“Everything good about Ireland can be found in County Cork…” 

LONELY PLANET 2012

The Accelerator is located in Cork City centre which is Ireland’s second largest city on the south coast of Ireland. Office Space is provided for up to 9 months in a purpose built Accelerator space in Cork City Centre. Cork is a bustling, vibrant and cosmopolitan city with an international aiport. Cork is permeated with parks, galleries, shops, restaurants, theatres and historical buildings, ensuring one is never short of recreational options. Simultaneously it possesses a small-town familiarity and one can navigate the city on foot with ease.

Cork is widely known as ‘The Food Capital of Ireland’.  World-class local produce and restaurants throughout the Cork region provide a wonderful dining culture. Cork is also the gateway to some of the most scenic areas of Ireland like the ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ and one can enjoy the stunning coastline, pristine beaches and rolling countryside, all within a short bus journey from the city. Ireland is a gateway to Europe and working here means the opportunity to travel around Europe.

Cork leads the Irish Security Cluster

Several multinationals have a significant presence in Ireland (and Cork in particular), and are creating huge high value employment opportunities. Organisations like DELL/EMC and Apple have been in Cork for over 40 years and have Apple have their EMEA HQ in Cork, employing 6,000 people. Other key organisations involved in the Security Cluster include:

• Trend Micro has over 16 functions at the company’s EMEA HQ in Ireland
• Tyco is undertaking cutting edge R&D and creating an integrated data and smart services platform for IoT based solutions from Ireland
• Intel Security has a worldwide Centre of Excellence for Enterprise Security Solutions in Ireland
• FireEye has a leading European Engineering and Security Operations Centre in Ireland
• MasterCard Ireland Labs teams constantly innovate to create the next generation of secure payments, which will define and defend the future of payments
• IBM Cork collaborate with local Cork Company Smarttech247, who became the first company in the world to commercially launch Watson for Cybersecurity
• Cork has an excellent base in the Cybersecurity industry with both multi-national and indigenous companies and has a unique opportunity to develop more strategic partnerships between the companies in the region
• The IDA (Ireland's inward investment promotional agency) recently identified Cork as a 'hidden gem for Cyber Security'. Some of the Worlds top Security companies like Trend Micro, AlienVault, Cylance, eSentire, FireEye, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Sophos, VMWare and Keeper Security are all located in Cork. Cork's technology infrastructure, talent pool and supportive academic network were identified as being key. Read the full article in our News section

Ireland & Cork has a Strong & Growing Security Ecosystem

Ireland is developing a reputation as having a strong and growing security ecosystem.

• The Top 5 worldwide security software companies are located in Ireland
• Ireland has one of the highest graduates & enrolments in mathematics, science and technology fields in the EU
• Neutral country with high geopolitical stability
• Ireland, in particular Cork, has a thriving BioPharmaceutical Industry, and the next generation of biotech research and business models, products and services is being shaped by the increasing significance of big data management, analytics, risk management and compliance, data security, digitization and data processing capabilities. There are close linkages and overlap between Security and Bioinformatics.

Vibrant Academic Research Landscape

The academic research landscape supports this development and includes

• UCD Dublin - Cybercrime & Fraud Analysis
• LERO - Software for Analytics & Security
• UCC Cork INSIGHT - Network Analysis & Data Analytics
• CONNECT - Networking Services & Security
• TSSG - Privacy & Cyber Security Market Opportunities
• ARCH - Applied Connected Health Research
• Tyndall National Institute is one of the leading research institutes in Europe in sensor systems, wearable medical technology and ICT hardware & systems, with 460 researchers in Cork
• Nimbus Centre – Ireland’s largest Internet of Things (IOT) centre based in Cork