Cork OpenCoffee in The Irish Times

I’m chuffed to see that Haydn Shaughnessy mentions Cork OpenCoffee in his piece in the Innovation Magazine of today’s Irish Times. The point of the article is:

If companies want to be innovative in their field, not only do they need to rethink how they do business, but they also have to be willing to step out of their comfort zone

He includes two quotes from me on OpenCoffee which I think are true for many of those who attend.

I was attracted to the OCC idea by what I saw as a lack of any real opportunities for all of us in the local start-up ecosystem to network regularly: entrepreneurs, techies, finance people. The 'regular' aspect was critical as was the free-form relaxed approach.

and

If nothing else, my own professional and personal networks have been hugely improved through OCC and I think the same is true for all the regulars

Friday’s fantastic turnout is testament to this. We had 19 people in Luigi Malone’s and the buzz was just infectious. I got some very positive feedback from the new faces and I hope we can keep this level of energy going.

And only another two days before we can talk about the very very cool demo that we saw!