Carrick-on-Suir woman and entrepreneur wins Technology Person of the Year Award

Entrepreneur Geraldine Magnier from Carrick-on-Suir was honoured with the Technology Ireland Person of the Year at a recent gala event in Dublin’s Mansion House. 

Ms Magnier, who is co-founder and director of Artificial Intelligence company Idiro Analytics, received the accolade from Technology Ireland at the 30th anniversary of the organisation’s awards.

Director of Technology Ireland Una Fitzpatrick announced the Carrickbeg woman as recipient of the award, which recognises people who have made an outstanding contribution to the country’s technology industry. 

She described Ms  Magnier, who became the Small Firms Association’s new Chairperson last month, as a role model respected for her leadership, energy and passion for the indigenous tech sector. 

Ms Fitzpatrick said Geraldine was passionate about the crucial role indigenous business plays in cities, towns and communities across the country and was a regular contributor to many fora including national Budget submissions, Government task forces and the National Economic Dialogue. 

“She is committed to the ongoing investment in the Irish indigenous SME sector and is an elected member of the Dublin City Chamber, a board member of Technology Ireland and Chair of the Small Firms Association. She also serves on the SFA steering group of the award winning business programme MentorsWork,” Ms Fitzpatrick outlined in the award citation. 

“Geraldine not only has an extremely busy day job as co-founder and director of Idiro Analytics, she is also an ardent advocate of the ethical use of AI,” she continued.  

“In 2020, she was instrumental in establishing the Idiro AI Ethics Centre, which aims  to generate debate, educate decision makers of the need to instil the concept and practice of ethical Artificial Intelligence  within their organisations. 

“Critically the centre also focuses on the development of standards and technologies that can be used by industry and government to ensure implementations of AI are trustworthy, transparent and bias free.”