I’ve just returned home to California’s Silicon Valley after my most recent visit to my first home — Belfast. Working with a dozen or so entrepreneurs, technologists and potential business leaders at the Science Park’s Entrepreneur Academy, I was struck by how brilliant, how inspired and how inspiring they are.

They are as good as any I’ve seen in the world and I’ve led product and sales teams around the globe. And how much they didn’t realise their own potential - I saw five to 10 times greater opportunities for their products and services, and I would consider some of them to be “game changers”. I wonder how far they could go, how far the technology industry of Northern Ireland could go, if they were encouraged to have ambition.

As I look to the global economic situation, rather than being depressed, I see opportunity for Northern Irish tech companies and Northern Ireland as a whole.

There’s always opportunity when markets are in transition. I also see a particular challenge for Northern Ireland — it’s small, less than the population of Santa Clara county in Silicon Valley, and way behind in the evolution of entrepreneurship. But, I've noticed the considerable talent of, and opportunity for, technology entrepreneurs from Northern Ireland.

I know from decades of experience in the tech industry in the USA, that without clear vision and bold leadership, many brilliant opportunities are left fallow.

In Northern Ireland it is particularly true; it’s not from lack of talent, ideas or from wanting to succeed. In many cases it is simply because it is not clear how to progress those opportunities and how to see ambition and visual success. In the past six months I've seen some world-class opportunities that “just don't fit” into a standard envelope, requiring cross-functional this, or cross-organisation that, or didn't have the right boxes ticked. Northern Ireland is too small to waste opportunities like this. You know what they say, when one door closes another bangs shut. I’m tired of hearing slamming doors — it’s time to jam them open.

I see a great talent; passionate entrepreneurs who could be the next Google or Cisco. But the ecosystem for entrepreneurial success is lacking. There are few technology success stories in Northern Ireland where a company has achieved $100m on the world stage. Without those entrepre- neurs mentoring and guiding the next generation, there is no evolution. The venture industry is small and risk limited. There is a crying need for the ecosystem to evolve.

There needs to be vision and bold leadership, and a call to action that could include: Re-brand and re-launch Northern Ireland as a real “software destination.”

If Northern Ireland was a product, and I was the product manager, I’d form a product launch team to reintroduce Northern Ireland to the world stage; create a compelling value proposition, develop a Go-To-Market plan for NI technology and companies, and a strategic marketing plan to rebrand, reposition and relaunch Northern Ireland to leapfrog the competition. And then go out and start winning, or die trying.

• Aggressively reach out to the diaspora. Invite them in. Listen to them. If you are reading this anywhere on the planet and you have a connection (or even feel you have a connection) to Northern Ireland, you are invited. If you are in Northern Ireland and can provide time, resources or expertise then you are invited. It’s no good just cheering (or sneering) from the sidelines anymore.

• Get much more real operational experience into the funding industry. It needs someone who has actually started — and even failed in trying to start — a company to advise entrepreneurs It needs someone who has actually run the operations of a big ($100m+) successful company to help companies grow that big and see round corners to avoid those inevitable landmines.

The most successful Northern Ireland technology entrepreneurs no longer live there, but almost all want to give back! It appears to me — again looking from the outside but being a regular visitor and investor — that the “Delorean effect” has eliminated any real risk tolerance or taking by the public sector, and has suppressed ambition in the public sector.

Safe bets have low return! There is absolutely no reason why the next Google cannot come from Northern Ireland. All it needs are two computer science graduates and $100,000 — yes, that’s what started Google! And is there no technology reason why Google servers have to be in Mountain View, CA. Let’s get that ambition back, focused and harnessed into something that will make the world drop its jaw!

Let’s use any channel we can to talk; let’s start with the internet. You can find some of us talking already. There is a Twitter feed, www.twitter.com/AAligNI . There is a Facebook Group, AAligNI. There is a LinkedIn Group AAligNI. And there are a lot of emails flying around already. Contact me if you would like to be included.

Talk is cheap, but now it’s game on! Anyone?

Belfast-born David Kirk has been in the computer and networking industries for almost four decades. In 1983, he moved to Silicon Valley, and has worked at senior executive level in several firms such as AOL and Telepost and across multiple industries including software, internet, networking and telecommunications