Inishowen businesswoman aiming to inspire the next generation

Inishowen has and continues to produce inspirational women and local entrepreneur Avril McMonagle certainly falls into this category.

Avril has dedicated 25 years of her life to early childhood care. Now she has plans to revolutionise the space with her business MOSAIC.

Her company has enjoyed a quick success in the EdTech sector. It was Nominated as a finalist in the Irish Education Awards 2020 and employed its first full-time employee in late 2020. They are now looking to expand outside of Ireland.

Speaking to the Inish Times as part of International Women's Day, Ms McMonigle described the challenges faced by women in the EdTech sector and the lack of respect offered to women by many investors: “Business is hard for women full stop. There’s no doubt about it, it is a hard slog and particularly it is hard to get funding for tech and then it’s even harder to get funding for anything to do with children - and that’s my business.

“You’re not looked upon with the same level of seriousness. People kind of go ‘yeah that’s some kind of cutesy thing that she does with children,’” she said.

Not one to be deterred, Ms McMonagle has lofty goals for her company. She is spurred-on by her value statement ‘it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken people’.

“I’ve had to struggle to get people to understand my business – to understand what I’m trying to do and to buy into the importance of it. I’m not making some little product. I’m trying to shape the next generation in terms of quality early education,” she said.

Ms McMonigle clearly possesses a deep drive. She has battled breast cancer twice, an experience she shrugs off as a “nuisance”.

“It was just a total inconvenience, but I suppose it helped me reprioritise and refocus, but I worked through most of it and just got on with it. I was in Galway hospital waiting on an operation when the business was one-year old and all I felt was that it was just extremely inconvenient,” she said.

Her company currently makes two apps, MOSAIC Educator and MOSAIC Family.

The MOSAIC Educator app is an electronic storybook used by educators to record and support children’s learning and development and to capture records required for quality compliance and communicating with parents.

MOSAIC Family is a sister app for parents. It allows them to keep up to date with what is on the MOSAIC Editor app. It grants them access regular updates in the form of photographs, videos, learning stories and reports.

Ms McMonagle says Donegal and is an exceptional region for women in business as time off can be limited and a step into nature provides instant relief.

She said budding female entrepreneurs should be prepared for good days, bad days, and long hours:

“The main thing that you need is tenacity. It’s a difficult journey.

My business is just over three years old now and it feels as if it’s 23 years old because that much has happened. You work 24/7 when you work for yourself.”