The Irish Tech News Podcast

The Local Enterprise Awards for 2026 taok place recently in the Mansion House in Dublin. The awards are a celebration of the very best small businesses from across the country and serve to highlight the work that Local Enterprise Offices are doing with up-and-coming enterprises in every local authority area in the country.

The 31 finalists have each been chosen by their Local Enterprise Office to represent them and their area at the awards, which are in their 26th year. The finalists feature a diverse mix of sectors and founders all competing for a share of the €80,000 prize fund and the chance to be named National Enterprise of the Year. There are also regional awards, and categories for Best Start-Up, Best Export Business, the Innovation Award, Digital Award, Green Award and the Female Entrepreneur award.
I caught up with three of the finalists, and the second finalist I spoke to was Stephen O’Sullivan the founder of I left you a note and the Tipperary finalist. Stephen talks to me about his background, what I left you a note does, digital concierge, AI, National Enterprise Awards, LEO and more 
More about  I left you a note:
I left you a note was founded by Stephen O’Sullivan, a former Deputy Chief Actuary at Met Life, Stephen wanted to address the problem modern hotels are having in the fact that customers ‘no longer complain to the front desk’ but rather are quick to write a bad review online.
Stephen estimates that a bad review can cost hotels up to €15,000 in lost bookings per month. I Left You A Note aims to address that gap in communication to an online B2B SaaS platform which allows guests to connect with the front desk of hotels instantly through scanning QR codes located across the hotel.
The portal opens instantly on any phone and allows guests to submit feedback, raise service requests, interact with an AI concierge, and access hotel facilities and room service with one click. When an issue is raised, AI triages it, creates a service ticket and routes it automatically to the correct department.

Anthony Sar, Co-founder and CEO of Finoverse and the driving force behind Hong Kong Fintech Week, joins Theo on One Vision to share the story behind one of Asia's most iconic innovation gatherings. From a bar conversation about hitting 5,000 attendees (when they had 300) to welcoming 45,000 people from 120+ economies at their 10th anniversary, Anthony reflects on what it takes to build something that genuinely keeps people in the room.
At the center of the conversation is Samantha, built in-house by Finoverse. She acts as your personal AI networking agent. She interviews you, learns what you're looking for, and makes introductions at scale. After a successful pilot at last year’s FinTech Week as well as the recent Genesis Festival, Samantha will return to Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026 this November.  
This year’s conference is aptly themed Fintech Nexus: Bridging the World, Building the Future. It is a rallying call to drive connectivity and collaboration across global and Chinese Mainland markets, at a time when the world feels more fragmented than ever.
One World, One Planet. This episode invites us to come together to foster collaboration for a more inclusive financial services ecosystem for everyone. 

🔥 Hot Take: "AI can't have coffee with you. It can't go for a hike. It can't watch a comedy with you." 
🔥 Hot Take: “There's so much happening in mainland China and Asia that the rest of the world simply doesn't see." 

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Keywords: AI, Fintech, FinancialServices, Startups, Hong Kong

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and Introductions
02:59 A decade of Finoverse and Hong Kong Fintech Week 
07:39 Introducing Samantha: The AI Host
10:13 The Future of Events and Networking
19:07 How AI Makes Human Connection More Valuable, Not Less
27:55 Hong Kong Fintech Week 2026: Fintech Nexus: Bridging the World, Building the Future
33:01 Closing Thoughts: One World, One Planet

More about our guest 
🌐Anthony Sar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonysar/ 
🌐FinTech Week Hong Kong: https://www.fintechweek.hk/ 
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

The Local Enterprise Awards for 2026 taok place recently in the Mansion House in Dublin. The awards are a celebration of the very best small businesses from across the country and serve to highlight the work that Local Enterprise Offices are doing with up-and-coming enterprises in every local authority area in the country.

The 31 finalists have each been chosen by their Local Enterprise Office to represent them and their area at the awards, which are in their 26th year. The finalists feature a diverse mix of sectors and founders all competing for a share of the €80,000 prize fund and the chance to be named National Enterprise of the Year. There are also regional awards, and categories for Best Start-Up, Best Export Business, the Innovation Award, Digital Award, Green Award and the Female Entrepreneur award.
I caught up with three of the finalists, and the first finalist I spoke to was John Cleary, the founder of Eventmaster and the Limerick finalist.
John talks to me about his background, what Eventmaster does, the Local enterprise awards and more.
More about Eventmaster:
John Cleary, Founder of Eventmaster set up the company in 2010 while working as Race Director of the Great Limerick Run. John could not find a ticket participation system in Ireland capable of managing large-scale sporting events – so he set out to design one. Eventmaster operates a one-system approach for ticketing, fundraising, real time data and scalable digital infrastructure for events.
Since 2010, Eventmaster technology has supported over 3,000 events including the Dublin Marathon, Very Pink Run, Cork City Marathon and many more charity-based events. Eventmaster is now looking to target markets internationally through exporting the technology used.

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