AI education start-up Diotima to spin out from Trinity
Posted on: 28 May 2026
Diotima supports teaching practice by using responsible AI to provide learners with feedback, leading to more and better assessments and improved learning outcomes for students, and a more manageable workload for teachers and tutors.
A new Irish company which is developing an AI-enabled platform for education will spin out from Trinity College Dublin this month.
A team of researchers at the university received €500,000 in funding last year to develop an AI-enabled platform to help teachers and other educators create assessments and provide formative feedback to learners in complete compliance with European and Irish legislation.
The project was supported by The Learnovate Centre, a global research and innovation centre in learning technology in Trinity College Dublin.
Diotima supports teaching practice by using responsible AI to provide learners with feedback, leading to more and better assessments and improved learning outcomes for students, and a more manageable workload for teachers and tutors.
The Diotima platform was developed from scratch to meet the exacting requirements of Annex III of the EU AI Act, which has strict regulations around how you can use AI in high-risk sectors – such as education.
Now the company – Diotima – is ready to spin out as a company.
The company will continue engaging with prospective customers to get a deep understanding of their needs and of how Diotima can best go to market and will be seeking investment.
Diotima is also today announcing that EdTech commercialisation specialist Jonathan Dempsey will become CEO of the new company while founder and former secondary school teacher, biochemist and environmental scientist Siobhan Ryan will become Chief Product Officer. The initial team will be completed with Development Engineer Daniel Fernandez and AI Engineer Dr Long Mai, who both worked on the project.
The idea for Diotima came from Siobhan who, after a 12-year career in the brewing industry with Diageo, re-trained as a secondary school teacher. Her experience in the classroom made her realise that she could have a greater impact by leveraging AI to create a platform to support teachers in a safe, transparent, and empowering way.
Diotima made the announcements at a packed showcase at the Trinity Innovation Hub in Dublin in front of invited guests and supporters of the new company.
The showcase featured a talk from Dr Ann Devitt (above on right), Head of TCD School of Education and Academic Director of the Learnovate Centre, who was also a Principal Investigator on the project. It also included a panel discussion, chaired by Learnovate Impact, Licensing & Commercialisation Manager Tom Pollock with Diotima trial partners: Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI), Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School and Malahide Community School, and the Law Society of Ireland.
AI regulatory compliance expert Dr Eoin Lane — who was former Global Head of AI and Data Science at the Bank of New York Mellon – is a Governance Consultant to the Diotima project. He launched his White Paper, produced in partnership with Learnovate, on Compliance-Grade AI Infrastructure for Formative Assessment in Education, which used Diotima as a best-practice case study, at the showcase.
* Pictured at the announcement were: (l-r) Diotima CEO Jonathan Dempsey; Learnovate Impact, Licensing & Commercialisation Manager Tom Pollock, Diotima founder and Chief Product Officer Siobhan Ryan and Head of the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin and Academic Director of the Learnovate Centre, Dr Ann Devitt.