Offaly man’s company scoops Irish Times Innovation Award

A midland’s based company which was co-founded by an Offaly man has scooped this year's Irish Times Innovation Award.

Mersus Technologies co-founded by Dermot Condron from Tubber, progressed through thousands of entries to emerge as the winner in the New Frontiers category.

The company, based in Athlone, specialises in improving training effectiveness and efficiency through their Avatar Academy virtual Learning Experience Platform. The software digitises industrial processes and assemblies for knowledge transfer, using computer gaming technology. By creating virtual laboratories, the Avatar Academy platform allows people to prepare for jobs in Biopharma and Medtech industries before actually starting on any live production line.

This novel concept delivers huge savings by reducing the training time for new or existing staff. The software uses virtual reality media technology to familiarise each user with a particular process, allowing them to practice as much as they like until they are entirely comfortable with the required task. Clients can access the bespoke training modules from anywhere and can track statistics while monitoring the individual’s progress. All the while the organisation is digitising their particular training content. 

In such highly relegated Life science industries, intensive skills training is required to onboard new operators and meet compliance standards. The speed of technology is an ongoing challenge for all businesses, especially those in Ireland’s multinational sector. Mersus’ solution is simple. Using the same computer gaming technology that young generations entertain themselves on, Mersus mirrors a computer version of each cleanroom, so that the same youths learn their new occupational skills through virtual reality. 

 According to Brenda Mannion, Chief of Operations, ‘it is great to get some recognition in the public arena as much of our efforts remain confidential, owing to the nature of what we do. Many now are finding our novel approach interesting which gives us huge leverage when attracting new talent is what is a scarce market’. She continued ‘That we have now many new faces so the future is bright for anyone looking to move into the hot new career arena for 2022 and beyond’. 

 Co-founder Dermot Condron explains how “working with specialist trainers in Europe, we accelerated our team’s knowledge base during Covid. This is now paying off as we lead in ‘hand tracked’ VR software for industrial applications at a global level’. Dermot elaborates that ‘The Avatar Academy platform uses VR that allows trainees using their own hands to interact within the ‘computer game’ cleanroom, removing the risk and costs involved in training. People learn much faster when they use their own hands’.

 The market opportunity is enormous. “The need for this is colossal. In biopharma alone, up to 20 percent of salary can go on training. Effectively, technology is moving so fast that skills can’t keep up. We already know about the existing skills gaps, not just in Ireland but around the world, and that’s being driven by technological advances around the workplace,” according to co-founder, Geoffrey Allen.

But it’s not just training that Avatar Academy provides, it’s the value add that comes from a system that captures data around every aspect of every process being undertaken on a production line. “By capturing the data you can spot bottlenecks,” he explains.

Mersus’ Avatar Academy is set to bring a new paradigm in training technology as the media combines with its powerful inbuilt data analytics capabilities in transforming training. It has the potential to bring a myriad of efficiencies to Ireland’s thriving MedTech and Biopharma sectors and beyond.