Galway hosts global tech leaders to mark 10 years of PorterShed
Galway will host a national gathering of global technology leaders this April as PorterShed marks 10 years of building an innovation ecosystem in the West with the launch of PorterShed Spark, an invite-only one-day summit at Dexcom Stadium on 23 April 2026.
Spark will bring together international venture capital, European AI infrastructure leadership and the head of Ireland’s state enterprise agency alongside founders, operators and policymakers for a future-focused conversation on what comes next for technology, entrepreneurship and innovation beyond capital cities.
A new independent socio-economic impact study by KPMG, assessing PorterShed’s contribution to the regional economy between 2016 and 2026, will be unveiled during the event.
Mary Rodgers, CEO of PorterShed, said the intention is to bring together the people actively shaping what comes next.
“Spark is about bringing the right people into the room, founders, investors, infrastructure leaders and policymakers who are actively building. The West has already shown it can produce globally relevant companies. Now it’s about ambition, connection and making sure the next decade is even stronger,” she said.
The speaker line-up includes a member of the Government’s AI Advisory Council Sean Blanchfield, CEO and Co-Founder of Jentic, previously co-founded Demonware, Phorest and PageFair.
Elaine Brennan, Executive Director of Global Strategic Partnerships at Northwell Health, brings experience from one of the largest healthcare systems in the US, spanning pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device innovation partnerships.
Albane Bruyas, Chief Operating Officer of Scaleway, represents Europe’s critical digital infrastructure layer.
Also speaking is Jenny Melia, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, the state agency responsible for supporting Irish companies to grow and compete globally.
US venture capital perspective will come from Mike Krenn, Managing Director of Prebys Ventures, a $50 million evergreen fund investing exclusively in San Diego-based life sciences and technology companies.
The programme also includes Mark Little, founder of Storyful (acquired by News Corp) and Kinzen (acquired by Spotify), and former Vice President for Media at Twitter in Europe; Stuart Brydson, with more than 35 years’ experience across enterprise software leaders including Siebel Systems, Oracle and ServiceNow; Paul Hayes, Founder and Director of Beachhut PR and long-time advisor to Irish start-ups; and Rob O’Shaughnessy, known globally to more than 40,000 developers as Rob Shocks, an educator in the world of AI development.
Attendance is by invite only and a limited expression-of-interest process is open at portershed.com/spark.