Happy Christmas!

It's been another one of those whirlwind creative years here at Starlight and we're really excited for next year. A new year, a new canvas, a new opportunity to spread some of our Starlight magic.

As it's Christmas and all, we've put together this little ecard for all our friends. So enjoy it. We pledge that if more than 200 people visit our ecard then we'll donate €200 to COPE Galway. So share the love and send this card to your friends (and it won't even cost you a cent!).

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. :)

The Best Bits of Ex Ordo in 2011

Ex Ordo is a web application that we built to manage academic and research conferences.

• January: Compiled Business Plan.
• February: Secured inital seed funding from the Galway Enterprise Board and Bank of Ireland.
• April: Gerard Cahill and Dermot Lally joined the team.
• April-June: Rebuilt the platform using Ruby, Padrino, Backbone.js and Agile/Scrum.
• July: Opened the new platform to our first customer.
• September: Launched our Marketing Site (www.exordo.com) and Ex Ordo was incorporated.
• October: Won 2 Irish Web Awards (Best Web App and Best Practice).
• November: Demo'd Ex Ordo to the IEEE.
• December: Made our first US sale and started pitching to angel investors.

What Else Happened in 2011?

• Launched Forgotten Heroes - a web based game that educates school kids about the Vikings.
• Working with GenoSpace - A Cambridge, Massachusetts startup that's developing an app to manage genomic data.
• Paul was runner up in the JCI Galway Young Entrepreneur Awards 2011.
• Working with Seniors at Home - An Irish startup assisting older people to live independently in their own homes.
• Paul joined The Digital Academy and now leads their App Development Faculty.
• Launched WeVolunteer.ie - an online exhibition that celebrates Irish volunteerism in Higher Education.
• Paul co-organised Bizcamp Galway with his fellow Mowaggers.

David Gilmore, one of the original Starlight team members sadly passed away in April 2011.
He was an inspiration to us all and is fondly missed.

What's Planned for 2012?

• Expand the Ex Ordo team and hire 3 sales and marketing people.
• Raise angel investment.
• Secure 150 conferences worldwide.
• Co-organise the Code Ninja (student app development) project.
• Get a place on NDRC Launchpad (Ireland's first tech start-up accelerator programme).
• Be awarded Enterprise Ireland HPSU status.