Athena Analytics keeps track of the exam results

Tralee firm Athena provides ways to analyse valuable data from exam results, writes Trish Dromey

Tralee educational technology startup Athena Analytics in recent weeks has used its big data software to provide over 220 schools around Ireland with insight into their Leaving Cert results.

“We provide schools with comprehensive, instant reviews of results showing the breakdown of different grades in each subject and comparing them with the national results and with results of similar schools,” says founder Emily Brick, explaining how the reports can be used for review purposes by school managers and for subject planning.

She says up until now, schools have been using spreadsheets to carry out labour-intensive reviews. But now her company is the first with the capacity to turn around professional reports within a few days, for a large number of schools. Set up two years ago to provide data analytics for use in education, the company is now preparing for the launch of its second product, the Athena Tracker.

“This tracks exam results of a student from entrance exam results through to Leaving Certificate and analyses how a student is doing in each exam, based on their own individual potential,” says Ms Brick.

She says to analyse the potential of a student, the tracker uses a sophisticated system that uses large amounts of historical data. It can also show how students with a similar academic history performed in each subject. Ms Brick says the tracker can be used to recommend the best subjects each student should choose for the Leaving Certificate, based on their own strengths.

Developed at the request of school principals, Athena Tracker and has already been tested by 10 schools.

We are launching it in October and have 50 schools lined up to take part in workshops. We will also be exhibiting it at the conference of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals next month

A third product, called the Athena Student Progression Tracker, is also in development. “We are working with a large educational training board to create a solution to keep track of students after they finish their course. This can provide statistics of the percentage which stays in the region, the percentage working in the industry in which they trained and also the average/median salary of students that are working.”

Ms Brick says this product is designed to allow educational institutions to review the success of their courses and to provide new students with evidence of the outcomes of different courses. A data scientist who worked for a short time with the Department of Education in Australia, Ms Brick set up the company after she was asked by a principal to analyse exam results.

“At the time I thought there was an opportunity to build a program to run reports like this instantly — when I came back I pursued this,” she says.

Working on the project in her spare time, she was ready to begin offering reports to schools in August. “I promoted it online, sent out emails and spoke to principals and sold to my first customer in Kildare,” she says, explaining that she also began offering reports for the Junior Certificate.

Starting with 40 schools in 2017, she grew the number to 150 last year, and then to 220 schools this year. Last year, she approached the Local Enterprise Office in Tralee who provided her with a Business Expansion Grant. That helped her take on her first full-time employee and to contract the development of the company’s second product, the Athena Tracker.

Taking on additional members of staff, the company secured private investment earlier this year and also won €15,000 when selected as Kerry winner in Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition.

Ms Brick is aiming to sign up at least 100 schools for the Athena Tracker over the next 12 months. She also plans to continue growing sales of the Athena Reports and is talking to universities about the student progression tracker. Next year she plans to look at Australia, a market she is familiar with, and where she sees scope to sell Athena’s reporting and tracking software.