Jane Larson
Arizona Business Gazette
Feb. 28, 2008 12:00 AM
An Irish company that helps you retrieve lost electronic gadgets will have a presence at SkySong, Scottsdale's high-tech joint venture with Arizona State University.
Yougetitback Ltd. will be among the small foreign firms joining the Enterprise Arizona Venture Center, ASU's incubator for expanding international companies.
It's too soon to tell what sort of research or business opportunities the company will place at SkySong, but it will be in addition to the San Francisco office it opened in early 2007, said Julia Rosen, assistant vice president for economic affairs at ASU.
Yougetitback offers security tags that users register and paste on their cellphones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, iPods and laptops. If the item is lost, the finder contacts Yougetitback through its Web site or toll-free number and is eligible for a reward at the gadget owner's discretion.
Yougetitback will be the first Irish company in the incubator but not ASU's first connection with the Emerald Isle. University honchos started scouting Ireland a few years ago, figuring if the small country and its universities could reinvent themselves as a source of scientific and technological innovation, Arizona might, too.