Kyran O’Mahoney comes from a computer science background and, during a career spanning 20 years, he has held senior technical roles with some of the biggest names in Irish business including Ryanair, Dunnes Stores and AIB.
In 2024, O’Mahoney took the plunge into entrepreneurship and, with €2 million in private backing, set up software company Nexus Inclusion to improve digital world accessibility for people of all abilities.
Those without a disability take the navigation of digital tools, such as websites, for granted. But for those with visual or motor impairment, for example, it can be quite a challenge if the selection tabs are not in the right order, there are glitches with the payment process or a site requires a mouse to operate the controls.
O’Mahoney completely understands the frustration and exclusion this causes. He is significantly visually impaired and has negotiated an often unfriendly digital world with less than 17 per cent vision.
As things stand, he says fewer than 5 per cent of the top million websites globally are accessible to people with disabilities.
“Learning to use technology transformed my world as a young person. Technology was an enabler and a game-changer but most people with a disability are not afforded the same opportunity,” he says. “I want technology to transform lives and AI is taking the possibilities to a new level.
“People with disabilities don’t want to be accommodated. They want to be included,” he says.
In a nutshell Nexus Inclusion’s technology can identify anomalies, missing tabs and other accessibility glitches across the digital product spectrum. However, unlike existing systems that only identify the problem and recommend remediation, the Co-Pilot tool will analyse the issue, show a business exactly where it is exposed and spell out the best solution – for example, adding an extra line of code to ensure sizing and colour choices flow smoothly.
Problems with digital channels are not isolated. O’Mahoney says they affect up to 80 per cent of ecommerce sites in Ireland.
“AI has allowed us to develop a ground-breaking solution to make the world more digitally inclusive and our first-of-its-kind SaaS platform – powered by GenAI (generative artificial intelligence) – can analyse digital accessibility across websites, images, videos, audio, social media channels and content on any digital platform,” he says.
“The Nexus Inclusion tools are built to cover the full product development life cycle, supporting designs, developers, content managers and executives.”
As things stand, fewer than 5 per cent of the top million websites globally are accessible to people with disabilities
— Kyran O'Mahoney
The company’s B2B solution is aimed at organisations of all sizes that want to build digital inclusion into their products or services from the get-go and comply with upcoming legislation.
“The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines compliance standards are a set of guidelines established by the World Wide Web Consortium to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. In practice, this means that all businesses trading in Europe are required to have a digitally accessible product from this month,” O’Mahoney explains.
[ Businesses run risk of legal action under new digital accessibility rulesOpens in new window ]
His prime commitment is to inclusivity and this extends to the company’s pricing, which starts at €49 a month for small enterprises.
The Co-Pilot tool will be officially launched later this month and the company’s team of seven (which includes seasoned IT executive Eric Neville and Jonathan Sinden, the former head of user experience at Bank of Ireland) is set to grow to 30 by the end of 2026.
Unusually, Nexus didn’t have a MPV (minimum viable product) when it went looking for investment. Despite this, the money flowed in “largely because everyone knows someone who struggles with technology for whatever reason and the concept resonated with them”, O’Mahoney says.
Dublin LEO got things going with a feasibility grant and once O’Mahoney pushed the “go” button, the launch product was developed in a rapid five months. “This is only the beginning,” he says. “It will take us about three years to build out the complete vision for Nexus Inclusion.”
