Why DIGIT Expo keeps coming back to the EICC – and how place, partnerships and purpose shape a flagship tech event
SINCE 2018, we have proudly hosted the DIGIT Expo annually at the EICC – bringing together IT leaders, decision-makers and practitioners for a day focused on learning, conversation and connection.
Founded by Ray Bugg, DIGIT Expo has grown into a flagship event in Scotland’s tech and events calendar, shaped by a strong sense of community.
“It’s the biggest technology community event in Scotland; an event for key users to come along and discover new technologies, network with their peers, and meet suppliers with a view to buying products and services,” says Ray. “It’s very much a community event.”
DIGIT Expo was created to support the people behind those decisions, offering a space to learn, connect and make sense of constant technological change.
Why Edinburgh – and why the EICC?
Edinburgh plays a defining role in DIGIT’s story – as a city where knowledge, innovation and connection naturally come together.
“When you look at the concentration of industries, Edinburgh is probably a bigger consumer of enterprise IT than Glasgow,” Ray says, citing the number of major enterprises headquartered in or operating from the city.
Just as important, he says, is consistency of location. Returning to the same venue each year has shaped how the event feels for delegates, sponsors and organisers alike. “If they’ve been there before, they know what to expect. They know the services that are on offer. Familiarity is something that people appreciate.”
Behind the scenes, that familiarity helps everything to run a little smoother. “Knowing the processes, knowing the people, knowing the facilities, saves an incredible amount of time and resource,” he says. This has allowed the team to focus less on logistics and more on delegate experience.
Designing for the delegate experience
As DIGIT Expo has grown, its focus has shifted from scale to refinement. “Numbers are one thing, quality is another – now we can strengthen the criteria for attending the event and refine the audience,” Ray says.
That, he says, means prioritising people who are actively shaping technology decisions inside their organisations. “We never want a time when non-desirable attendance is blocking desirable attendance through capacity.”
For DIGIT, the delegate experience comes first. “We always think of delegates as our customers,” says Ray. That philosophy shapes the programme too. Rather than building the agenda around headline names, the team focuses on the story they want to tell. “We tend to build the narrative and then fit the right people into that narrative,” he says.
“The more of these people that are talking to each other and networking in a physical way, the stronger the thinking is and the more ideas are shared.”
Speakers are chosen to balance vision with pragmatism. “We get some people to talk in a visionary capacity – the art of the possible – but we also bring in senior IT leaders who can say: this is how we’re actually doing it. These are the challenges we’ve had,” he says.
“When talking to delegates after the event, the most defining question for us is: ‘Have you improved your learning and understanding today?’ We consistently get percentages in the high-90s answering yes.”
A wider impact
Beyond individual learning, DIGIT Expo is designed to strengthen Scotland’s tech community more broadly. “If it helps Scottish businesses to be leaner, faster, more competitive and more agile, that by proxy is a stronger economy,” Ray says.
DIGIT also gives people space to make sense of fast-moving change. “Tech is a fast-moving beast, but it only moves quickly in certain verticals,” says Ray.
Topics such as AI and cybersecurity return regularly, but evolve each year. It’s not just ‘AI again’,” he says. “It’s what part of AI people want to hear about now – from generative to agentic; how AI is talking to AI.”
That thinking often opens up wider conversations. AI is a good example: “If companies are consuming more AI, they’re using more data and more processing,” Ray says. “So then you start talking about sustainability, environmental impact and how organisations offset that burn – you get food for thought across the entire landscape, not just one problem in isolation.”
For him, much of the impact comes from bringing people together in the same space. “You create a hive mind,” he explains. “The more of these people that are talking to each other and networking in a physical way, the stronger the thinking is and the more ideas are shared.”
Partnership over transaction
Asked what makes the long-standing relationship with the EICC work, Ray points to how the partnership has evolved over time. “The team at EICC listens, they deliver, and they bring ideas to the table,” he says. “They make you feel like you’re partnering with the venue rather than engaging their services.”
DIGIT is planning several years in advance at the EICC. “Something drastic would have to happen for us to even look in another direction,” Ray says. “We get white glove service. That’s what’s allowed us to go from one event to several events a year, plus awards. The more we work with each other, the closer we get – and delegate feedback now for many years is that DIGIT Expo just gets better and better.”
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