Nigel Caruana

A founding member of the Hedgehog team, Nigel brings commercial strategy expertise, an ability to navigate the legislative environment, and a drive for advancing the business side of the start-up. As Director of Business Development, Nigel focuses on positioning the platform with secondary schools and universities, building the partnerships and go-to-market approach that will allow Hedgehog to scale while staying true to its pedagogical roots.

An economist with a Master's from the London School of Economics, Nigel represents businesses on the international stage as a Policy Adviser at the Maltese Business Bureau in Brussels. He brings a track record that includes founding and leading a JA start-up for three years, joining Huskie, a successful Maltese start-up, as the first non-founding member, and working as an Economist at ERCST, a leading Brussels-based think tank.

Nigel believes the current discourse on AI places disproportionate emphasis on its risks rather than how to leverage it to amplify human potential. He is deeply conscious of the dangers of cognitive offloading and the ease with which LLMs without guardrails allow students to bypass thinking entirely, especially at a young age. His vision is for AI to augment rather than replace human cognition: to sharpen thinking and elevate cognitive abilities, not to enable corner-cutting.