The future is bright for Jersey, but the timing is now or never!

The future is bright for Jersey, but the timing is now or never!

SPORT & TOURISM OPPORTUNITES

We already have a fantastic environment for sport and it is amazing what people will spent to realise their sporting goals. People think nothing of jumping on a plane and staying in a hotel just to run 10k. I once flew to Birmingham for the Indoor Rowing Champs. I came 4th in 6min and 40secs. That trip worked out at 100 per minute and I loved it.

Jersey coaches including Nick Saunders and Tony Williams already export & promote Jersey by providing on-line coaching to hundreds of athletes all work the world. HeathHaus is recognition that people care about their health and will pay a premium for great facilities. There are so many examples. However there is no joined-up approach to integrate our resources and market Jersey. There is nowhere other than perhaps Club LaSanta in Lanzarote that you will find so many physios, medics, coaches, athletes, and facilities in an area 40 miles square. Our capacity to host the Island Games is testimony to the opportunities that exist every day, of every year not just Island Games 2015.

I am working to help better co-ordinate and leverage the Island Games, Youth Games and Commonwealth Games. Our ambition should be to share resources, talent, coaching and management. To combine, collaborate, co-operate and communicate to become a centre of excellence which offers a joined-up approach to sport and health and a performance programme that can lead from Youth Games -> Island Games -> Commonwealth Games and then, being part of GB for the Olympics. We can only do this, if we work as a team!

There are many world-class events that we could host here in Jersey.

SPORT & BUSINESS OPPORTUNITES

70 countries participated in the Glasgow Games. 200 world leaders. 7000 athletes. 5 billion viewers. Did Jersey realise the true potential of working with these people, these organisations and promoting itself to that audience?

I was invited to meet David Cameron at No 10, and he talked about the need to inspire, the need to train hard, and the benefits for the whole community in sport, in health and in business. I don t believe we have realised the potential that can be gained by working alongside Team GB or Team Australia or the business and export opportunities.

Success in sport is seen on the track, in the court, on the road. But there are opportunities in Marketing, Management, Coaching and Technology. We are looking for the best athletes, but why not also the next Seb Coe? Why don t the IoD put forward their best directors, the Institute of Marketing their best marketers or the Institute of Management their best manager to work along-side the performance management teams of England, New Zealand, Jamaica.

The next Commonwealth Games should make the other nations envious of our ability behind the scenes as well as on the field of play. The talent that has made Jersey an offshore finance centre is about enterprise, goals, drive and could be equally used in Sport Management. We often say business can lean a lot from Sport, but Clive Woodward was perhaps the first to suggest that sport can learn a whole lot from business!

If we do this then it is another reason for people all over the Commonwealth to come to Jersey to learn from us and buy our services.

SPORT-TECH JERSEY

Athletes want data to improve performance: top teams use wind tunnels, and wearable devices for speeds, power, heart rate, calories. Jersey s Gigabit + Digital Jersey + Google would be a great combination to develop these technologies into real-time feedback systems which go directly to the coach. In Formula 1 the data from the car goes directly to the engineers who give advice to the driver over the radio. Supposing we could do this for athletes and coaches, just think of the potential for feedback and improvement.

Many people now video on their phone, or maybe have those small GoPro cameras on their helmet. Suppose, using a product like Google glasses, the coach could see what the athlete sees as they are performing. Suppose the glasses had a heads-up display like a fighter plane which told the athlete where their rivals are, and how they are performing in real time! This would completely change race strategy in the way that radios and team cars have changed the way the Tour de France is won.

Suppose all this information went directly to your TV, so that the next time you watch the Olympics you can select an athlete and watch their speeds, power, heart rate, calories. You could even see what they see, though their eyes, if they are wearing Google glasses. This would completely revolutionise sport, participation and engagement.

There is nothing new in anything outlined above. These are all existing jig-saw pieces, but I believe that Jersey s Gigabit + Digital Jersey + Google would be perfect partners to prototype something in Jersey for the Island Games, the Commonwealth Games and maybe the Olympics.

Jersey wants to diversify from the Finance Industry and develop Digital Jersey. This seems an exciting opportunity, particularly because of the other applications (see below)

DIGITAL HEALTH

If we replace the word athlete with patient and the word coach with doctor we now have a new way of delivering digital health care to a community.

Athlete data now becomes health data and performance becomes wellbeing. Instead of an athlete being coached by someone track-side, or remotely the same concepts can be used to allow Doctors or Specialists to support patients thousands of miles away.

There has been a lot of work by Jersey s Heart Doctor Andy Mitchel on this, and I believe that Digital Heath is a huge opportunity for Jersey.

THE WAY FORWARD

I am not the expert, I don t have a new widget that will do all this today, but I have drive and passion and I believe Jersey has all the components (time, talent, technology, cash, enterprise) to make the above possible.

I am really keen to build and promote opportunities which will engage and excite our whole community, potentially linking this to TEDxYouth and creating both business opportunities and sport performance.