Gi Fernando

Gi is an engineer, investor and entrepreneur.

Having founded and built a number of successful businesses over the last 20 years including Techlightenment - the leader in social insight and advertising, and Freeformers – a digital transformation company which trains one young person for free for every business person trained - he now concentrates on investing and supporting startups and scale-ups including Citymapper, YPlan, Streetlife, Timber Yard, TechWillSaveUs, Playmob and Big Health.

He advises a number of FTSE organisations on digital strategy and transformation.

His particular passion is unlocking creativity and digital talent, and he sits on the board of Apps For Good, Young Rewired State, Freeformers, and the Duke of York's IDEA programme for inspiring digital enterprise. He also sits on the advisory council of the Institute of Contemporary Art and is a long time advisor of iRights.co.uk.

Gi believes strongly in the need to foster creativity and inspire initiative among the UK workforce, and among other projects that further this aim, is an advisor Makers Wharf, which looks at the future of work in the UK.