Introduction & Background
More than a year in, the COVID-19 crisis continues to have a significant impact on society. It has exposed the fragility of the current economic system across the globe, but also provided a powerful lens to examine the underlying conditions that led to this fragility, and illuminated gaps in economic and social values chains, providing the opportunity to improve economic resilience and related issues.
Entrepreneurship-driven digital innovation has the potential to increase communities’ resilience, protect jobs in key sectors of the economy and increase economic inclusion. However, the enabling environment for digital innovation is not adequate to create sustainable impact in many countries. ITU research shows that as of 2021, very few countries have start-up acts, policies or programmes supporting digital innovation and entrepreneurship. There is a growing digital innovation divide at the heart of the digital divide among countries, and many national policies and strategies — even in developed countries — often fail to close it.
Recovering from — as well as preventing — crises and bridging the digital divide require new partnerships to close the digital innovation gap. Countries can use this opportunity to transform their communities into thriving and competitive digital economies through accelerating entrepreneurship-driven innovation and focusing on job creation. This forum will empower participants with new insights, skills, tools, frameworks and relevant case studies to understand how to leapfrog the digital innovation divide, prepare and recover from global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and accelerate job creation.
The ITU held the five-day Global Innovation Forum (GIF) from 25-29 October 2021. This Regional Innovation Forum for Asia and the Pacific builds upon the discussions of that forum, localizing the discussions for the region and highlighting key insights and practices regionally.
Beyond building on previous discussions at the GIF, this Regional Innovation Forum will catalyse the partnership discussions surrounding ICT-centric digital innovation, especially in the context of the digital economy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Objective
The aim of this webinar is to highlight topics about the current state of the digital innovation ecosystem, digital trade, and e-commerce in the Asia and the Pacific. Specifically, the objective is to share stories of good practices and countries’ readiness in nurturing digital innovation in national development agendas, especially in the e-commerce and digital trade innovation ecosystem. Additionally, the forum will mainstream the voices of innovators in this discussion, including noting the stories of innovation from the frontlines.
