Ria talks with Chris McClelland about Ignite Northern Ireland, and how their accelerator program strives to help start-ups. He also speaks about the growing interest in Medtech companies, highlighting Ignite NIs partnership with four new Medtech startups and what the future holds for digital healthcare. In addition to this Chris elaborates on his work and how startups are an opportunity for change and excitement, especially in today’s world.
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Chris McClelland in his early years initially planned to become an orchestral composer and studied musical composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire becoming acquainted with computer-aided-composition technologies. In 2009, he decided to sacrifice the completion of his Ph.D. to set up Ecliptic Labs in Dublin, Ecliptic Labs went on to build 80 mobile applications for companies such as eHarmony and Mailchimp. After serving as CEO of Elliptic Labs until 2013, Chris saw his next big business opportunity and decided to move on and build another company, called Brewbot. Chris developed an appliance for brewing beer with a companion app for the iPhone, the start-up raised $4.5 million, Chris eventually parted ways with the company. In 2018 he returned to Northern Ireland, IgniteNI founder Tristan Watson recognised the potential that Chris had to serve as a mentor to founders who were just getting started. Chris became an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) at IgniteNI, where he began by spending just two days a week mentoring participants on the program. Eventually, Tristan asked Chris to take over and run IgniteNI. Chris is now determined to bring the expectations of Northern Irish founding teams in line with their global peers, to build their confidence and prove that a fantastic company can be built anywhere in the world
About Ria McGuire
Ria interned with ITN for three months and during her time she was a sub-editor, podcast host and managed to write her own pieces too.
She has studied journalism for three years at Dublin City University. She has previously written for TheJournal.ie, Irish Tech News and Leicester Leader.
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