Digital Catapult CEO Jeremy Silver responds to the government’s new Innovation Strategy

Jeremy Silver, Digital Catapult CEO, said:

“It’s good to see the Innovation Strategy published today; it will really help to bring together public and private expertise and investment, driving adoption and diffusion of next-generation technologies and industrial digitalisation.

“Investing in innovation is how businesses grow, create new jobs, become globally competitive, enrich local communities, and boost the economy across the country.

“Through our programmes, we have been supporting digital responses to the pandemic and helping companies accelerate back to growth.

“We’ve been developing new digital solutions for manufacturing supply chains that enable greater resilience through transparency and trust in data, and we’ve worked with UK startups on our Made Smarter Technology Accelerator – one of which is predicting that their AI-based solution will help an average shop floor operator recoup more than 10,000 hours of lost production per year.

“We have also helped a number of companies take immersive experiences all the way from concept to the top 10 on the Oculus Quest store – and, in 2020 alone, in our acceleration programme, we helped around 90 deep tech early stage growth businesses raise over £320 million in private investment.”