Laura Varley

Ireland

Careers Reporter at Silicon Republic

Featured in: Favicon

siliconrepublic.com Favicon

business2community.com Favicon

geek.com

Articles

1,000 autistic jobseekers supported by AsIAm programme

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

As part of World Autism Awareness month, AsIAm, in partnership with Irishjobs, has released data on its national programme to support autistic people in employment. April is World Autism Awareness month, which is a time for everyone to focus on breaking down stereotypes, creating opportunities and advancing research about the issues that most affect autistic communities.
Upskilling for a career in change management?

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

We spoke with experts from Grant Thornton about the evolution of change management and the skills needed to succeed. Change management, that is the systematic approach to dealing with a transition, is becoming an increasingly crucial skill for organisations and the employees who keep it all running.
Assiduous secures €1m in funds, amid plans for growth

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

The organisation will use the funds to expand its technical team, product and engineering teams and explore the potential of agentic AI. Assiduous, a corporate finance platform for SMEs, has secured €1m in a private investment round that was backed by experienced business owners and executives, as well as Enterprise Ireland’s High-Potential Start-up programme. The round was established to enable Assiduous to execute its growth plans throughout 2025 and 2026.
‘Quantum computing as a field is at an inflection point’

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

We spoke with Si-Hui Tan about advancements in the quantum sector, recent trends and what motivates her to keep innovating. Chief science officer at software development platform Horizon Quantum, Si-Hui Tan is a veteran of the industry with more than 15 years of experience under her belt, she regularly shares her insights at key sector events and frequently contributes to high-profile STEM journals.
OpenAI introduces latest AI model, the GPT-4.1

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

The platform also claims that this version of its technology is cheaper to make and more efficient than previous models. OpenAI has announced the predecessor to its GPT-4o multimodal AI model, GPT-4.1, which the platform described as “featuring major improvements on coding, instruction following and long context, plus [their] first-ever nano model”.
Staying skilled in the dynamic biotech space

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

We spoke with Dr Shalabh Gupta about navigating biotechnology careers and the skills needed to stay afloat. According to Dr Shalabh Gupta, the CEO of biotechnology research facility Unicycive Therapeutics, the biotech industry has seen some dramatic shifts, with present-day innovations that would have been inconceivable just 20 years ago.
Hybrid work critically important to employees, says Ibec research

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

Ahead of National Workplace Wellbeing Day, what elements of working life are of most value to today’s professionals? At the end of the month (30 April), many workplaces throughout Ireland will celebrate National Workplace Wellbeing Day. A day that marks the importance of prioritising mental, physical and emotional health within the often busy working environment.
Data Protection Commission investigating how X trains LLMs

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

The Irish watchdog is looking into the processing of personal data by X. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has launched an inquiry into how social media platform X is using personal data pulled from public posts across the EU and EEA, in order to educate its AI models, in particular the Grok large language model (LLM). Grok is a generative AI bot created by Elon Musk via his company xAI and was designed, in part, to advance conversations on X.
Canva launches suite of generative AI features

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT now remembers your previous conversations. Australian software and graphic design company Canva has unveiled its latest innovations, with a collection of updated generative AI (GenAI) features for coding, photo editing and spreadsheet management. The Visual Suite 2.0 streamlines Canva’s tools for a straight-forward interface.
Global organisations unprepared for impact of deepfakes

1 week ago | siliconrepublic.com | Laura Varley

We spoke to Joshua McKenty and Khadem Badiyan about the many ways in which companies have become cyber vulnerable and the skills needed to prevent further risk. Deepfakes, that is, digitally manipulated images, video and audio samples, have evolved from an obvious, clunky attempt at mimicry to a sophisticated tool, often used to exploit individuals and organisations at scale.