Fresh vision for driving innovation in Guernsey centres on Digital Greenhouse, involves a new board and providing protection for start-ups
- Innovate Guernsey and Digital Greenhouse to "merge" with new inter board set up.
- Plans being taken forward to establish a Protected Cell Company to help businesses start and scale up.
- Payment provider Stripe said to be rolling out its service to island business within the next 18 months.
Oversight of the central innovation and entrepreneurial hub in Guernsey is being transferred to a new board with pledges to ease the friction of establishing a business.
Economic Development established the Innovate Guernsey board in February last year, and now one their first major moves has led to the creation of another board on which some of its member will sit to direct what happens at the Digital Greenhouse, whose leadership in the past has reported straight into the committee.
Speaking at the Chamber of Commerce lunch today, Innovate Guernsey chairman Justin Bellinger said that they would be building on the existing programmes and there would be no radical changes to staffing.
“Many of you would be aware in Guernsey that if a bunch of people have a great idea, more than three of them, they’ll form a committee.
“If there's five people who have the same idea, there will be two committees, right? There will be a split.”
He said they would be looking for unification so that there was a central place for innovation, building on what was already in place, but that there would be more than education with action going forward.
“We're going to be standing on the shoulders of the great work the Greenhouse has done over the last few years. So our two groups will come together.
“There'll be an interim board that will be a subset of my board from Innovate, joining forces with the Greenhouse and building on the excellent programs that they've already got.”
The aspiration is to build some structure that can attract both scaleups as well as startups.
“We’re working with a number of other groups to explore the concept of setting up a PCC, a protected cell company structure within the Greenhouse. We'll be working on that over the next couple of months. That will ease the friction of starting up a business, but also, as we scale, that gives us a potential attracting private investment into those nascent companies.”
The Digital Greenhouse runs business accelerator programmes such as Startup Saturdays and the Startup Academy, but it recently lost access to support from leading venture builder Blenheim Chalcot when the States ended the IT contract with Agilysis.
The premises also has hotdesk and permanent desk space for small businesses.
In a press statement, Economic Development President Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said: “Stronger engagement with industry at governance level has been on the books for a while, and so I am pleased we can announce this important next step which brings the work of the new Innovate Guernsey Board together with the mandate of the Digital Greenhouse.
“These interim arrangements will allow us to progress at pace the vision and the plans of the Innovate Guernsey Board and shape the future strategic and operating model of the Digital Greenhouse."
The new Interim Governance Board will report to the Economic Development Committee and assume responsibility for the delivery of the Digital Greenhouse's services and support programmes, including oversight of its budget.
It will be chaired by Mr Bellinger with membership including Barrie Duerden, a non-voting member of Economic Development, plus two more members of the Innovate Guernsey Board.
It will also have a rotating seat.
At the Chamber lunch, Innovate Guernsey provided other updates on its work.
It has created a section on its website listing all the perceived barriers that businesses have told them they face in Guernsey.
These included the lack of support from payment provider Stripe.
While overcoming that was a government initiative, the company has offered assurances that Guernsey is in its 18 month rollout plans.
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