12 March 2019
2019 STI Forum Launches Calls for Innovations, Side Events
Photo credit: Suresh Muthukrishnan, Furman University
story highlights

DESA launched a call for side events related to the STI Forum’s 2019 focus, as well as an invitation to innovators from around the globe to submit their solutions for advancing one of the five SDGs discussed by this year’s Forum.

Past winning solutions had already gone through a proof of concept phase and were ready to scale up.

The submissions are to be reviewed by a group of experts and selected innovators will be invited to take part in an exhibition at the 2019 STI Forum in New York.

21 February 2019: The fourth annual multi-stakeholder forum on science, technology and innovation for the SDGs (STI Forum) launched a call for innovations to accelerate progress towards education, job creation, peace and reduced inequalities. The 2019 STI Forum’s organizers also opened a call for side events.

The Forum will take place from 14-15 May 2019, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. The STI Forum is a component of the UN’s Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) outlined in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) on financing for development (FfD) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The TFM also includes an Inter-Agency Task Team on STI for SDGs (IATT), a 10-Member Group appointed by the UN Secretary-General, and an online platform.

The 2019 Forum will discuss STI cooperation focused around SDGs 4 (education), 8 (economic growth), 10 (inequalities), 13 (climate change) and 16 (peace), and aims to bring together scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, policy makers and representatives from civil society and international organizations. The Forum will also address a number of cross-cutting themes, including the impacts of rapid technological change, STI roadmaps, gender and STI, and indigenous knowledge.

On 21 February 2019 the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Inga Rhonda King, invited the participation of ministers from fields such as innovation, education, energy, economics, environment and rural development, as well as chief scientists, chief technology advisers or heads of national research institutions in the 2019 Forum.

The UN Department of Economic Affairs (DESA) has launched a call for side events related to the Forum’s 2019 focus, as well as an invitation to innovators from around the globe to submit their solutions for advancing one of the five SDGs discussed by this year’s Forum. The call notes that in the past, winning solutions had already gone through a proof of concept phase and were ready to scale up.

According to DESA’s website, the call for innovations is hosted by the IATT and the 10-Member Group, in collaboration with the Global Innovation Exchange, a global development technology platform for innovations, funding, and insights. The submissions are to be reviewed by a group of experts, and selected innovators will be invited to take part in an exhibition during the 2019 STI Forum in New York. All submissions will be featured in GIE’s public database, which is used by the press, donors, funders and investors, and innovators also gain access to a list of available innovation funding opportunities. [DESA Call for Innovations] [DESA Call for Side Events] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on the Third STI Forum]


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