About Zookie

The name

Why Zookie?

Zookie (ZOO-kee). From Dutch zoek, “search”. To zook: to have a proper look, together.

Zook sounds exactly like Dutch zoek, from zoeken: to search, to seek. Dutch zoeken and English seek share the same Germanic root. The domain makes it a verb: zook.ie, zook it. To zook something is to have a proper look at it, together, before deciding anything.

-ie is the diminutive of warmth in Scots, Ulster-Scots and Hiberno-English: laddie, lassie, postie. It turns a verb into a companion. Zookie is the little seeker, the one who looks with you.

Zookie is from this island: an Irish address and an all-island idea, that capability lives in people in every town, and most of it has never been looked at properly. The name travels, too. Say it anywhere in Europe and it sounds like what it does: search.

Our story

The one who looks with you

Every organisation is full of people who have already innovated and never called it that. They rescued a project. They found a way round a rule that made no sense. They talked a sceptical room into trying something, and it worked.

Founders Charlie Tuxworth and Kathryn Lynch have spent decades helping organisations innovate. They saw the same thing again and again: innovation capability decides who gets ahead, yet the support to build it is locked behind consultancy fees and academic qualifications. Most people never get near it.

The frameworks that describe these capabilities are serious and sound. ISO 56011 names them. A competence framework maps them. But a standard can't sit beside you on a Thursday afternoon and look at the pitch you're giving on Friday. So we built the thing that can.

The way forward is rarely a straight line. You go across, you double back, you go across again, and every lap takes you a little further. Twelve competences grown; then twenty; then the day you realise innovation has been describing you all along.

Our mission

“A common language and toolkit for innovation capability, shared by education, industry and government, and open to everyone who needs it.”

The people behind it

Leadership

Charlie and Kathryn co-chair Innovate Island, the all-island community of innovation practitioners, advisors and academics.

Kathryn Lynch

Co-founder

Enterprise software programme manager and business strategist with experience across public and private sectors. Appointed industrial advisor to the Irish public sector and EU working groups, and Chair of the Small Business and Enterprise Council.

Brings deep expertise in stakeholder engagement and programme delivery at scale.

Charlie Tuxworth

Co-founder

Convenor, Chair and Project Lead of ISO/TC 279/WG 5, the international working group developing ISO 56011, the standard for innovation management competence. It is at Draft International Standard stage, with publication expected in 2027.

Over 30 years' experience across enterprise software, financial services, and the public and voluntary sectors. In 2020 he created F!Sk®, the Framework for Innovation Skills, validated by Ulster University as “the first model of its kind”. Its latest version sets out the 52 competences at the heart of Zookie.

Zookie is jointly owned by Celsio Services Ltd and Chronos Consulting. We are setting up its long-term structure now, and open access for people who need it is built into that structure from the start.

Our ambition

Innovation capability for everyone

“To provide equity of opportunity and competence in innovation.”

Innovation capability as common as literacy and numeracy, whatever your background or circumstances.

People in every town able to see, and grow, what they can already do.

Organisations of every size with access to the same quality of support as the largest.

Communities better able to adapt to change, on their own terms.

What Zookie does

An AI-assisted innovation coach

Guidance that fits the work you're actually doing, when you need it, built around three ways of looking.

Coaching

A coach you can ask anything

Ask in plain English. Zookie helps you prepare for what's coming, in the context of your own work and experience.

Capability

52 competences

See where you stand across four groups of innovation competence, each at five levels from Contribute to Inspire.

Capability

Development pathways

Personal next steps based on your goals and current level, at your own pace, one working day at a time.

Capability

Innovation Capability Snapshot

A dated, organisation-level report of capability and progress. Evidence for leadership and funders, not just conversation.

Navigation

Ecosystem map

Find the funding, programmes, mentors and collaborators available to you, locally and beyond.

Navigation

Resource library

Tools, templates, case studies and methods covering every stage of the innovation process.

Work with us

Help us make innovation capability available to everyone who needs it.

Get involved