Live talk on EdTech and the transformation of education and workforce training

On Wednesday, September 12, IrishCentral will take you live to a fun and fascinating conversation on EdTech hosted by Digital Irish and the Irish International Business Network in New York City.

Join live via IrishCentral's Facebook page at 7 pm EST as Michelle Dervan, Principal at ReThink Education, leads a panel discussion with Aoife Dempsey, CEO, Waggle; Barry O’Neill, CEO, Touch Press; and Terry Nealon, SVP & GM of Follett Classroom Solutions.

Education is the second largest sector of the US economy; however, it has changed less quickly than any other. Join IIBN-NY and Digital Irish on September 12 to hear how edtech utilizing AI, blockchain, and VR is transforming the future of education and workforce training.

Join the live stream on IrishCentral’s Facebook page here.

Meet the Panel for Back to School: EdTech with Digital Irish and IIBN

Moderator: Michelle Dervan, Principal, ReThink Education

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Michelle Dervan is a Principal on the investment team at ReThink Education, a venture capital firm focused on early and growth stage investments in education technology companies. She is responsible for managing the firm’s seed fund.

Prior to joining ReThink, Michelle was a Director of Strategic Partnerships at Pearson Education where she focused on sourcing and structuring partnership deals with large and small tech companies. She previously held education, edtech and economic development roles at Irish government agency, Enterprise Ireland.

Follow: @Michelle_Dervan, @Rethink_Ed ‏

Back to School: EdTech, Panelists -

Aoife Dempsey, CEO, Waggle

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Aoife is the fearless leader of Waggle, an independent K12 EdTech company providing award-winning adaptive learning solutions that empower instructors with real-time feedback on students' mastery of increasingly challenging, personalized problem sets.

Aoife is a twenty-year veteran of the edtech industry and most recently held the role of CTO at Triumph Learning and VP Digital Product Development at McGraw-Hill Education.  

Follow: @WagglePractice

Barry O’Neill, CEO, Touch Press

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Barry O’Neill is the CEO of Touch Press, the educational games and family app publisher formed by the integration of Amplify Games, StoryToys, and Touchpress.

Touch Press is known for its high-quality apps based on both original and licensed IP, including the multi-award winning StoryToys portfolio of K-3 apps (My Very Hungry Caterpillar, Mother Goose Club), Touch Press Games’ library (12 a Dozen, Crafty Cut, World of Lexica), and its renowned portfolio of reference apps including Theodore Gray’s “The Elements”, and The Waste Land.

Prior to Touch Press (and StoryToys), Barry was a “Mobile 1.0” pioneer, having headed up Bandai Namco's European mobile business and co-founded mobile games publisher Upstart Games, which he sold in 2006.

Barry is also an active investor in mobile content and games ventures, both personally and as an advisor to the Tesseract Fund which focuses exclusively on early-stage mobile entertainment startups.

Follow: @TouchPressGames, @barryoneill

Terry Nealon, SVP & GM of Follett Classroom Solutions

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Terry is the former CEO/Chair and Co-Founder of Fishtree Inc., recently acquired by Follett Inc.  Seen as an industry thought leader in technology, Terry drove strategy, operations and all investment-related activities to establish Fishtree as one of the pioneering edtech companies using machine learning and AI for personalized learning, leading the company to a successful exit.

Prior to this he was Executive Vice President/GM of International for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and prior to this scaled the international business for Riverdeep Inc to reach a breadth of 120 countries.  

Follow: @fishtree_edu, @nealonter

About Digital Irish

The mission of Digital Irish is to connect Irish expats and Irish-Americans who explicitly work in the Digital Media arena (or those interested in meeting them) either with established firms or startups. They are folks who touch on the following areas – social media, mobile, online advertising, digital agencies, search, analytics, video, e-commerce or other online-centric b2c or b2b plays.

Digital Irish aims to give Irish startups a soft landing in NYC through regular fast-pitch meetup events. You can join the group (it's free!) here.

About IIBN-NY

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IIBN is a global, non-profit organization that brings together Irish business professionals to facilitate greater communication and connectivity around the world. You can find more on them here.