23 September 2016: The UN Foundation, the UN Non-Government Liaison Service (UN-NGLS), and several partner organizations held a ‘Solutions Summit’ on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly (UNGA), to showcase innovative practices that are helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ten innovative projects or technologies were selected through a competitive process led by UN-NGLS. The Summit aimed to direct support towards deploying and scaling up the selected innovations.

The 2016 Summit, which convened on 23 September, in New York, US, highlighted an online platform that enables Syrians caught in conflict to share what is happening around them, an artificial intelligence project that can predict disease outbreak with 85% accuracy, a project documenting and interpreting the language of whales, and an online search tool to assist with family reunification.

The projects were chosen for their ability to advance the objectives of recent or forthcoming international summits and agreements: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Marrakech, the Open Government Partnership Global Summit, and the UN Conference to Support the Implementation of SDG 14 on oceans. Each of the ten selected innovators gave a “lightning talk” outlining their work to policy makers, industry representatives and potential investors at the Summit.

Other organizations partnering with the UN Foundation and UN-NGLS to organize the Summit included the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Global Innovation Exchange. The Summit received private sector funding from Qualcomm, MasterCard, and Guggenheim Partners.

The Solutions Summit is an annual event, which took place for the first time in 2015, immediately following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. [Solutions Summit Website] [UN Foundation Blog Post]