Oracle Academy were delighted to take part in the annual HEAnet conference for institutions of higher education in Ireland, which took place November 5-7, 2025, at the Great Southern Hotel, Killarney, Co. Kerry. 

HEAnet is Ireland’s National Research and Education Network, delivering high-speed internet connectivity and ICT shared services to all levels of the Irish education sector.

The event was opened with a keynote speech by Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless. The audience included over 480 attendees from a variety of higher education institutions, with and additional 40 guest speakers.

Another keynote speech was given by aeronautical engineer Dr. Norah Patten, who was announced as an Astronaut in June 2024, for the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS).

Orlaith Lawton, Senior Marketing Manager, Oracle Academy EMEA, took part in a 30-second elevator pitch asking educators if they wanted to learn about free educational resources for their faculty, students, and institutions, available from the AI company, Oracle.

This resulted in several new applications from faculty and institutions to the Oracle Academy program, Oracle’s global philanthropic educational program, which is open to academic institutions and their educators worldwide.

Educators learned about the Oracle Academy Cloud Program and Oracle APEX at the event, as well as access to free curriculum resources such as Database Foundations, Database Design, Database Programming (with SQL/PLSQL), as well as Java curriculum and access to Primavera and Netsuite resources.

Oracle was also represented by Michael McKenzie, Applications Account Executive; Liam Comiskey, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Sales Representative; Foram Mehta, Specialist EPM Account Executive; and Ronan Kelly, Database Platform Sales Representative; all who were available to discuss Oracle’s varied product offering. These included applications, Cloud, ERP, EPM and HCM, as well as multi-year strategic partnerships to jointly solve complex challenges and accelerate business growth with innovative solutions that (re)define industries.

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