About Us

SkillsBase Founded

In 2018, SkillsBase was established by Mark Horgan with the aim of helping businesses improve communication, engagement, and learning among their stakeholders to enhance workplace compliance.

SkillsBase faced the challenge of developing a mobile-first installation training app for one of Europe’s largest telecom component manufacturers. The company’s end-users are globally dispersed, making traditional face-to-face interactions difficult. They needed a solution to ensure their products were being used right the first time.

Collaboration with Openreach

As a result of the initial app solution’s success, SkillsBase was later approached by the UK’s largest telecom operator, Openreach. Openreach required a solution to reskill their engineers, without pulling them from the field and decreasing productivity.

Remote Reskilling Success

As with all businesses, timing is crucial. When remote reskilling became the norm in 2020, our training app gained significant traction. It enabled engineers to obtain their accreditations remotely, and enhanced Openreach’s productivity during a period of uncertainty.

Introduction of the Virtual Buddy

In 2021, we developed our Computer Vision Artificial Intelligence Visual Analysis tool, known as the Virtual Buddy, in response to engineers experiencing delays in the accreditation approval process. By using examples of both good and bad installation photos, this tool provides immediate feedback on work quality, reducing revisit costs and enhancing consumer satisfaction before job completion.

Expansion to New Sectors

Owing to our collaboration with these enterprise companies, we came to the realisation that this technology is industry-agnostic. We strongly believed that our solutions could be used in other sectors to help with their communication and training needs.

Munster Rugby, one of Europe’s leading rugby clubs, was among the first organisations outside the telecom industry to adopt the app. Their development teams used it to communicate with their large player base and distribute training content. Subsequently, we expanded our solutions to various other sectors, including education, accreditation bodies, content creation, and enterprise training providers.

Recognition and Certification

2023 was a busy year for us! We were honoured to be awarded the Smart Technology Innovation award at the Tech Industry Alliance’s Leader Awards last November. As well as this, we were granted our ISO27001 accreditation in November. This certification highlights our commitment to information security management and the safe handling of data. Finally, we were shortlisted as semi-finalists in the Cork Chamber Digital Marketing Awards 2023, in the category “Best in Content Creation”.