From school dropout to CEO of multimillion company – Limerick native shares success story

A LIMERICK-born CEO of a car safety company, which could save millions of lives, has shared how he climbed his way to the top.

Now owning a multimillion euro company, Barry Lunn is founder and CEO of Provizio, an advanced radar technology company for cars. 

Born and raised in Caherconlish, which he describes as a “super place to grow up”, the entrepreneur did an interview on RTÉ Radio 1 where he detailed his humble beginnings and dyslexia diagnosis.

His ‘fascinating’ background story began with him being a school dropout, working in aerospace engineering and now, running his own global company worth over €5.7m.

“I was a pain in the backside in one way [in school]”, Barry told RTÉ Radio 1 show host Oliver Callan. 

“I was a very curious kid, fascinated by Lego and had a big imagination. I went to secondary school in the city, CBS in Sexton Street.”

Saying that he soon realised his performance at school “wasn’t matching” with others, he began to wonder why.

“What I didn’t know at the time was that I’m dyslexic. This was the 90’s, they weren’t diagnosing dyslexia. School and me just didn’t match.

“Art probably saved my life in the period where I dropped out. I had an intervention from a teacher in CBS, Joe McGrath, who caught me doing graffiti. Poor Joe tried to make a hurler out of me and discovered I was good at something!”

After dropping out in fifth year but subsequently returning to school to sit his Leaving Cert, Barry was accepted to Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), where he soon discovered he “wasn’t an artist”.

READ MORE HERE: Mid-West Simon Community seeks to appoint new chief executive

“I ended up studying design and met two ex-lecturers in the University of Limerick, who were successful entrepreneurs – the Sugrue brothers. 

“We hit it off and I became employee number one, where I moved off to France working in the aero defence industry.”

Barry says these formative years were where he learned about entrepreneurship and he eventually became the CEO of that aerospace company within 10 years of being there. 

While in that company, they were doing high-frequency testing for the defence industry, including that of the US military. 

Barry saw an opportunity to put that technology on to chips in order to cut waste and so, started his own company Arralis, which he later sold. 

“I started working on Provizio straight away [after that]. We started looking at cars and asking ‘why do we crash?’ and asking ourselves if we could build a product that could eventually lead to autonomy (self driving).

“You get to a debate where if the robotics in the vehicle are better than the driver, it becomes ethical. We started building those radars in Provizio.”

The radars and AI software technology built and trialled by Provizio predicts and prevents road accidents. The car sensors can slow or restrict drivers from making dangerous decisions behind the wheel.

The five-year-old company has a testbed in Shannon, Co Clare and Barry says they have “succeeded” in what they have so far set out to do.