We started the day taking a bus to the UCD Quinn School of Business where we got to hear from Allen Higgins regarding some of the reasons to move fungible jobs such as manufacturing to other countries. He mentioned that even though IT jobs are treated as fungible, they are not.
We also got to hear from Karl Whelan an economist who gave us a great overview on the economic outlook for Ireland.
He had provided a wonderful context to understand the economic climate and the advantages of Ireland even though he predicted a slower economic growth than the previous decade has seen.
We completed our time at UCD with a lecture in Irish history with Dr. Tom Feeny, before taking a quick walk around the campus and admiring some wonderful atriums that were first suggested by our professor while he still taught at UCD.
We then made our way over to Microsoft Ireland where we met with Bill Danna and Joe ffrench. It was a great visit and they provided the most honest and open dialog of any company we visited. There were also some great tips and ideas that they presented such as Reverse Mentoring and establishing a connection through social media to acquire talent. They spoke of the need to "TIP" -> Trust (contribute from day one), Impact (go beyond the job to make a difference), and Personal Development (consistently evolve and increase skills). They also mentioned to work in developing each employee as a leader "Look up, Step out".
To top off such a productive day we visited Johnnie Fox's Pub and Irish Hooley!
