‘The future of island hinges on the nurturing youth entrepreneurship to overcome challenges and valorise the distinctiveness of the communities inhabiting within them.’ This was stated by BOV Chairman Dr Gordon Cordina during ‘the Youth4Entrepreneurship Gozo’ event’ – an event organised by the Gozo Business Chamber in partnership with Bank of Valletta, in which young people could pitch their idea in front of a panel of business experts. This year’s event was related to sustainability and digitalisation.
‘Sustainability is not a minimum baseline that business models need to achieve, they need to transform themselves into a sustainability-first mode,’ said the BOV Chairman. ‘Business need to produce and sell sustainability, rather than sell products and services sustainably, otherwise sustainability goals cannot be reached, let alone exceeded.’
‘Banks have had to transform themselves to combat money laundering and financial crimes over the past few years,’ continued Dr Cordina. ‘The next decade will be all about transforming Bank to ensure climate sustainability. This means that Banks will be asking businesses to become more and more sustainable, otherwise financing from Banks might not be forthcoming, or come at too high a price for business to be feasible.’
‘We all believe that digitalisation is the future and it is easy to believe that this is going to solve everything however this is not the case. Technology has saved us over and over again over the years but we have no guarantee that this will not fail. We have to manage digitalisation with businesses becoming omni-channel, training the human component and the digital drivers to work together to provide a holistic experience for each and every consumer, in a sustainable manner,’ concluded Dr Cordina.