With technology developed in the Cork region being showcased during a two-day summit of the Irish Technology Leadership Group's (ITLG) global technology leaders, the summit will apparently have Cork positioned as Ireland's Silicon Valley.

The summit in Cork will be attended by some of the most influential technology personalities of the world; and will be the first key business event of the ITLG's Gathering 2013. It was five years back that the ITLG was set up in San José, chiefly with the objective of providing Irish startups with incubation space and hot-desk facilities.

With around 50 firms having been selected to pitch technology-related proposals to the international investors, the summit - being held in City Hall - will include panel debates from Irish businesses; with the participants chiefly including the representatives from bigwig organisations like Coder Dojo, Cisco, Optivia Biotechnology, Irish Principal's Network, and Enterprise Ireland.

Moreover, for exploring investment opportunities in sectors like biotech, nanotechnology, gaming, software, and cloud, the 20-member US delegation - headed by ITLG chairman Dr Craig R Barrett - will also visit the EMC, Tyndall National Institute, UCC, and the Nimbus Centre at CIT.

About the summit, Magnet Networks' CEO Mark Kellett said that the discussions will focus on "the challenges of big data," as well as on "the emergence of mega data, its impact on the cloud and the new employment opportunities it presents for Ireland Inc."