About Us
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The residential sector is responsible for 25% of Ireland’s energy usage. Despite this, only 2% of Irish homes receive an energy upgrade annually and 70% are still in need of an energy retrofit.
Because of this need for efficient energy retrofits, the idea was created to counteract the problem. In 2017, following the SEAI-funded research project, the first RetroKit concept was created and a clear need in the market was identified. The idea was put into action in March 2020 by Susan, Xavier and Shay, and the company RetroKit Ltd. was founded. Since then we have been developing RetroKit with a dedicated team of experts specialising in sustainable energy, data analysis, software development and Geoinformation system.
Our mission is to digitise the planning of residential energy retrofits to enable our clients to reduce the carbon footprint in residential buildings, alleviate energy poverty and improve the health and well-being of the occupants.
The Team
Xavier Dubuisson
Chief Executive Officer
Xavier is the CEO at RetroKit and is an engineer with 25 years’ experience in the field of sustainable energy in Ireland and Belgium. Xavier established XD Sustainable Energy Consulting Ltd in 2011 with the mission to ’empower our clients for their transition to a low-carbon, resilient future’. He has been providing technical assistance to organisations and communities in Ireland and abroad at the fore of the transition to the low-carbon economy. Xavier has also worked closely with sustainable energy communities and has in-depth knowledge of different retrofitting options for homes. He has been providing technical assistance to public bodies, local authorities and communities in Ireland since 2001.
Susan O’Flaherty
Operations and Marketing
Susan is Co-founder and Operations Manager at RetroKi and responsible for external communications, human resources and financial management. She has a BA in French and German and a MA in Translation. She has co-founded 3 businesses including XD Consulting, SOF Translations and RetroKit. She also has a background in project management and customer service, having worked most recently with Amazon Customer Service in Cork (2011-2014). She has completed the Women in Business Course organised by the Local Enterprise Office and the Exxcel Programme female entrepreneurship programme at the Rubicon, MTU to support the business development of RetroKit. Recently, Susan has additionally completed a course in “Designing Innovative Services” at MTU.
Shay Kavanagh
Chief Technical Officer
Shay is a versatile chartered engineer and technical energy expert with more than two decades of professional engineering experience. He has substantial expertise in energy efficiency, Low Carbon Technologies (LCTs), energy conservation and associated policy and standards development and implementation. Shay is CTO and works on the technical development / specification at RetroKit.
Max Deasy
Software Engineer
Max is Software Developer at RetroKit. He studied Software Development, Computer Networking and completed a Msc in Artificial Intelligence before joining the RetroKit team. A keen technology enthusiast and a member of the maker community, regularly engineering custom IoT solutions and utilizing a combination of 3D modeling & printing to realize ideas or projects. Within RetroKit he is responsible for IT infrastructure, software architecture design & implementation, and on-going system development. His role involves getting his hands dirty with code and making data behave itself.
Katie Burke
Software Engineer
Katie is a Software Engineer at RetroKit. Katie has 6 years software experience with Ruby on Rails and Ember JS working in the HR and Performance Management sector. Katie has recently joined RetroKit, where she is using Django and React as a member of the software development team. Katie has a background in Civil Engineering and Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing from University College Cork, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Software Engineering at the University of Oxford.
The Vision
“At RetroKit our vision is to become the market leader in providing innovative support for the digitalisation of the entire housing energy renovation value chain. We are actively exploring new technologies that help increase speed, efficiency, and quality of home retrofit projects. We are focused on growing our solutions organically, with our client needs in mind, adding new features that will make our analytical tools even more intelligent and intuitive to use. We are also designing a new application that will support innovative procurement solutions, moving housing retrofit projects from strategic planning towards implementation.” Xavier Dubuisson, RetroKit CEO
With Thanks
RetroKit was made possible with funding from SEAI Research and Development Programme, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Office.
Our vision is for everyone to be able to live in a comfortable, healthy and climate-friendly home.
