adds huge value to the DTPP.’
Skillnet Ireland’s Mark Jordan, Chief Strategic Officer, said: “Our focus at Skillnet Ireland is on driving business success and enabling innovation within both multinationals and SMEs. The Innovation Exchange has been very powerful in doing exactly that, by connecting large firms seeking business solutions with SMEs that can provide them. We welcome this collaboration with IDA Ireland which will add greatly to driving innovation across a wide range of areas including digitalisation, climate and advanced manufacturing.”
To find out more about The Innovation Exchange and to apply online, visit https://theinnovationexchange.ie/. To learn more about the DTPP and register your enterprise profile, solution and/or need, visit https://www.dtpp.ie/. Successful application to either programme will enable participants to avail of both initiatives.
