Sligo’s tech community come together at meet up
SLIGO’S technology community congregated at a meeting of ‘Sligo Tech Meetup’ at the Riverside Hotel last Thursday evening.
Speakers at the event included Clive Foley, co-founder of Plynk, which raised a €25 million investment from a Swiss private equity firm and Michael Ryan who has 18 years experience as a senior IT systems & network engineer.
Sligo Tech Meetup is seeking to support people of all ages who are involved in or interested in technology. To stay informed about the next event search for “Sligo Tech Meetup” and join up for free.
Sligo town native Clive Foley, who is now based in Dublin, was only happy to come and speak at the event.
“Niall O’Connor, the organiser of the Sligo tech meet-up asked me a couple of months ago if I would help out, I said yes of course. I’m a Sligo man, I’m more than happy to help out with the event. Niall asked me if I would do a tech talk because he was telling me all about the Sligo start up scene,” he told The Sligo Champion.
His company, Plynk, which he founded with Charles Dowd in 2015, has been hugely successful.
“It is an app that allows you to send text messages, pictures, videos, it also allows you to send money instantly for free. When a customer signs up to Plynk, they get a payment account. That payment account has a BIC and an IBAN, it issues you then with a prepaid mastercard. That allows you to chat with your friends, send each other money, you can spend the money online with the mastercard. You can also top up the account through the BIC and the IBAN.
“A couple of years ago I met my co-founder. Charles Dowd. Charles used to work for Facebook in the US. We met through one of the first people to invest in Plynk, a company called Delta Partners. Charles was working on Plynk from a certain angle, and I was working on it from a more technology angle. When we met it was like two people instantly clicking. When we spoke to each other very quickly we realised we had the same values and the same vision. We complimented each other’s skills. It was like two halves of the brain coming together to make the product.”
For start-ups, Clive says these sort of events are crucial. “Talks like this are very important, not only for the people in the room but also for the speakers. It allows everybody to meet each other, share ideas. If you take Plynk, it was hard for us to build the product from a vacuum. We had a lot of support from a lot of friends, giving us ideas, tips, advice and introductions, that sort of thing.
“As a Sligo man in Dublin I don’t have a great idea about what is going on in Sligo. I have a few friends here keeping in touch but there’s nothing like being here and meeting people.”