Digital Innovation Ecosystems

Key Insights

The Global Innovation Forum, held in Valletta, Malta, from 28 to 30 October, brought together over 500 participants, including 27 ministers and deputy ministers, along with other high-level officials from government, the private sector, and the United Nations system. Participants came from 64 countries.

Forum participants identified several key drivers that can help countries champion digital innovation:

  • Projects that attract investment and leverage cross-sector collaboration.
  • South-South and triangular cooperation in open technology innovation.
  • Building innovation capabilities within communities to envision and shape people’s future.
  • Fostering youth resilience and ecosystems that support local entrepreneurship.
  • Agile, anticipatory, and cross-sectoral policies aligned with the evolving digital landscape.
  • Availability of entrepreneurship networking opportunities and growth funding readiness that enable startups and SMEs.
  • Establishment of an Expert Network by the Digital Innovation Board of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development.

The Digital Innovation Board of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development endorsed the establishment of an Expert Network and the launch of an Initiative Accelerator. The Network will conduct foresight studies around the strategic goals of the Alliance, namely: trends research readiness, open technology innovation, entrepreneurship and SMEs growth, policy experimentation, ecosystem initiatives development.

The Initiative Accelerator will jump-start the development of innovation ecosystem initiatives and the ITU Regional Initiatives by bringing stakeholders together to co-create and refine project concepts to accelerate impactful digital solutions.

A collaboration agreement was signed with the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to jointly accelerate digital innovation through the ITU International Centre of Digital Innovation (I-CoDI) initiative and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance.

The I-CoDI Global Workshop and the First ITU Acceleration Centres meeting were held in Dubai, UAE, hosted by TDRA.

In Focus

ITU Global Innovation Forum

Digital Innovation Profile Co-creation advances innovation in Albania