When we set up the Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales we made the conscious decision to split the different stages of an innovation project up. By doing this, we felt we’d be better able to support projects through each stage – from recognising a strategic challenge, to building a team and coming up with ideas to overcome that challenge.

We took nine projects through to the second phase of our programme – building teams and generating ideas. Each project was given £5,000 and around twelve weeks to explore their strategic challenge in more detail, identify the right people to work on that challenge, including a technology partner, and to come up with a research and development project that they could submit for further funding.

The video featured here gives those projects a chance to share some of their thoughts and reflections as they went through that process. We know that they found it challenging but also saw the benefit of bringing in external expertise – a fresh set of eyes on the challenge and different set of ideas about how to overcome it.

We want, wherever possible, to give our projects the chance to tell you what they’re doing and how that’s having an impact on their work.

This film features all nine projects. You can read more about who we chose to take through to the full research and development stage here.

Subsequent films, being produced by the excellent Storm & Shelter, will focus on the individual projects as they go through their research and development journey. Keep checking back or sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date and to find out how you might get involved with our projects.