Queen’s spin-out to create 10 new jobs 
26 May 2015
Spin-out business Eventmap, developed by Dr Barry McCollum and Dr Paul McMullan from the University’s Department of Computer Science, is creating 10 high tech jobs in Belfast.
With recent Invest Northern Ireland support of £85,000 augmenting the company’s own investment, Eventmap expects sales to grow to around £1 million by 2017 – aided by a new six-figure business win in Oman, supplying software to Sultan Qaboos University.
Eventmap supplies a range of software products and services that optimise timetabling and resource management within universities – enabling many large institutions to realise significant annual financial savings. The company is currently working with four of the UK's Russell Group universities and a further five of the top 100 universities in the world.
Eventmap has also been expanding from its core market in Higher Education, drawing on interest in its leading-edge optimisation technologies from the public sector and manufacturing industries. Partnering with large international companies including Capita business services and Knight Frank property consultants, Eventmap delivers solutions for projects such as the ongoing large scale development and roll-out of state-of-the-art training facilities for the Metropolitan Police Force.
Company CEO, Dr Barry McCollum said of Eventmap’s continued expansion: “This is an exciting time. Opportunities are opening up for us not only in the education sector but also within many areas of the public sector and in large-scale manufacturing – in fact, we see possibilities for our technology anywhere where very complex organisations can be made more efficient. Our recent success in Oman reflects this potential and is an important stepping stone for us in leveraging additional business in the Middle East.
“Over the next three years we will be implementing a marketing strategy to target sales within a number of national and international markets including UK, France, Portugal, Finland, Switzerland, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.”
“We’ll also be continuing to develop new technology, including advanced cloud-based solutions. Our mission is to further advance our position at the cutting edge of the resource management and software optimisation field.”
CTO Dr Paul McMullan, who is leading strategic operations in establishing cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) models, added: “The SaaS software model allows a much greater potential for research impact – delivering innovative ‘black box’ optimisation and simulation technology presented using a demand-driven, subscription based service to a global market.”
“There are many technical challenges in the development process, but we have a growing team of highly talented and dedicated graduates with the necessary skills to deliver robust and scalable solutions. We see our team expanding rapidly over the next few years as other application areas and markets start to recognise the potential of the technology.”
Commenting on InvestNI’s continued support of Eventmap, Director of Technology & Services George McKinney said: “Eventmap has invested significantly in research and development and the resulting innovative technology has enabled it to steadily gain market share. We are supporting Eventmap in a significant expansion that will create 10 quality jobs and help it to substantially grow sales, primarily in export markets.”
For further information on Eventmap, email Dr Barry McCollum or telephone 028 9023 6558
Sultan Qaboos University photo: Martin Dougiamas (CC BY 2.0)
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