Ultan Technologies wins at Docklands Innovation Awards

On Thursday, March 1st, three Irish start-ups battled it out to win the overall 2012 Docklands Innovation Awards. The eventual winner was new software venture Ultan Technologies.

The three ventures had to pitch their investment proposals at the Docklands Innovation Park in Dublin City. The start-ups then answered questions from a panel of judges on their business plans. The judges were Gerry Jones, managing partner at EVP; David Sneddon, director, Germany, Austria, Switzerland at Google; and Debbie Rennick, director at ACT Venture Capital. The awards themselves are supported by Bolton Trust, DIT Hothouse and PwC.

Cathal Brady is the CEO Ultan Technologies, which scooped the overall prize. The start-up has developed software products to enable Water Schemes to bill and manage customers more efficiently.

Brady already has 22 years of experience in software business development. He has worked with companies such as MasterCard, British Telecom, Misys, Orbiscom, McNally Kitchens and ICL.

Ivan McDonald of Dial2Do spoke last night about how companies like Ultan Technologies represent the best of creative Irish entrepreneurship.

Pictured at the PwC Docklands Innovation Awards ceremony at Spencer Dock is the winner, Cathal Brady from Ultan Technologies (right in photo) with Ronan Murphy, Senior Partner, PwC (Awards sponsor) and Joan Burton, T.D., Minister for Social Protection.

More information on the awards and the event can be found here.

Start-ups go head-to-head in enterprise awards battle at PwC headquarters Spencer Dock - Best investment proposal set to win trophy and 10,000 Euro

Three companies, each seeking expansion funding, will battle it out at the Docklands Innovation Park Enterprise Awards to secure the title of best investment proposal for 2012 and a prize of 10,000 Euro.

This year PwC, Ireland’s largest professional services organisation, again co-sponsors the awards.

The finalists, all of whom are graduates of the Dublin Institute of Technology Hothouse Venture Programme, will pitch their investment proposals and be questioned by an experienced panel of judges on their business plans.

The three shortlisted individuals are:

• Kevin Egan, Team Traders
• Kieran Murphy, Traders Now
• Cathal Brady, Ultan Technologies

More information on the awards can be found here.

Save up to 40,000 Euro with Mapping Functionality for Water Utilities

H2OCIS, Ultan Technologies' Billing and Customer Information solution for Water Utilities, provides mapping functionality for free.

Up to now, Water Schemes have paid Engineering companies up to €40,000 to map all of their water meters. They got a a static map and an AutoCad disc for this €40,000.

Documentation on how to access the mapping functionality in the H2OCIS product is available here.


Maps in the H2OCIS are interactive:

• Details about any item can appear on the map - for example a meter's current reading can appear beside the meter

• New items (meters and customers) can easily be added by the H2OCIS user and old ones removed
  
  
• The user can use search functionality to only display selected items on a map - for example a map showing only the meters on a particular route
  
  
• They can zoom in and out
  
  
• They can display a road map view, an aerial view or a combination of both
  

If a Water Scheme has already mapped their meters, they can easily upload all co-ordinates to the system. If they don't already have co-ordinates, they can use H2OCIS to plot each customer and meter on a map.

In future versions of the product, additional functionality will be available including:

• Phone applications for reading meters – these will use the maps and will notify the reader when they are close to a relevant meter
  

• The ability to attach a photo to each meter – great for accurately showing its location

• Route planning for meter reading - including creating routes on popular Satellite Navigation systems
  
  
• Plotting a complete pipe network
  
  
• Plotting items such as booster pumps, scour valves, stop valves, sluice valves, treatment facilities, sources, intake pipes, source catchment areas, etc
  
  
• Relevant information on each of these items (e.g. the turn direction for a valve)
  
  
• Plotting possible leaks
  
  
• Different icons for each of the different types of items on the map
  

If you have access to the product you can see the maps in action now - see documentation here.


If you haven't yet seen the product, contact us and we will give you access.

Ultan Technologies featured in the latest edition of the NFGWS magazine

The NFGWS is the umbrella body for Water Schemes in Ireland.

They publish a quarterly magazine with lots of interesting articles on the water industry.

We are featured in the Autumn 2011 issue which you can access here. See Page 18.

Microsoft Data Center - some videos

Our Water Utility Billing and Customer Service Management System is hosted in Microsoft's Data Centers. All data for our Irish customers are stored in Microsoft's Dublin data centre which is the size of 7 football fields (American football, I think!).

Trucks of Servers

Microsoft can expand the capacity of this centre by 24,000 servers at a time by using their unique server pods which are built as standard truck containers:



Delivering and Connecting a Truckload of Servers

A truck delivers a new pod, it's put in place, they connect water, data and power and 24,000 new servers are ready to go (The Dublin centre is depicted at the end of this video):



The Microsoft Cloud
The Dublin Data Center is just one of the many Microsoft data centers that make up the Microsoft Cloud (data for our Irish customers will only be stored in Dublin).

A 10 minute video of their cloud infrastructure:



Lots more detail on the Microsoft Cloud can be accessed at http://mountainss.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/microsoft-shares-video-tour-of-its-cloud-data-centers/.

Ultan Technologies developing a new Billing system for utilities

Ultan Technologies is developing a Billing and Customer Relationship Management software system for Water Utilities.

The first group of water utilities whose needs are being met are Irish Water Schemes. The software is being developed specifically for them – after careful analysis of their requirements following several discussions with schemes throughout Ireland.

The system is very easy to use, administer and maintain. As it has been developed specifically for water schemes, there is no extraneous functionality to confuse users.

It is available online, so there is no need to purchase a server, worry about doing backups or be concerned about users’ computers failing – the system will be available from any computer with an internet connection and a recent version of Internet Explorer.

The system is hosted by Microsoft in their data centres in Ireland.

The system comes with meter data management, invoice creation, payment management, customer management, rate management, discount management, customer relationship management, service management and user management.

In addition, there are several out-of-the-box reports available.

Users can develop their own reports. All data can be exported in several formats.

There is a really strong functional roadmap for future versions of the product. This includes online payments, customer portals, automatic estimates, budget billing, SMS messaging to customers, etc.

Contact us here for more information.

Ultan Technologies secures funding from Enterprise Ireland

Ultan Technologies has secured funding from Enterprise Ireland to further develop its Billing and CRM software for Utilities.

Ultan Technologies is developing Billing and CRM software for utility companies. Initially, the product will be offered to water utilities in Ireland and in the US.

The product can also be used by other utilities and organisations who regularly bill their customers for products and services.