Posts Tagged ‘robin blandford’

Where are they now: #1 Decisions For Heroes

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

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Decisions For Heroes at the UK Emergency Services Show 2009

A few months on from the iQ Prize, we thought it would be a good idea to catch up with our shortlist to see how they’ve progressed. First up is iQ Prize winner Robin Blandford from Decisions For Heroes.

iQ: So what have you been up to since the iQ Prize?
RB: Decisions For Heroes has started selling! We now have paying customers in the USA, Canada, UK & Ireland. The team has doubled in size and we now have someone undertaking sales. People really like the product and we’re finding new markets for it all the time.

iQ: How did the iQ Prize help?
RB: It’s amazing what being “Award Winning Software” means to people. We’ve been in sales meetings where people have said, “And I believe you’re award-winning?” The substantial monetary value of the prize means it is taken seriously by people not in the technology industry. The money has helped us research new markets and filled a huge stop gap of runway to get us to the point of first revenue.

iQ: What’s on the horizon?
RB: We’ve now got a reasonably good presence in the UK having exhibited at the biggest trade show for Emergency Services in the Coventry. We’ve lots of interest from big national organisations and that is certainly the direction we’re going in.

iQ: What would you recommend to people entering the iQ Prize next year?
RB: Be different. Find a blue ocean market. Work day and night to get a prototype. Open-source your application form. Nail the presentation.

Follow Robin’s progress via the Decisions For Heroes Facebook page, blog and @d4h.

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Posted in Love iQ Prize | 1 Comment »

iQ Prize winner announced: Decisions for Heroes

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Winner: Decisions for Heroes

Robin Blandford (Decisions for Heroes) picking up his iQ Prize

After their Dragon’s Den style presentations to the judges earlier in the day, the 8 shortlisted candidates had to do it all again and present their elevator pitches to the 200 people in the audience.

Robin Blandford came out on top and picked up the €10,000 iQ Prize for his Decisions for Heroes application last night in the Guinness Storehouse.

Decisions for Heroes

Founded by young Irish entrepreneur Robin Blandford, Decisions For Heroes helps rescue teams ’save more lives‘. Identifying a common set of problems found in emergency services, the software was created to capture the information surrounding their rescue operations and training exercises. The system automatically performs analytical charting, draws heatmaps, and benchmarks reports to outline areas of strength, weakness, and expertise.

Robin plans to use the prize fund to travel to the United States with an aim to launch official trials with their emergency services, while back home in Dublin he’ll grow the company by taking on an operations expert, who will focus on data security, availability, and scalability.

Honourable mention: Plink

Plink, a very clever image-based search, picked up the people’s choice and a cheque for €1,000. Plink also got an honourable mention from the judging panel, with Facebook’s Head of Online Operations (EMEA), Colm Long, describing it as “game-changing technology“.

What’s Plink?

Here’s how it works:

  • Take a photograph of something with your mobile phone, instantly get more information.
  • Snap a photo of a book cover, get reviews and price comparison. Snap a CD cover, hear it on iTunes.
  • Snap a movie poster and instantly see the trailer.
  • Snap a painting, read the Wikipedia article.
  • No barcodes, tags or markers – Plink aims to provide direct recognition of the object, quickly and accurately, from a database of millions of items.

Thanks to our judges

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A massive thank you to all our judges who really underpinned the success of the iQ Prize. In taking time out of their busy lives, they added real veracity, validity and independence to the whole process. We really appreciate the time and effort they put in.

Thanks to everyone who:

  • Entered the prize. Our judges were truly overwhelmed (and overworked) by of the quality of the entrants.
  • Supported the idea and got the word out
  • Turned up on the night to support the shortlisted candidates

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Posted in iQ Prize in the news | 4 Comments »

Introducing the iQ Prize Shortlist: #5 Decisions For Heroes

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

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Volunteering as a cliff rescue climber for the Irish Coast Guard is pretty inspirational on its own, but Robin Blandford took an innovative step beyond, using his experiences to develop a new web application that saves lives – Decisions For Heroes.

Decisions For Heroes helps rescue teams record & analyse their rescue operations. Instead of archiving information as paperwork, the tool generates real-time profiles of members, available resources, and experience levels. This data is then used to monitor and deliver live and intelligent information to the field.

This unique idea has also captured attention beyond the iQ Prize, with Decisions For Heroes listed as a finalist for Seedcamp Week 2008, nominated for two prizes at the Irish Web Awards and most recently named as a finalist in The Europas award for Best Social Innovation.

Follow Decisions For Heroes at @D4H and Facebook, and check out our interview with Robin:

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Posted in Entrant information, iQ Prize in the news | 1 Comment »