Importance of ‘innovation-first mindset’ emphasised at Digital Jersey Annual Review

The team at Digital Jersey were joined by a number of local and visiting experts – including keynote speakers Sir Geoff Mulgan, Founder of TIAL & former CEO of Nesta , and HE Viljar Lubi, Estonian Ambassador to the UK – to address an audience of more than 200 professionals from across the technology, business, charity and public sectors, highlighting both Digital Jersey’s achievements in 2024 and looking ahead to its key areas of focus in 2025.

Introducing the event, Digital Jersey CEO Tony Moretta (pictured) quoted a number of key successes for the organisation in 2024, including supporting more than 200 Members on their growth journeys, holding funding clinics for 20 businesses through the Springboard initiative, facilitating 16 digital business relocations to Jersey, and training more than 1,500 people through courses, webinars and events.

Building on that success, Tony emphasised the importance of nurturing an ongoing culture of innovation across Jersey’s economy. Specifically, he pointed to plans to evolve and enhance the Tech Start-Up Bootcamp this year, to provide local entrepreneurs with more tailored, flexible support to enable them to achieve their ambitions. Other key areas of focus for 2025 include:

• Expansion of the ProMatch platform – initially designed to foster collaboration between Jersey’s digital and finance sectors – to bring digital expertise to a wider cross-section of the business and public sectors
• Developing an AgriTech Roadmap to support the adoption of digital solutions in the local agriculture sector
• Nurturing digital skills across businesses and in schools, including through the ‘F1 in Schools’ project  Building on the Data Trust concept to develop further commercial opportunities for Jersey in the data stewardship space and create a ‘Jersey Data Exchange’ platform
• Continuing to promote Jersey internationally as a testbed for new technologies

Meanwhile, across two panel sessions at the event, themed around ‘the growth of the digital industry’ and ‘innovation’, panelists discussed some of the most significant trends shaping the digital landscape and the challenges and opportunities those trends present to Jersey.

In particular, panelists stressed the critical importance of businesses and governments understanding the benefits AI can bring – pointing to the fact that Digital Jersey is developing its own AI Roadmap this year.

Panelists also discussed the importance of risk taking when it comes to disrupting the status quo and driving true innovation and growth, encouraging both the private and public sectors to not be afraid to ‘rip up the rulebook’. Jersey’s social capital and ease of access to a broad range of high quality professional  expertise and political guidance was also highlighted as a key factor in enabling Jersey to be agile in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.

Commenting on the event, Tony Moretta said: “Our absolute focus for 2025 is on fostering and accelerating innovation in the island – by supporting our Members to help them thrive, by bringing the best minds together to collaborate on exciting ideas, and by driving up skills across our community. It’s an approach that echoes the thoughts of one of our guest speakers, Sir Geoff Mulgan, who wrote recently about the importance of the adoption and diffusion of technology in economies to help drive sustainable growth. I think that message came across strongly at our event – it has never been more important for us to adopt an innovation-first mindset as an island if we are to overcome the collective challenges we face and make the most of the opportunities.

“In that light, we’ll be looking to build on a successful 2024 in the months ahead, as we look to support local digital scale- and start-up businesses in a more tailored way to help them grow, champion collaboration and support the integration of innovation in all corners of our community, help organisations apply AI tools effectively, and support islanders with their digital skills needs. We’re also really excited by the ongoing evolution of Impact Jersey, which has already had tangible benefits across our island and is attracting the attention of innovators and entrepreneurs on the international stage too.”