Building a wall has become a throwaway comment in the past year, but this week we saw how not doing it properly could be a matter of life and death in our schools. Today’s Irish Times headline shows that audits of safety flaws first flagged in 2015 are now just emerging, but these schools were built in the heady days of Celtic tiger, 10 years before that. Paper audits of compliance standards are the equivalent of locking the door after the horse has bolted!
VERI is a Google award winning training compliance company working with the likes of the Irish Red Cross and Wheel Chair Association. Veri’s new  H&S mobile app streamlines construction training compliance in real time! Bringing job site automation for construction contractors, their subcontractors, workers and most important site supervisors. So now you have real time live overview of who is doing the work, are they insured, qualified and trained for the role. Recording audits and communicating toolbox training happening on the site. It simplifies remediation of problems by arranging training as accreditation go out of date.  Reducing risk and improving standards.
This week the team at Veri met the following construction companies at the Enterprise Ireland Meet the Buyer event in Charleville. Led by Veri’s Construction manager engineer Eugena Valadkevich,  real time overview of training compliance was on the top of everyone’s agenda.  FCC Construction and Aramark Ireland Ltd. John Sisk & Son Ltd and Choice Housing, Rhatigan OHL Ltd and Derwent FM.
Leaders in innovation Robert Quinn construction Ltd ( builders of MSD plant Carlow) have just gone live with Veri for their sites and subcontractors. The product is available now with a free and simple online training audit,  the first step to having real time overview of workers and subcontractors compliance. Take the audit now Click here
For more information call us on +353 87 687 48 87.

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Cork BIC, Google, IT Carlow Catalyst, ETBI Annual Conference, Amplitude WIT, NILGA 2018, Crystal VAlley Tech Summit
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“85% of Cork Bic Assisted Startups survive their first 5 years”
As Veri hits their second birthday, having launched at a CPL’s FET conference back in 2016, Cork BIC’s 30-year celebration event this week made me want to note the importance for our journey in meeting clients, listening to experienced entrepreneurs and working hard.
Already this Autumn we shared a stage at Google with Sarita Johnson looking at the Entrepreneurial mindset and had the great opportunity for some free advice from Sandra Healy Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at DCU. With a hugely successful background in sales, we spent a good forty minutes in the green room discussing what we need for our next steps at VERI. Invaluable professional time I would have paid for and really appreciate.
With IT Carlow Catalyst launch and Cork Bic celebratory event on the 1st of October, we decided to divide and conquer. Shane Barron our CTO was blown away by the Nano Nagle centre and the content that MC Pete Smyth and Fionnula Wall’s team brought to the celebration of their 30 years supporting SME’s. Cork Bic and the entrepreneur experience were pivotal for Veri in its first year in business.
Veri was privileged last week to meet Minister Richard Bruton at the really well run and empowering conference by ETBI focusing on diversity. In 2017 we invested in this conference with our new stand and new idea, digitising quality to get more out of mandatory QA that paper and headaches. We had a lot of smiles and even some conversations but no definitive leads or conversions.
Roll on 12 months and with persistence and endurance, we were meeting current clients, booking demo days with decision makers and creating new partnerships.

“Dr. John Teeling is quite simply a legend. If you haven’t heard him speak then make sure to find his next chat session for great insights gleaned over decades and many businesses”
Conal O’Morain was the MC at the Interegg Pilot Catalyst Wales and Ireland Programme yesterday and our CEO Ann-Marie Mc Sorley had the pleasure of sharing the stage with a Dr. John Teeling, whiskey tights and UCD lectures were how he was introduced but his talk was really uplifting. The pilot of Catalyst was a mentor Programme called inspire and it was here that the kernel for Veri was born.

Dr. Teeling asked us how long we were in business and on our answer that it was our second birthday, he made me smile “you are still in the valley of death so?” Don’t worry my first business took 11 years for me to make money you have loads of time!
His takeaway for me was that you have to have the passion to be the visionary for your product. You have to have the resources for money people and timing. And most importantly you have to have the resilience when things don’t go according to plan. Each point hitting home as we make some important decisions about newhire of key people for the team at VERI .
So tomorrow we are off to Amplitude at the Wit Arena Waterford. #DisruptiveInnovation is the theme and with Keith Barry MC and Niamh Bushnell chairing our panel with regional disruptors we are in great company. From Wexford LEO – Vanessa Tierney, Abodoo, Waterford LEO – Richard Roger, VoxGig, Tipperary LEO – Emma Lacey, Horan Automation & Consulting, Kilkenny LEO – Ann Marie McSorley, Veri.

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On Monday March 12th, the H1 2018 cycle of the Google Adopt a Startup program was launched at Google Ireland HQ in Barrow Street, Dublin. Veri, as the most recent H2 winner in 2017, was invited along to come on stage and make a presentation to the 30 new hopefuls and briefly outline our experience of the program.
Our CTO, Shane Barron, gave a 15 minute presentation and introduced Veri to companies such as Equine Medi Record and local Wexford company Abodoo.
The presentation outlined what Veri learned on their journey in 2017 and how companies could get the most out of the program.
After the presentation each of the 30 startup companies gave a brief introduction to themselves and what they hopped to gain from the Adopt a Startup program in 2018

Skills assessments Circuit of Ireland
Cork, Carlow, Dublin and Donegal were our destinations  this week, with assessing Skills the focus everywhere we went.
On Monday we were assessing skills and business plans of IBYE Young Entrepreneur of the Year assisting judges with the Cork and Waterford regional final judging. Winners were Joe Perrott, Conor Lyden and Conor Skuse all disrupting their markets with new digital solutions, who  will be those going through the finals later this year. On the way home we inadvertently met Minister Jim Daly an ex colleague in training young people and had a catch up and discussed our role supporting  assessing quality training in residential and homecare settings.
On Tuesday we were the ones being assessed by our investors, Enterprise Ireland, to ensure our Veri Product road map was on target in terms of GRPD compliance, QQI QBS exports and mobile responsiveness, our Mentor Alan Kelly and the founders forum gave us some great direction and ensured we were all up to speed by the end of the lock in at the Gibson Hotel in Dublin.
Irish Wheelchair Association were one of our first client’s and this week agreed a three-year contract as they re-engage with QQI and amalgamate their training services.
Minister  Richard Bruton was at Carlow IT on Wednesday of our  Tour of Ireland, with the South-east skills forum we attended a consultation on Action plan for education in the South East. Input was fantastic from Education, Industry and government, with Kilkenny colleagues, Ciphertechs Kilkenny, Cartoon Saloon and Local Enterprise Office Carlow all contributing.
Mary Liz Tyrant from SOLAS facilitated a conversation that looked at Skills based learning, building bridges between work & education. The 59 new apprenticeships were highlighted by industry panellists from Keenan Alltech and Cartoon Saloon and their innovation around delivery & training programmes in association with Higher Education in Netherlands and FET Traineeships with Kilkenny ETB.
The assessment of LCVP and digital records of Skills based learning was one of the hot topics of the session. As an ex LCVP teacher that initiated a kernel of the VERI idea to measure skills.
En Route to National Learning Network in Donegal on Friday we did a self-assessment session with Martha Mc Ginn Training, users of VERI for the past 4 months in advance of their first step of QQI re-engagement.
An interesting if not exhausting week, Hopefully on Friday we will not meet ourselves coming back.

Last week, I was lucky enough to share a stage with a very auspicious group.  Dr of Psychology broadcaster, writer and columnist Maureen Gafney.  Doyenne Award winning Google manager  Cera Ward and  Emer Kennedy, Global HR Director at Google. The Women@google network, an initiative that was co- set up by  Sheryl Sandberg in her time at google, now COO at Facebook is an active employee group hosts summits, courses and mentorship to develop and support women and there was plenty talk of Leaning in during the day.
The Google Stride Event, Receive Achieve Believe focused on effective feedback for women in leadership giving and receiving Constructive but Negative Critical reviews. And in essence that is what we do at VERI with our digital platform for analytics of training outcomes.
Data to support a change
The day was started with a focus on emotional intelligence. Maureen Gaffney had some research from the 70 female leaders at the event and in her work with companies managing change and transitions. Dr Gaffney suggested that having data to support your position is critical. Women leaders  are perceived  as too whiney, or too emotional or too dominant. But if you separate the message from the messenger with clear facts these perceptions can be quashed.
Change to Support Improvement
Cera Ward has a motto for her team, which is do something which “scares the bejaysus out of you” every quarter. Fail to do so and you’re not pushing yourself, it is a fear of stepping outside one’s comfortzone. Change is not something that Ward is afraid of, we at VERI are all about changing mindsets to a collaborative, digital communication tool makes training companies very good at getting on with the job to hand.
Using Tools to make you more efficient
There were many other speakers on the day including Emer Ward, a global leader and for me one of the most empowering speakers, who spoke about it being impossible to do it all, and the need for support as well as the personal versus the professional balance. Using tools to make you more efficient whether that is a housekeeper, a restaurant or a digital platform !
The last word of the day came from a male perspective. Peter Ryan is an amazing young man that lost his sight at 20 and has returned to success at European and Par Olympic level.
“Everyone in life has a story. This is my story but it doesn’t make me special. I don’t think my problem is better or worse than someone else’s. A problem is a problem. It’s how you’re dealing with it is the antidote. My support network was my answer. That’s what made me who I am – not the condition.”
Creating the right environments, programs and policies can support people  in pursuing their dreams and building tools that change the world, according to women@google. At Veri we have built a tool that will change the way companies’  manage their training. Receiving feedback in realtime, that is digital and transparent, ensuring good governance. In order to achieve success for learners, improvement in delivery and increased return on investment in training. More information from VERI.IE

Thomas Edison said “We often miss opportunities because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work”
Although it meant Friday night and Saturday work, the opportunities for Veri this weekend involved being dressed less in overalls and more in black tie, but were substantial for provoking possibilities for our product in data protection and internationalisation.
Tendering We kicked off our opportunities meeting the Minister of State with special responsibility for Data Protection on Friday, Pat Breen at a round table discussion on our business with Fiona Deegan and two other businesses that had received amazing support from Kilkenny Leo. We had great feedback on our product for data protection and digitisation in the training sector from the Minister.
All three business spoke about negative recent experiences in government tendering processes as rural SMEs. Brian Fives from EI suggested that VERI get involved with SBIR. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Ireland is the national innovation pre-commercial procurement initiative administered by Enterprise Ireland. Also Minister Breen has said “SBIR is particularly suited to small and medium businesses. The SBIR initiative, which observes best-practice procurement processes, also supports and complements the Government’s research, innovation and enterprise agenda.”

Mentors: Sarita Johnson, Manager of Female Entrepreneurship
Enterprise Ireland has been a mentor and a huge support for us at VERI from the off. After a call last week, Sarita invited us to attend the 25th Annual Software Industry Awards in the mansion house Friday night. Fellow ex- northerner Barry Lowry, Government CIO gave an inspirational keynote speech. He studied via #fet at night while working and using Martin O’Neill and Irish soccer as an analogy stressed the importance of #mentoring #GenerationApprenticeship. “A Fixed mindset versus a growth mindset” was what he said the difference a mentor can make to a company or a career.

On Friday night I was seated at a table with 9 very auspicious men in tech, and enjoyed hearing the war stories of their journeys in scaling successful tech businesses. I promised to come back in 2018 with a few war stories of our own and a nomination for our upcoming product on predictive analytics for remediation and training. I also joined our google mentors table with James Allen and was delighted to be invited back to speak to 70 of their female staff for their Women@Google network next month to inspire future female Google Leaders.

On Saturday night , I was seated with the same number of very auspicious women in business. VERI was a finalists in two categories for the StateStreet Bank Chamber Awards in Kilkenny.

Breaking the glass Ceiling

With just six at the Veri table we joined the inigma that is Mags Kirwan of the Goatsbridge Trout Farm, who received the special award for inspirational business leader in Kilkenny.
I was also delighted to meet Sinead Fitzmaurice FCA from Transfer Mate who won three awards which included Kilkenny business of the year. Terry Clune was again really insightful and I was really appreciative with his advice that regulatory technology like VERI is new “Fintech” and the future for business.
To sum up, if you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life. Although I had a marathon weekend and was back in the office on Sunday afternoon working on a new Tender that we may or may not win. Politics, awards and networking are all part of the continuous professional development that is intrinsic to success and progress in our business. However it is secondary to the focus on our clients and our ability to serve them.

A VERI good 48 hours in Lisbon

An opportunity to attend “The largest tech conference in the world” arose last week for us as Founders at VERI. Outside of our planned budget, cheap flights meant a round trip of Faro, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Dublin in 48 hours. But, as a business based on education, digitization and innovation, the only decision was who would go?
A crazy month for us as our CTO Shane had a new baby girl, we graduated from early stage to closing funding round as a High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) company with EI and were adopted by Google in Ireland as a finalist for their Adopt a Start-Up Programme with €120,000 to play for, we flipped a coin and a few days later I joined the other 60,000 followers of disruption to Lisbon.

These are my takeaways on skills-based training and digitalisation change management from our first Web Summit.
Skills based training: Robots abounded at the web summit, with Sophia the Robot taking a talk on centre stage. Her creator Ben Goertzel, Hanson Robotics said that
“Artificial intelligence will free humans from work. We will be able to move on to a more meaningful existence”
However, it is being voted for and agreed that “Skilled workers will be less affected by increasing AI & tech”

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that every time there has been a big shift in technology, go back to cars or airplanes, people thought the industries were going to die, people were going to be out of work. What happened is it shifted, and it actually augmented and allowed, even more, jobs, more opportunity, more commerce and so AI is going to do the same thing. The opportunity for skilled workers will increase rather than decrease according to the Krzanich.
Digitalisation: Change “Innovation is not only in Technology, innovation is a mindset”
Since we launched 12 months ago I have met with decision makers in private, public and voluntary groups. Those with an innovation mindset take the risk of doing things differently and coming on board with us at Veri, but the risk is negated by potential of doing things better. This was really well illustrated at the recent QQI digitalisation agenda conference,  where progress and disruption was received really well by the 400 Plus Education professionals in the room.
Des Trainer Co-founder of Intercom encouraged young companies to work with other young companies as decision making in larger less agile environments slows everything down so much that they never catch up to capture the real benefit of the new technological advances in their sector.
Blended Learning: Hanging out at the Google Augmented Reality stand with their dozens of coaches supporting bigdata #education via #google Expeditions, a quote from a speaker resonated with me
“we need to learn how to learn what we do today we won’t do tomorrow”
Google didn’t put 30 screens on their stand to give technologist e-learning content or access to their Google Expeditions. The coach was the chosen medium for learning. Whether a leaner is a construction site labourer, or a healthcare worker, or an apprentice on the job, the resources for learning have changed radically. Blended learning is the ideal, with information transfer fine for e-leaning but the need for skills based training always there and will be increased as the value of their crafts increases.

At the opening Stephen Hawking, the famed physicist, said that the said technology could be “the worst event in the history of our civilization.” But he also said it could be our biggest opportunity.
In summary the Web Summit illustrated that Digitisation doesn’t mean there are less skilled workers, it means they are able to focus and we’re able to work smarter … we’re able to serve more of mankind with the skills that we have. Veri’s software helps trainers to track and review training performance from their mobile phone – making the use of paper forms redundant, reducing administration time by up to 30% and allowing users to get insights of the quality process via analytics of the outputs of their training.

We at Veri have this as our aim, to assist the improvement of quality and outcomes from skills based training while reducing the costs and ensuring compliance for more information visit Veri.ie