22

Jun

Data Driven Biodiversity Initiative Reaches IITD National Training Awards Final

Category : Ellen Brophy

Finalists in IITD National Training Awards

The Irish Institute of Training and Development will host a live stream to announce the winners of the National Training Awards at the end of June. The purpose of the IITD National Training Awards is to promote excellence, best practice and innovation in Training and Learning & Development. It is such an honour to get to this point. We have had previous success at this event with Impact Training when we won the Best Consultancy Partnership in 2019.

NoreVision

We collaborated with 4 local development companies to deliver an ambitious biodiversity project called NoreVision and reached the final in the ‘Best Not for Profit Collaboration’ category. This recognition has been a validation for the stakeholders of Kilkenny Leader Partnership, Laois Partnership Company, North Tipperary Development Company and South Tipperary Development Company of the impact of NoreVision.

Ann Marie McSorley poses in front of a banner for the Biodiversity Initiative NoreVisionData Driven Training Management

The project began with a series of consultative workshops in 2017 and 2020 saw over 500 participants take part in 53 courses delivered by 8 tutors, all evidenced on Veri’s digital data capturing platform. Spring Into Action, the NoreVision conference was attended by over 120 people over the duration of the 3 day event. It was evident from the attendance that the communities are passionate about the project. NoreVision saw a natural partnership occur between the hunger for climate action to take place at a local level and the need for digital solutions to complement the delivery of this education.

Digital Processes

The core focus of Invasive Species, Litter Picks, Oral History, Farming, Education and Citizen Science were delivered with a blended approach with online and location based training. The Nore and it’s catchment became a living lab. The volunteers were gathering such important evidence and it was all been gathering digitally allowing for seamless reporting to other agencies.

Real Time Data

Minister of State, Malcolm Noonan has said that the broad format of NoreVision is a positive model that can be encouraged in many other catchments linking with relevant government agencies, from local authorities to national water and heritage agencies. This, paired with the ability of the software to gather real time data of the volunteer citizen scientists and feed that back into national research, will have a positive influence on national policy and most importantly the water quality.