18th July 2000

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From left to right: Sir Reg Empey, Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Professor Gerard Parr, joint director of NICeB: Secretary of State Peter Mandelson, Vice Chancellor Professor Gerry McKenna, and joint NICeB director Professor Dolores O'Reilly

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Rt Hon Peter Mandelson today became the first student of the Northern Ireland Centre for E-Business - the University of Ulster’s pioneering on-line business centre.

Mr Mandelson logged on as part of an ceremony at the University's Coleraine Campus to mark the opening of the £4.5m e-business centre.

The new centre, which will have a footprint on all four campuses of the university, as well as in UU-associated Further Education Colleges around the Province, offers local managers and decision-makers a "one stop shop" to help develop e-commerce in existing businesses or to encourage entrepreneurs to develop their e-businesses.

The University of Ulster is one of the leading providers of high quality research and teaching in Informatics and Business and Management in Europe. NICeB draws on the extensive range of research carried out across the University, relates it to the real world needs of local businesses and provides individual managers and organisations with training and support as they move towards full ebusiness operations.

The Northern Ireland Centre for E-Business (NICeB) integrates and creates a progressive series of activities for the local business community:

• The Centre maintains a comprehensive database of academic research in each Faculty and issues regular e-business briefings summarising key findings and demonstrating how these can make an impact on business processes
  


• The Centre provides a portfolio of innovative teaching and training courses at its four campuses and elsewhere in the north of Ireland. These are delivered both online, so that participants can work at their own pace and in their own study space, and face to face, allowing for group discussion and networking among participants. The Centre will also provide resources for teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate courses throughout the University.
  


• The Centre has created a support network to provide practical help and guidance as organisations and individuals make decisions and take action to develop knowledge, skills and experience for their e-business.
  

Through NICeB, participants will have access to the Virtual University for Small and Medium-size Enterprises (VUSME). This is a comprehensive range of 22 self access courses which provide the knowledge and hands on skills required by managers and entrepreneurs in e-business.

The Centre aims to work with at least 500 individuals in its first year of operation, with opportunities for participants, from every type of business organisation in the local economy, building their awareness of the emerging technologies of the Internet and providing hands on expertise in using them.

The Centre is funded partly by the University and partly by the generous support of BT, First Trust Bank and LEDU. Opportunities to develop further funded opportunities for collaborative projects with local, national and international partners are being vigorously pursued by the Centre's Directors and senior management.

Joint directors of the new Centre are Professors Dolores O’Reilly and Gerard Parr

Professor Dolores O’Reilly said, "This exciting new e-business Centre will help Northern Ireland become a fast growing, competitive, innovative knowledge-based economy of the future. NICe.B will offer local managers and decision-makers a "one stop shop" to help develop e-commerce in existing businesses or to encourage entrepreneurs to develop their e-businesses".

Professor Parr said: "NICe.B represents a major commitment by the University of Ulster to provide a vehicle to make Northern Ireland an electronic/mobile information society.

In so doing, there are many challenges before us, not least that of overcoming some of the confusion that exists amongst those organisations and companies who have the most to benefit from, but are not yet persuaded to grasp the "digital opportunity". In recent weeks we have been in discussion with a number of major companies including Microsoft UK, BT Cellnet, Sun Microsystems, NTL, Cisco Systems, Intel and Nokia. All have expressed their desire to develop a working relationship with NICe.B to further our objectives. We will continue to work closely with these, and other companies, to ensure that NICe.B provides the best possible suite of services to Northern Ireland."

Further information on NICeB is available on their website,
http://niceb.ulst.ac.uk/

For further information, please contact:

Press Office Department of Communication and Development
Telephone: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk