On Wednesday 16th of December I had a great opportunity to join a great start-up talks session with StartUp Grind who hosted Richard Barnwell Board Member of Games Ireland, a not-for-profit organisation working to support, promote and drive sustainable growth for the games industry in Ireland.
Let's start from the beginning. That was my first meetup with StartUp Grind and I must admit a very impressive and interesting one in terms of organization as well as quality time!
Startup Grind is a global startup community educating, inspiring, and connecting entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 150 cities and 65 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. For more information visit StartupGrind.com or follow us on twitter@StartupGrind.
Thanks to this event I had an opportunity to visit Google office where the event was hosted. In a pleasant and comfortable atmosphere. You can see on the pictures below great night Dublin views from the top floor of the Google's building in the city center.
I have met a number of great people with fantastic start-up ideas and this proves again and again how much entrepreneurship is boosting. This is really great! I do believe the that the future is in the hands of entrepreneurs because great ideas and people behind them will change the world.
The event started with two great people from Startup Grind! One of them, David Scanlon (in the picture below on the right), has invited me to the event. Big thanks for giving me this great opportunity!
After a short StartUp Grind introduction there was a great session with Richard Barnwell.
Richard Barnwell is the founder and CEO of DIGIT Game Studio. Founded in 2012, DIGIT is the largest game development studio in Ireland: it has already developed Kings of the Realm, which was the biggest game launch in the history of the Irish gaming industry. DIGIT are now scaling up their studio to produce an iconic new title, and we'll be using the opportunity to chat with Richard and get an insight into the fascinating world of video game development.
Prior to founding DIGIT, Richard was CEO at Jolt Online Gaming (part of the GameStop network), and previous to that was a member of the senior management team at Jagex (a leading developer of MMO titles, including RuneScape). Richard is currently a Board Member of Games Ireland, a not-for-profit organisation working to support, promote and drive sustainable growth for the games industry in Ireland.
Richard shared with the audience his story about how he get involved in the gaming industry straight from college and all the way through of exciting times being part of a rapidly growing company, describing challenges and how to deal with them as well as giving great advice to those interested in creating game like working with brands and creating games using popular characters. After the chat between Richard (on the left in the picture above) and David (on the right in the picture above) everyone had an opportunity to ask questions and get more information and industry/company insight.
As it was my first event from StartUp Grind, I must say it was well organized and really informative. I would love to visit more of their events in the future!
