2 August 2012

Startacus - the Self Start Society helping young people, creative individuals and the unemployed set-up their own businesses has launched. And in a partnership with Creative Barcode it includes easy and cost efficient Intellectual Property protection

Just 12 months ago Alastair Cameron, a Recruitment Business Manager was facing redundancy. Rather than get despondent and downbeat about the challenging employment market, he decided to create his own job and secure his future.

He successfully applied for funding from Arts Council NI, and began development of a new platform to bring fellow self starting individuals together.

The memorable and aptly named Startacus has launched and the self-start society has begun.  

 

The Startacus platform aims to inspire, support and motivate people across the UK and Ireland to fully realise their self-start potential.

Startacus will bring together a community of self-starters who will help and support each other and access the tools and resources they need to properly flourish. In autumn 2012, Startacus will develop further by enabling its’ members to add projects and collaborate with each other to turn those projects into new businesses and new income.

 

Through his own experience Alastair recognised the importance of trust within a self-start community particularly where new ideas and business propositions were a focal point of disclosure and collaboration. He therefore approached another business start-up Creative Barcode launched in September 2010 which provides a trust based, non-complex and affordable ideas and intellectual property protection system to creative businesses, individuals, entrepreneurs and start-ups of all type.

 

Maxine Horn, CEO, Creative Barcode comments “ I love the concept of Startacus and believe it will attract entrepreneurial types with new business and creative ideas they wish to realise in collaboration with others and where knowledge and skills can be shared to maximum effect. In doing so, a trust based, affordable and non-complex Intellectual Property mechanism will provide a comfort blanket to support co-creation, ideas sharing and disclosure”.   

 

Explaining the thinking behind Startacus, Alastair Cameron, explained:

 

“When faced with redundancy and wanting to create my own job, I felt there was a massive gulf between having that initial eureka moment and taking the next step to becoming self employed. I recognized that I wasn’t alone in not knowing where to go next. I wanted to create something that would help other people in my position.

 

I recognised that the majority of existing platforms aimed at self-starters tended to focus on those who had purely financial motivations for doing their own thing. There is nothing wrong with that but there are many people who simply want to pursue their passions and are motivated by creativity, using their talents and following their dreams. So I chose to provide a fully inclusive platform where the independent creative and the business focused self-starters could come together, connect, create and collaborate.”

 

The Arts Council’s Creative Industries Innovation Fund provides seed funding for local companies to plug skills gaps and encourage growth within this important sector. 

 

David McConnell, Creative industries Development Fund Officer at the Arts Council, commented: 

 

“Startacus is an original idea from two young entrepreneurs who want to create business support for other creative start-ups. The Creative Industries are one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. We already have the resources and talent here and if we continue to support local companies in developing their ideas, Northern Ireland will be much better equipped to compete at the forefront of the global market.”

 

There is a train of thought that society is broken, that the economy will continue to shrink and that good jobs will become harder to find and even harder to keep. However, Startacus does not share that philosophy or mind-set; it believes its self-starter platform will give self-starters everywhere the confidence, support and collaborative environment they need to get them closer to doing their own thing.  

 

For further information, please contact:

 

Alastair Cameron, Founder of Startacus

Tel: 07855833121

 

Notes to editors

1. Startacus is a new online platform from TheEmployable based in Derry, Northern Ireland.

2. Startacus is aimed at a UK and Ireland wide audience of self starters

3. The platform aims to be ‘the” online place for self starters to connect, create and collaborate

 
 About Creative Barcode

 

Launched in September 2010 Creative Barcode provides entrepreneurs, creative people and innovators with a non-complex and low cost means to authenticate & protect and safely-disclose their concepts to third parties. Creative Barcode itself is the first innovation in the Intellectual Property (IP) sector for more than 3 decades, fit for the digital age. Creative Barcode opens-up innovation by reducing the vulnerability of disclosure of ideas, concepts, and designs, in both their written and visual formats, pre-commercialization.

Creative Barcode is legally robust, non-complex protection system affordable to every individual Creator up to the largest company or University worldwide.

Using digital barcodes, file transfer records and a trust charter agreement, Creative Barcode gives formal authentication, ownership and protection to concepts and establishes an evidential & measureable value to innovation journeys.

Endorsed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and with users in over 19 Countries across 5 continents the Creative Barcode system has never been breached

 

www.creativebarcode.com    Twitter @creativebarcode

 

For further information

Contact Maxine Horn team@creativebarcode.com

Alastair Cameron
Startacus
Northern Ireland
iam@startacus.net
http://www.startacus.net