VARA Innovation Specialists has helped a team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) secure €365,000 in funding from Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund to develop an AI platform designed to address failings in ethics and compliance.

IntegrityIQ is a spin-out of Trinity Business School and is supported by The Learnovate Centre, a Trinity-based innovation centre. It is being led by Professor Daniel Malan, a leading expert in the field of Organisational Integrity. Fraud, corruption and unethical behaviour are costing multinational companies billions annually and current compliance training is difficult to scale effectively. Last year, 16 Wall Street firms were fined a combined $1.8 billion because of inappropriate staff behaviour despite having existing regulatory and compliance training in place. Currently, the only scalable compliance training is in ‘tick-box’ exercises. Customised solutions are expensive and unscalable.

The platform, which will be developed over the next 18 months, will offer an immersive simulation of a corporate environment, allowing a user to create a confidential virtual avatar to which they are presented with a range of ethical dilemmas. The platform will also facilitate the process of making protected disclosures while capturing real-time data for internal and external reporting processes.

VARA Innovation Specialists Managing Director Kieran Fegan said “We were delighted to work with Professor Malan and colleagues at Trinity on this commercial feasibility. We spoke with a significant number of companies such a Citigroup Inc, FedEx Corporation, ICON PLC, Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL), Novartis AG, SNC-Lavalin, Unilever and many more to validate the value proposition and ensure the technology solution was fully aligned with a deep understanding of the problem of failings in ethics and compliance. We wish Daniel and colleagues every success as they route forward having secured Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Funding”