The End of a Dream – Center for high-tech innovation in Ireland closing

Media Lab Europe, a high-tech research center founded by the Irish government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced Friday it is closing because it’s run out of money.

The project, launched in 2000 with high hopes of promoting innovation and incubating successful products in Europe, was supposed to become self-financing. The lab’s business model required around $13 million a year from corporate sponsors — but, with the dot.com bubble bursting soon after its opening, only a fraction of the hoped-for money came.

"In the end, it was too deep and too long a recession," said Simon Jones, the lab’s managing director.

By Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2005-01-14-irish-thintank-close_x.htm