The Irish Tech News Podcast

Chadwicks are showing technology can be upgraded without losing key institutional knowledge, while simultaneously upgrading onboarding in a tough market. A major milestone in its multi-year ERP modernisation program is taking place transforming its legacy Accustar platform into AccuPRO, a modern, cloud-hosted ERP system. AccuPRO has received a prestigious 2026 InterSystems READY Impact Award in the Supply Chain category.
The initiative, supported by J2 Interactive, a technology consultancy specialising in enterprise modernisation To find out more about this and it’s potential impact across Ireland I spoke to Colm Scannell, Chadwicks’ IT director and Paul Cranston, J2 Director of Professional Services. 
Colm and Paul talk to me about their backgrounds, modernising Chadwick’s IT, legacy systems and more.
More about Chadwicks AccuPRO:
For more than 40 years, Accustar served as the backbone of Chadwicks' operations, embedding decades of proven business logic and invaluable institutional knowledge. However, its terminal-based "green screen" interface could no longer meet modern requirements for usability, scalability, cloud readiness, or device independence, and onboarding new employees was time-consuming and costly.
Chadwicks faced a critical challenge shared by many long-established enterprises: how to modernise a mission-critical system without losing the intellectual capital built into it or disrupting day-to-day business. The solution was AccuPRO, a web-enabled, cloud-hosted ERP designed to support Chadwicks' continued leadership and growth in the builders' merchant sector, while dramatically boosting back office and branch team user experiences.

In this new episode of One Vision Podcast, Paolo Sironi joins Theodora Lau to unveil his new book, Quantum Sapiens, a philosophical literary thriller on artificial intelligence, quantum gravity, and the origins of human consciousness. A burning question: Why now?
We talk about the "I love you" problem and what happens when we attribute meaning to words that machines give us. Paolo invites us to think about the journey ahead of us before we walk through Alice's mirror. What do we need to carry with us? What do we leave behind? 
An exhilarating conversation about the present and future of technology that you won't want to miss. No PhD required.

📍The algorithm has no meaning. We need the entanglement and the magic of the human touch."

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Keywords: AI, Fintech, Generative AI, Quantum, Empathy

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome Back Paolo
00:58 Unveiling Quantum Sapiens
02:38 Why Fiction Not Whitepapers
06:52 From Fintech to Consciousness
18:48 Illusion of AI Meaning
25:06 Poetry as AI Antidote

More about our guest 
🌐Paolo Sironi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thepsironi/ 
📘Quantum Sapiens: https://mybook.to/Quantum-Sapiens 

More about our host and One Vision Podcast 
🌐Theodora Lau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodoralau/ 
🌐Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence (book): https://www.bankingonaibook.com/ 
🌐Unconventional Ventures (company): https://www.unconventionalventures.com/ 
🌐Listen to all One Vision Podcast episodes by visiting: https://shows.acast.com/one-vision

What happens, at a psychological level, when a person develops a close relationship with AI? Can AI love them back? And what does this attachment reveal about human desire, projection and responsibility?
A groundbreaking study into the ethical and psychological implications of human-AI relationships, AI Intimacy and Psychoanalysis by Dr Agnieszka Piotrowska, academic, writer and filmmaker – addresses the hugely topical, but hardly new, question of our emotional bonds with machines.
To find out more about this I caught up with Dr Agnieszka Piotrowska when she was recently in Dublin.
Agnieszka talks about her background, her new book, Freud, AI models and more.
About Agnieszka Piotrowska:
Agnieszka Piotrowska, PhD, is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, trained psychologist, and psychoanalytic life coach. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and supervises doctoral students at Oxford Brookes University and the University of Staffordshire.
Her documentary work includes Married to the Eiffel Tower ( 2008), a critically acclaimed and internationally broadcast film exploring unconventional human attachments, which established her international reputation as a filmmaker working at the intersection of psychology and human experience.
She is the author of The Cinema of Agnieszka Holland: Anger and Ethics (Routledge, 2026), Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film (Routledge, 2014 & 2023), and The Nasty Woman and the Neo-Femme Fatale in Contemporary Cinema (Routledge, 2019).

Back in 2017 when the Irish Tech News podcast was in its second year, one of my guests was Darya Yegorina  the founder of CleverBooks. In 2020 I caught up with Darya and did a written interview to see what happened since the podcast.
Darya has recently launched a new venture Arventa, AI software designed in Ireland for Irish SMEs that helps to make business ops efficient and compliant, and to find out more about Arventa I caught with Darya .
Darya talks about her background, Arventa, AI and more.
More about Arventa:
Arventa provides an all-in-one toolkit designed specifically for startups and freelancers. Our platform enhances productivity with tools for invoicing, proposals, CRM, time tracking, social media management, and compliance. Complementing, not replacing, accountants and accounting software, working seamlessly alongside them. Arventa's mission is to deliver an affordable solution tailored to meet the unique needs of micro businesses, helping them streamline their operations and achieve growth.

Something that is not talked about enough is pay transparency and the fact that on the 7th of June 2026 all EU countries had to comply with the EU pay discrepancy act. Ireland missed this deadline but will bring it on a phased basis and employers have been urged to take steps to prepare for its full implementation.
To find out more about pay transparency and the EU pay discrepancy act I spoke to Crystel Robbins Rynne CEO HRLocker and Fredericka Sheppard Co-Founder and Managing Director Voltedge
Crystal and Fredericka talk about their backgrounds, salaries, putting good frameworks in place and more.
More about HRLocker and Voltedge:
HRLocker is the Irish people-management platform that transforms admin-heavy tasks, such as time & attendance and leave management, into one secure, intuitive system, so HR teams reclaim hours, eliminate errors, and focus on strategic people initiatives, not paperwork.
Voltedge Management is an Irish-based HR consultancy supporting scaling businesses, SMEs, and multinational organisations with strategic HR, leadership, and organisational development solutions. The firm partners with clients across Ireland, the UK, and internationally to build high-performing teams and drive sustainable growth.