Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 January 2014
349. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of Irish small and medium-sized enterprises that migrated to a cloud computing model through the innovation voucher scheme in 2013; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4204/14]
View answerThe Enterprise Ireland Innovation Vouchers scheme seeks to build links between Ireland's public knowledge providers and small businesses while ultimately helping to inspire in-company cultural shifts in their approach to innovation. The scheme provides €5,000 Vouchers to companies who wish to have an initial exploration of a particular business opportunity with a higher education research group.
In line with the commitment in the Action Plan for Jobs 2013 the benefit of utilising cloud computing solutions was one of the many innovative opportunities that companies were encouraged to investigate via this scheme in 2013. For example, the application of Innovation Vouchers for cloud computing was promoted at Enterprise Ireland’s Excel at Selling Workshops on Cloud Computing, at the Cloud Awareness seminars jointly conducted by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Internet Association and via the Cloud Computing Cluster which is supported by Enterprise Ireland under the Cluster Initiative.
I am informed by Enterprise Ireland that of the 1008 Innovation Vouchers approved in 2013 there were 86 projects proposed in the cloud computing space. Of these 42 were focussed on migrating aspects of the companies’ business to cloud computing.
The Innovation Voucher initiative has proven to be a very useful tool in encouraging companies to embark on initial innovation projects and to collaborate with higher education research groups and it will continue to be a useful means of promoting innovations, such as cloud computing, to SMEs.
