Irvine Abraham

Over 40 years’ experience in the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector to foster economic engagement, local economic development including start-up and growth. An artisan/craftsman I hold a Higher Certificate in Engineering, a bachelor’s degree in business studies and a master’s degree in Organisation and Development (entrepreneurship dissertation). I am a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and past Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. I have collaborated with many enterprises, organisations, colleges and universities locally, nationally and internationally to share best practice and deliver leadership, innovation and change projects. Equipping employees, staff and students with vocational and entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete successfully in the global employment market. Key achievements include:

Engaging with businesses to up-skill and reskill the workforce and provide innovation services
Leading and managing multiple projects simultaneously (£1-3M budget annually)
Developing programmes for knowledge transfer, skills transfer and technology transfer
Delivering Leadership and Change module (UU Business Studies course)
Delivering CMI Level 6 Professional Management and Leadership Practice (Innovation and Change)
Leading a sector-wide student entrepreneurship programme including Design Thinking (DT) and Problem-Based- Learning (PBL) methodologies
Piloting a pre-incubation centre offering students hot-desking facilities
Developing lecturers through an on-line Enterprise Awareness module developed by Ulster Business School for university lecturers
Delivering ideas generation workshops and associated business planning competitions, organising guest speakers
Introducing an in-house College Certificate in Enterprise
Leading a European network of colleges involved in researching how businesses start-up and grow, and developed and tested a new entrepreneurship model enabling students to compete internationally on a business enterprise competition
Broadening the delivery of problem-based-learning (PBL) projects in the curriculum to include local enterprises and international colleges/partners
Working with international partners to develop a common framework for assessing transversal skills in work-based-learning programmes;
Speaking on the international stage as guest speaker (Cape Town, Porto, Johannesburg, Skopje and Brussels) 5000+ individual audiences, topics leadership and change, business engagement and entrepreneurship