00:00So my name is Fergus O'Donnell, I'm the Vice President of Wafer Operations for
00:17SEGA Technology here in Northern Ireland.
00:19And Fergus O'Donnell, what's happened here today, and obviously there's a huge investment
00:23cut.
00:24Yep, today we're delighted to make a significant announcement with Invest Northern Ireland.
00:29So we're announcing a £115 million investment over the next five years.
00:38And that's focusing on our photonics development.
00:41A large part of that, especially with the interest of the Gold Dairy, is that bringing
00:46more jobs here in the dairy in the Seagate?
00:49I believe there's 30 highly skilled jobs coming along with that investment.
00:54That's correct.
00:55As part of the investment, there's 33 plus jobs coming with that investment.
01:02Sorry, go on.
01:04No, and as I was mentioning, over the last 12 months we've added 200 people to our site as
01:10well.
01:11So are you aiming to employ people locally from dairy itself, or is it a broader net than
01:16that?
01:17We, you know, I think what makes us successful is the relationship that we have with both
01:22academia and government and industry.
01:27And that we get that from our local universities of Queen's University and Ulster University and
01:31all the other academic colleges in the area.
01:35So we do attract people globally.
01:39So we, you know, we've greater than 20 nationalities working on the site.
01:45But the biggest percentage would be local.
01:48Yeah.
01:49The jobs were described as a skilled, are you pulling from, say, the likes of McGee, because
01:54they have a big emphasis on technology space when it comes to AI development?
01:59Yeah, we're pulling from Ulster University and pulling from Queen's University.
02:05So we're looking for, we're looking for engineers and we're looking for scientists.
02:10Obviously 150 pounds, I think a lot of money, so obviously there is a commitment here in
02:19dairy, but could you just reiterate that, so you get this commitment to dairy and employing
02:24people from dairy?
02:25No, absolutely, if you, if you think of how we, the investment is broken down.
02:31So 15 million of it is from Invest Northern Ireland, 100 million of that is from Seagate.
02:37So that's a real, you know, a huge, Seagate demonstrating huge confidence in the local
02:43site here.
02:44First of all, you said that there is a city of transformation.
02:49Do you feel like Seagate is part of that?
02:50Do you feel like you're part of the balding blocks that is changing there?
02:53Yeah, well I think, you know, we've been here over, over 30 years and when the decision
02:59was first made to come to the city, the idea was that it would just be a manufacturing facility
03:04and it would be in the order of maybe 500 jobs.
03:08If you fast forward now 30 years, we're both a manufacturing and design and development
03:14centre and we've over 1500 employees.
03:17So we certainly have gone with the journey that the city and the region has gone through.
03:22What's it like looking back at those early days when there's a smaller number now where there's
03:26a huge number of a massive investment coming on?
03:29Well, I think what speaks volumes for Seagate technology and for the Springtown team is so
03:37many of those people have been here 20, 25, 30 plus years and have stayed with the company.
03:44And it is that, you know, it's not just the skills and the hard work, but it's that dedication
03:52that our workforce brings to make us successful.
