The Official Opening of the Global Innovation Forum 2024

Guest of Honor: TBC

Session type: Panel

In today’s Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world where technology is evolving at breathtaking speed, achieving inclusive digital transformation has become a major challenge. The pace of technological change often outstrips the ability of policy to keep up, leading to a widening digital innovation gap among countries. This innovation gap is at the core of multiple digital and development divides, with many national policies and strategies – even in developed countries – struggling to bridge it.

Digital leadership now requires fresh thinking, new perspectives and rapid learning to successfully navigate this shifting landscape. This session will spotlight the global challenges, innovative ideas and impactful projects led by policymakers, industry leaders, the private sector, innovators and civil society representatives who are driving digital transformation to foster socio-economic prosperity in their communities.

Key questions explored in this session

• What is the emerging digital innovation gap in our VUCA world and why does it exist?
• What opportunities are there to accelerate digital innovation for prosperity?
• What global best practices can help foster digital innovation and entrepreneurship, leading to digital prosperity?

Session type: Fireside Chat

While the third industrial revolution reshaped socio-economic, political and environmental landscapes, giving rise to information societies and digital economies we know today, the fourth industrial revolution promises even more transformative opportunities and challenges for communities. With just over six years to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries must redouble their efforts, leveraging technology and partnerships as powerful tools to close their development gaps.

The future won’t resemble the past, and it’s crucial for countries to stay ahead of the curve by making sense of the evolving dynamics of technology, policy and innovation. Sadly, many current visions are rooted in outdated perspectives and fall short of leading us to the futures we want. To make matters worse, much like the struggle to achieve the collective vision of SDGs, many stakeholders lack the capabilities to craft future-proof strategies and achieve their goals.

Key questions explored in this session

• What is Futures thinking and why is it essential to every community?
• How can communities and organizations build capabilities to envision equitable futures?
• What lessons can we learn from past and current efforts to shape equitable community futures?

Power Session

This lightning series format will engage participants in an immersive experience and feature insights from distinguished guest speakers.

Step into the emerging technology such as world of Artificial Intelligence and discover the amazing potential for young people to lead in this cutting-edge field.

The “Young Minds and Emerging Technologies Power Session” is a space designed to inspire and empower the next generation of young innovators. Join us for an engaging and interactive session where you’ll explore the fundamentals of emerging tech and hear from trailblazing youth in tech.

By invitation only!

Visionary Dialogue 1

The Digital Innovation Board is a key part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, which is a major initiative of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This board meeting will take place during the Global Innovation Forum, where members will talk about the Alliance’s updates and assess its performance and progress.

Target Audience (by invite only):  Digital Innovation Board Members

By invitation only!

Visionary Dialogue 2

The Digital Innovation Board is a key part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, which is a major initiative of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This board meeting will take place during the Global Innovation Forum, where members will talk about the Alliance’s updates and assess its performance and progress.

Target Audience (by invite only):  Digital Innovation Board Members

(Same speakers and participants as in Visionary Dialogue 1)

Masterclass

This lightning series format will engage participants in an immersive experience and feature insights from distinguished guest speakers.

The master class series introduces ITU’s frameworks on storytelling and will guide participants through rapid competency building. Stories are the oldest means of communication and are part of our daily lives.

With the right storytelling framework, we can communicate any outcome. We can build a story bank of success stories, sell a project more effectively, or simply use it as a personal tool to become a more effective communicator.

Session type: Panel

In today’s increasingly competitive landscape where resources and talent are high in demand, many stakeholders struggle to develop bankable initiative to build thriving, sustainable digital ecosystems. Talent, opportunities and resources often fail to align, proving many initiatives unsustainable and leaving these stakeholders unprepared to reap the benefits of emerging technologies.

In these uncertain times, successfully designing, implementing and scaling digital projects requires new approaches – agile, collaborative and forward-thinking – that enable ecosystem synergies to scale digital innovations. Such approaches are crucial for building a competitive digital economy that delivers value across sectors.

Key questions explored in this session

• What does it mean for an initiative to be ‘bankable’ and why is it hard to develop such initiatives that align with our desired digital futures?
• How do we ensure that talent, opportunity and resources come together to create impactful initiatives accelerating digital development?
• What can we learn from flagship projects that are paving the way towards equitable digital futures?

By invitation only!

Visionary Dialogue 3

The Digital Innovation Board is a key part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, which is a major initiative of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This board meeting will take place during the Global Innovation Forum, where members will talk about the Alliance’s updates and assess its performance and progress.

Target Audience (by invite only):  Digital Innovation Board Members

(Same speakers and participants as Visionary Dialogue 1)

By invitation only!

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, initiated by the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU, aims to create a new framework to help countries develop essential local resources to bridge the digital innovation gap. This will accelerate the impact of their digital innovation ecosystems across various sectors, ensuring an inclusive and sustainable future. In this session, we will review the progress of establishing operational centres, forming expert working groups, providing opportunities for sharing experiences, and discussing key activities to support countries and ITU Regional Initiatives.

Target Audience (by invite only):  ITU Acceleration Centres

Pitch

This series provides entrepreneurs, SMEs, and ecosystem builders with the opportunity to pitch their projects, receive feedback, and network with the audience. An expert jury will assess participants’ impact and give them the chance to pitch in front of the official GIF jury for an award.

Session type: Panel

Developing countries have a youthful population, often seen as the future and the bearers of their communities’ hopes and dreams. To fully realize the benefits of this demographic dividend, it’s critical that the working-age population is well-educated, healthy, and gainfully employed. Without these investments, the potential economic advantages may remain untapped.

One key way to unlock these benefits is to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship. However, for youth to succeed on this path, they need to be resilient, well-equipped and fully supported.

 Key questions explored in this session

• What is youth resilience and why are entrepreneurship and innovation crucial for unlocking this dividend?
• How do we accelerate the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems that support youth?
• What experiments and initiatives can we learn from?

By invitation only!

Workshop Session 1

Discover the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ever-expanding influence on our world. From self-driving cars and healthcare innovations to predicting legal outcomes and advancing space exploration, AI is revolutionizing industries and everyday life.

This workshop will delve into the fundamentals of AI, exploring how machines can mimic human intelligence through speech recognition, problem-solving, and logical reasoning.

Participants will gain insights into the current real-world applications of AI, explore exciting career opportunities in AI and related fields like computer science, mathematics, and statistics, and learn about the future potential of this groundbreaking technology.

Target audience (by invitation only): Young Women from the Maltese ecosystem and others

Session type: Panel

 Emerging technologies are posed to transform the way we live, earn and learn across economies, societies and governments. Advances in computing, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies unlock new opportunities, but many communities have not yet fully benefited from them. New challenges arise too, more complex and threatening to widen digital and development divides.

Recent economic shocks, external dependencies and global crises have underscored the urgent need to harness open innovation and digital technologies to transform economies and build resilience. The Global South holds great potential to accelerate this movement, but this potential remains largely untapped as developing countries as many lack critical local enablers and digital innovation capabilities. To achieve national and regional ambitions, it will be essential to develop digital value chains, integrate them into key sectors, and leverage open technology and innovation to build a competitive, future-ready digital ecosystems in developing nations.

Increasingly, countries with similar development profiles and driven by common goals join forces, pool resources and learn from each other’s experiences. While many countries in the Global South may lack the technology ecosystem needed to fully unlock economic opportunities, countries in the Global North have resources that can be tapped through new forms of collaboration and partnership. More than ever before, South-South and triangular cooperation can enable catalytic actions and drive the development of interconnected and mutually reinforcing national, regional and global innovation ecosystems.

Key questions explored in this session

• What is an open innovation ecosystem and how does it enable competitiveness?
• How can such an ecosystem accelerate digital innovation in the South-South and triangular context?
• What initiatives are stakeholders pursuing to unlock the potential of South-South and triangular cooperation and how can we bring these to the next level?

Masterclass

This lightning series format will engage participants in an immersive experience and feature insights from distinguished guest speakers.

The masterclass series introduces ITU’s frameworks for strategic foresight and guides participants through rapid competency building. It highlights dimensions of future thinking and opportunities to shape one’s own ecosystem.

During this session, participants will gain insights into tools and frameworks that enable countries to stay ahead of the curve and navigate the evolving dynamics of technology, policy, and innovation.

Pitch

This series provides entrepreneurs, SMEs, and ecosystem builders with the opportunity to pitch their projects, receive feedback, and network with the audience. An expert jury will assess participants’ impact and give them the chance to pitch in front of the official GIF jury for an award.

By invitation only!

Workshop Session 2

Discover the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ever-expanding influence on our world. From self-driving cars and healthcare innovations to predicting legal outcomes and advancing space exploration, AI is revolutionizing industries and everyday life.

This workshop will delve into the fundamentals of AI, exploring how machines can mimic human intelligence through speech recognition, problem-solving, and logical reasoning.

Participants will gain insights into the current real-world applications of AI, explore exciting career opportunities in AI and related fields like computer science, mathematics, and statistics, and learn about the future potential of this groundbreaking technology.

Target audience (by invitation only): Young Women from the Maltese ecosystem and others

Session type: Panel

The VUCA global trend has exposed one big Achilles’ heel of traditional policy and strategy making – its slow response to market innovation. Through the waves of technology disruption, some policy makers are struggling to find the best way to meet the new needs of national digital markets without losing sight of long-term strategies for regional and global economic competitiveness, skills development and social empowerment. Holistic policies are needed to drive digital innovation across economic sectors.

In times of disruption, reframing policy and regulation can accelerate digital development across sectors, strengthen markets and improve the long-term economic and development outlook.

Innovation is a game-changer, moving rapidly and disrupting certainties. Faster, more diverse and flexible approaches are increasingly seen as a boon to innovation ecosystems and nascent digital economies. This realization has triggered a movement towards exploring creative versus the more conventional spaces of thought in the public sector.

Addressing the issues at stake in digital transformation requires unlearning some of the basics of traditional policy making, upgrading national approaches, relearning skills and adapting to the fast-evolving environment. Now.

Key questions explored in this session

• What are the major themes for digital policies going forward? How do we create frameworks for the unknown?
• How can policy help successfully navigate tensions and roadblocks in a VUCA world?
• What strategies, frameworks and mechanisms are needed to accelerate policy? What steps are you taking to create or adapt these?
• What could policy be doing regarding technology that it isn’t?
• Do we need more digital policies or less, or just to approach policy differently? How?

Session type: Fireside Chat

Startups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in creating jobs by introducing new solutions and emerging technologies that enhance productivity in the economy. Their success is dependent on access to funding, from the early stages through bootstrapping to later phases with growth funding. Successful companies are increasingly adopting ecosystem business models to prepare for growth in globally connected markets.

Competing in global markets necessitates ecosystem-driven business models, which can be challenging without support mechanisms such as networks, readiness for growth funding, and ecosystem strategies. Therefore, entrepreneurs must address community problems, develop scalable business models, and engage in collaborative efforts to prepare for growth funding.

Key questions explored in this session:

• Why do we need to mind the global ecosystem?
• What is an ecosystem-driven business model in a globally connected digital world?
• What support mechanisms are needed to deliver growth?
• What does it take to be ready for growth funding?

Masterclass

This lightning series format will engage participants in an immersive experience and feature insights from distinguished guest speakers.

The master class explores the impact of mood on creativity, well-being, and overall resilience. It discusses how to bio-hack a growth mindset to unlock elevated states of performance using play and the architecting of human connection.

Additionally, it covers how to build trust, network, and motivation as foundational building blocks for digital ecosystems and the role of these ingredients in cultivating resilience for uncertain futures.

By invitation only!

Workshop Session 3

Discover the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ever-expanding influence on our world. From self-driving cars and healthcare innovations to predicting legal outcomes and advancing space exploration, AI is revolutionizing industries and everyday life.

This workshop will delve into the fundamentals of AI, exploring how machines can mimic human intelligence through speech recognition, problem-solving, and logical reasoning.

Participants will gain insights into the current real-world applications of AI, explore exciting career opportunities in AI and related fields like computer science, mathematics, and statistics, and learn about the future potential of this groundbreaking technology.

Target audience (by invitation only): Young Women from the Maltese ecosystem and others

Session type: Fireside Chat

Digital changemakers are often seen as the leaders of transformation, but they face struggles such as securing resources, acquiring talent, and unlocking opportunities. The organizations that support them are slowly changing. There is a need for new thinking in the traditional organizations responsible for guiding innovation dynamics to accelerate the integration of ICT innovation into key sectors of the economy.

Ecosystem4Impact examines how organizations can transform at the forefront and engage with their communities through a comprehensive approach to digital transformation, aiming to achieve socio-economic benefits. The changing role of stakeholders and the increased need to better coordinate actors and engage with relevant strategies and initiatives are key to the future of the digital ecosystem.

Key questions explored in this session

Ecosystem builders will share inspiring stories of their transformational journey and address some of the following questions:

• What challenges were they trying to overcome to reshape their ecosystem?
• What new capabilities are needed in the frontline to provide a supportive environment?
• What ecosystem development strategies and initiatives are they undertaking to address these challenges?
• What impact did they achieve and what lessons can they share with others about their journey?

By invitation only!

Digital innovation requires extensive collaboration and coordination among various stakeholders to create a meaningful impact. International partners have multiple initiatives supporting ecosystem stakeholders, ranging from policy assessments to programs that assist entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises, and ecosystem builders in order to support grassroots stakeholders and achieve impact. This session will take stock of current efforts, generate ideas for creating synergies, and explore opportunities for establishing a framework for future collaboration.

Target audience (by invite only): UN Agencies, international organizations, NGOs

Pitch

This series provides entrepreneurs, SMEs, and ecosystem builders with the opportunity to pitch their projects, receive feedback, and network with the audience. An expert jury will assess participants’ impact and give them the chance to pitch in front of the official GIF jury for an award.

By invitation only!

ITU’s GCYLP is a Youth Leadership programme aimed at engaging, empowering, and inspiring young digital leaders and changemakers. The programme provides guidance, training, and financial support to 30 young fellows per year to enable them to practically implement digital development projects in their diverse communities across the world.

This session is a unique opportunity to deep-dive into some case studies: real youth-led digital development initiatives already making an impact, especially for people in vulnerable situations.  Discover first-hand how the programme fellows are leveraging their innovations to champion digitalization as key stakeholders in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and to co-creating an inclusive, more prosperous digital future for all.

Target audience (by invitation only): GCYLP Fellows, youth and youth-stakeholders; including academic institutions, youth ministries, youth organizations, etc.

Pitch Competition

In this pitch session, the pre-selected innovators will come before the official GIF jury to present their projects/initiatives. Winners in various categories will be recognized at the close of the Global Innovation Forum.

Session type: Panel

Countries today face complex challenges in digital development that require an integrated ecosystem with clear outcomes. Well-designed innovation networks and platforms are essential tools for helping countries achieve their goals.

Innovation networks and platforms play a critical role in fostering sustainable approaches to digital innovation. Networks are systems of interconnected organizations or individuals working together towards shared goals. Platforms provide the environment that supports the development, exchange and operation of various social and economic activities, services or applications. Through ongoing experimentation and learning, these mechanisms can drive national ambitions in a changing world.

Key questions explored in this session

• What is an innovation platform and how do you develop one?
• Why are innovation networks key to sustainability?
• What experiments are stakeholder conducting with their innovation platforms to shape their future?

The Forum’s closing session will summarize global learning and highlight the best practices of innovative startups/SMEs and ecosystem builders presented during the Global Innovation Forum 2024.