Connacht Tribune
Global online education is thriving from Galway through turbulent times
As the coronavirus rages across the world, one Galway company – specialising in free online learning – has seen a five-fold increase in traffic to its already busy website…making it one of the top 5,000 most popular websites in the world.
Alison, the global free online learning platform, based in Parkmore, has over 14 million registered members worldwide and two million graduates of their 1,500-plus free online courses. This surge in website traffic is due to several factors, according to Alison founder/CEO Mike Feerick.
“With so many people now working from home, the obvious thing for many is to spend time upskilling online, doing the courses that they have perhaps put off doing for years,” he said.
Popular courses are Microsoft Excel, Touch Typing, Project Management and across the developing world, English language courses.
“We anticipated the impact of the Coronavirus early on and see it not just as an opportunity to help but as a responsibility,” said Mike.
Alison, he said had ‘created courses in the past to educate global audiences about the Swine Flu, SARS and Ebola epidemics’.
“During the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, of the 50,000 people in West Africa who studied the Alison course, many found it the only informational resource available to them, where government information efforts were scarce on the ground,” he revealed.
Mike Feerick also firmly believes that Ireland has ‘the resolve necessary across the population to deal with the crisis’ – and that is through aggressive testing and tracing.
But he added: “The lack of coordination across the US States and the lack of national leadership is a great cause for concern for us here.”
“Where I am most concerned however is Africa, where the hospital and informational resources available elsewhere are not as developed”.
To combat the lack of information on Coronavirus, Alison created a course on the disease (https://alison.com/coronavirus) and, with the help of medical professionals across the world who are members of Alison, have translated the course into over 50 languages.
“It’s a big undertaking which we are organising through our office in South Africa. Our target is any language which is spoken by over 10 million people. It has been an interesting exercise” he said.
Alison has also seen greater demand in Ireland where it already has 200,000 members.
“Students are taking time at home to do courses such as Maths. We have free video grinds on Lower and Higher Junior and Leaving Cert maths and relevant courses in the Sciences and Business.
“They have the opportunity also to explore areas that they might have an interest in away from the school curriculum, such as coding, or even make-up artistry.
With the current boom in traffic, Alison is expanding rapidly, and is seeking to fill several positions at its Parkmore, Galway Headquarters.
While Alison now has offices in South Africa, Nigeria and Mumbai, India, its “brain trust”, as Mike Feerick calls it, is based in Parkmore. Everything is decided out of Galway he said, all strategy and implementation, taking the time to add that Ireland needs more Irish-owned internationally trading businesses that brings new money into the country, and moreover, the Galway area.
Alison has immediate openings in technology in back-end and front-end engineering, systems administration, Database management, Business Analysis, Data Science and Data Analytics. It also has vacancies in global marketing.
Mike Feerick states that marketing vacancies have been hard to fill from Galway, due to the scarcity of businesses who run marketing operations from the West of Ireland.
If anyone would like to apply, email careers@alison.com
You will also find this story – and 18 pages on Galway’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic – in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops today. You can also buy a digital edition online from www.connachttribune.ie or have a paper included with your supermarket shop delivery.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
