Dragon's Den star and Smart Futures ambassador Barry O'Sullivan's stellar career in the technology sector came about almost by chance.
The man who helped turn Cisco into the world's number one unified communications company and who co-founded the highly influential Irish Technology Leadership Group in Silicon Valley back in 2007 wanted to study dentistry when he left school.
"I studied engineering in UCC partly by accident," he recalls. "I wanted to become a dentist but the father of a friend told me about that year's class of UCC electrical engineering graduates who had all been flown to California and got jobs. It was a pretty arbitrary decision by me to do engineering but it seems to have worked out."
On graduating from UCC O'Sullivan went to work as a design engineer with Nortel in Galway and moved to California with the company at the age of 25. He later moved into the business development side of the firm and was running a division of Nortel by the time he moved to Cisco in 2002.
He started out in a new division which was working on voice over internet protocol technology which was still in its infancy at that stage. “When I started it had turnover of $50 million. Since then it has grown hugely in the unified communications space which includes video as well. It has been a huge success story and is now a $4 billion division employing 4,000 people.”
He left the company in 2014 to set up Altocloud, a software company which aims to improve customer engagement experiences in the e-commerce and inside sales areas. "At Cisco we went from zero to being number one in the market," he notes. "After that I moved into corporate development and I got to see a lot of start-ups and invested in some myself while doing that."
His experience in Cisco also told him that contact centre systems offered an area ripe for new solutions. “Calling a contact centre is a pretty horrible experience. Of all the communications experiences this one hadn’t been tackled well. I didn’t see a lot of places to go in Cisco so I founded Altocloud to tackle the contact centre area. We started the business in 2014 and formally launched in March with a seed round of $2 million. We are really happy with the way it’s been going. We have 20 customers now and anticipate adding 40 more over the next year. We have an engineering team in Galway and we are really pleased with the quality and diversity of people we’ve been able to get.”
With 80 new jobs in the technology sector being created every week in Ireland he acknowledges that not every company is so fortunate when it comes to attracting qualified staff. "There are approximately 6,000 IT vacancies in Ireland at the moment," he says. "While there were 3,358 ICT graduates in 2014, this needs to increase to 5,390 in 2018 just to keep pace with demand. Ireland is not educating enough ICT graduates for the opportunities available. The problem isn't limited to the technology sector; there is also a need to boost the numbers studying science, engineering and maths courses at third level."
This need is what led him to take on the role of ambassador for the Science Foundation Ireland managed Smart Futures programme. The programme provides a coordinated platform for science and tech companies to reach out to young people and their parents to explain what a career in science, tech or engineering involves.
“Companies are finding it challenging to get the right people,” says O’Sullivan. “The last time we had a technology skills shortage it was confined to the tech industry. Technology is now part of every industry – hotels, taxis, healthcare. Technology is transforming them all and there are a lot of opportunities going after a small pool of people. Smart Futures is trying to engage people to consider careers in technology and to take the STEM subjects required for them.”
He points out that one of the issues is that young people quote often can’t see themselves as the type of person who does a particular job – data scientists, genetic engineers and so on. “Smart Futures is trying to put real people with those jobs in front of second level students almost as role models. We want them to see real people who have real careers, not just people in white coats.”
The programme is built around volunteers going out to visit schools. “First-hand testimonies are the best way to show young people what they are missing in not choosing careers in areas like ICT,” O’Sullivan says. “People working in industry volunteer to visit schools and show young people first-hand how exciting the world of innovation in Ireland is. Employers are looking for more graduates with skills like analytical thinking or programming, so it’s a win-win if companies come on board to dispel any stereotypes about courses like computer science or electronic engineering. The volunteers explain what they do and talk about the social side as well as the career and travel opportunities. They can also point out that people in technology careers enjoy salaries 29 per cent higher than the average.”
Career advice and video case studies of volunteers are also available on the SmartFutures.ie website. Teachers can also use the site to request a visit from a volunteer to give a career talk in their school.
“I am very passionate about this,” he adds. “I have had a great career based on an arbitrary decision because somebody took the time to try to influence me. For people who are not sure what they want to do we want to show them what their options are. For Ireland the more young people that we can attract into these areas the better. We need to allow our young people to have choices in what they want to do and not be dictated to by economic circumstances.”
To date, over 50 companies have been involved in the initiative but more are needed according to O’Sullivan. “There is no point in companies highlighting that Ireland is not producing enough graduates with the relevant qualifications. We would be better off becoming part of the solution. The industry has to be involved in tackling the problem and the best way to achieve that is through a coordinated approach. I would encourage science, technology and engineering companies to get involved with the Smart Futures programme to help get the message out to the young people on whom our future success depends.”
