Dublin social software company Locle, which has developed a ‘friend finder’ mapping application for mobile phones, has beaten off stiff competition to win the Docklands Innovation Park Enterprise Awards 2009 and with it a prize of €10,000. The award was presented by Paul Maloney, Chief Executive, Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

Locle is a social mapping application for mobile phones that combines information from a user’s mobile handset address book with social networks such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace to create mapping services showing them where their friends are. Locle is an enhanced mobile web experience that facilitates ‘here’s where I am, and here’s where my friends are’ for social networks and groups.

Co-founder of Locle, Ronan Higgins (pictured here with Bernadette O’Reilly, Innovation Centre Manager, DIT Hothouse and Cairin O’Connor, Development Director, Docklands Innovation Park) had 15 minutes to present its business plan to a panel of judges comprising Sean Melly of Powerscourt Investments; Michael Murphy of NCB Ventures; Sean Mitchell from Movidia and Michael Farrelly from TNS Media Market.

Established in 2008 by Higgins and co-founder, Peter Oonk, Locle has already received several awards including the eircom web innovation award, was shortlisted for the 2008 Golden Spider Best Mobile Application Award and the 2008 Nokia Mobile Innovation Award.

The company has already secured seed funding to take it through year 1 and has received letters of interest from two of Europe’s largest and fastest growing social networks ( Netlog and Badoo ) representing over 60 million users. The company is a Charter member of the Oslo Alliance ( read more ) formed by the top fifteen location based social software companies.

The other finalists at the awards were Microbide and Matt Bonner's Trezur which is building software tools for the music industry, each receiving €1,500.

Now in its seventh year, the Docklands Innovation Park Enterprise Awards programme is the initiative of the Bolton Trust and DIT Hothouse and is aimed at showcasing the best innovative companies to investors.

Bolton Trust

The Bolton Trust was established in 1987 at the height of Ireland’s ‘brain drain’ to promote an enterprise culture and to offer young entrepreneurs an opportunity to develop their business ideas in Ireland. There are now 400 people currently employed by the 70 companies based at the 150,000 square foot Docklands Innovation Park on East Wall Road.

DIT Hothouse

Hothouse is the award winning Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at Dublin Institute of Technology. Hothouse draws in entrepreneurial and academic talent. Based in Docklands Innovation Park, it is a place that ignites creativity and provides an exciting and dynamic environment to fast-track businesses and technologies to commercial enterprises.

The Hothouse Venture Programme is a one-year training and support programme aimed at experienced graduate entrepreneurs engaged in the process of establishing knowledge-intensive businesses with global potential. A recent survey of previous participant companies indicated that 145 companies have created in excess of 950 jobs.

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