AGENDA
GLOBAL SOLUTIONS SUMMIT 2019
May 13, 2019
United Nations Headquarters
New York City
GLOBAL SOLUTIONS SUMMIT 2019
May 13, 2019
United Nations Headquarters
New York City
9:00 - 9:30
Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:30 – 11:00
Keynote Address: Inclusive Disruptive Innovation for the SDGs
Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, National Research Professor; former Director General of the Council for Industrial and Scientific Research, India (by video)
Comments and Roundtable Discussion
11:00 – 11:15
Innovator Roundtable 1
11:30 – 13:00
Developing the Global Food Ecosystem
There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in the world, supporting almost 2 billion people. Most are engaged primarily in subsistence farming, producing barely enough to feed their families with little remaining for sale in formal or informal markets. Can we produce technology explicitly designed to improve the productivity, reduce the drudgery, and increase the income of these smallholder farmers? And how can the deployment of this technology help to connect these smallholder farmers to formal markets, thereby reducing their reliance on subsistence farming and generating enough income to enable smallholder families to afford potable water, off grid electricity, education and health care?
Moderator: Zak Bleicher, Partnership Officer and Head, New York Office,
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
13:00 - 15:00
Lunch
15:00 – 16:15
Building the Local Deployment Ecosystem
Harnessing STI for the SDGs is a two-step process. The first step – R&D and invention -- involves developing the scientific know-how and technologies needed to solve SDG challenges. The indispensable next step – deployment – involves transforming the fruits of these scientific discoveries into radically affordable products and services and getting them into the hands of the hundreds of millions of people in tens of thousands of urban and rural communities in dozens of countries. But deployment does not take place in a vacuum. It requires the capacity to transfer and adapt deployment know-how from one locale to another, to knit all the essential components of the local deployment ecosystem into a coherent and efficient ecosystem, and to ensure that there is sufficient implementation capacity for deployment efforts to take root.
Moderator: Alfred Watkins
16:15 – 16:30
Innovator Roundtable 2
Elevator pitches by innovators selected by the UN
16:30 – 17:40
Roundtable on the Role of Government, Private Sector Entrepreneurs, Development Finance Institutions, and Social Enterprises in the Deployment Ecosystem
All too often, official discussions about STI for the SDGs focus on what governments are doing while shortchanging the activities of non-government entities that are actually in the field providing vital services (off grid power, potable water, wifi connectivity etc.) to the more than 50% of the population that government programs have failed to reach as of mid-2019. This raises the question -- what is the appropriate role government vs. the private sector and social enterprises? Should governments sit passively on the sidelines and let others do the work, unencumbered by government interference and regulations? Should they actively empower others to do the work and, if so, how? Or should governments attempt to do everything themselves? A related question concerns the role multilateral and bilateral development agencies? Are they designed to finance social enterprises or are they constrained by their operating procedures (need for a sovereign guarantee in the case of the IBRD) to financing primarily government programs? Panelists representing several social enterprises will discuss how they structured their interactions with governments and official agencies, whether government or non-government institutions were more critical to their success, and what, if anything, governments should do to assist impact investors, private corporations, foundations, NGOs and others to speed deployment.
Moderator and Panelist: Joshua Setipa, Managing Director, UN Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries
17:40 – 18:00
Wrap Up – Next Steps and Introduction to STI Forum and G-STIC
Welcome and Opening Remarks
- H.E. Ms. H. Elizabeth Thompson, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations and Co-Chair, UN STI Forum 2019
- H.E. Mrs. Marie Chatardová, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations and Co-Chair, UN STI Forum 2019
- Mr. Alexander Trepelkov, Officer-in-Charge, Division for Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
- Alfred Watkins, Chairman, Global Solutions Summit
9:30 – 11:00
Keynote Address: Inclusive Disruptive Innovation for the SDGs
Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, National Research Professor; former Director General of the Council for Industrial and Scientific Research, India (by video)
Comments and Roundtable Discussion
- Joshua Setipa, Managing Director, UN Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries
- Michiharu Nakamura, Senior Advisor (Former President), Japan Science and Technology Agency and member of the UN 10-Member Group To Support The Technology Facilitation Mechanism
- Veerle Vandeweerd, Policy Director, Global Sustainable Technology & Innovation Conference (G-STIC)
11:00 – 11:15
Innovator Roundtable 1
- Elevator pitches by innovators selected by the UN
11:30 – 13:00
Developing the Global Food Ecosystem
There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in the world, supporting almost 2 billion people. Most are engaged primarily in subsistence farming, producing barely enough to feed their families with little remaining for sale in formal or informal markets. Can we produce technology explicitly designed to improve the productivity, reduce the drudgery, and increase the income of these smallholder farmers? And how can the deployment of this technology help to connect these smallholder farmers to formal markets, thereby reducing their reliance on subsistence farming and generating enough income to enable smallholder families to afford potable water, off grid electricity, education and health care?
Moderator: Zak Bleicher, Partnership Officer and Head, New York Office,
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
- Maurizio Vecchione, Intellectual Ventures (IV), Executive Vice President of Global Good and Research
- Leena Pishe Thomas, Global Business Inroads, Founder and Director
- Fred Davies, Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M University and Banning Garrett, Senior Fellow, Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils
- Kim Osborne, Executive Secretary for Integral Development, Organization of American States (OAS)
13:00 - 15:00
Lunch
15:00 – 16:15
Building the Local Deployment Ecosystem
Harnessing STI for the SDGs is a two-step process. The first step – R&D and invention -- involves developing the scientific know-how and technologies needed to solve SDG challenges. The indispensable next step – deployment – involves transforming the fruits of these scientific discoveries into radically affordable products and services and getting them into the hands of the hundreds of millions of people in tens of thousands of urban and rural communities in dozens of countries. But deployment does not take place in a vacuum. It requires the capacity to transfer and adapt deployment know-how from one locale to another, to knit all the essential components of the local deployment ecosystem into a coherent and efficient ecosystem, and to ensure that there is sufficient implementation capacity for deployment efforts to take root.
Moderator: Alfred Watkins
- Kurt Soderlund, CEO, Safe Water Network
- Chris Tan, Managing Director of PEMANDU Russia LLC, PEMANDU Associates
- Matthew Guttentag, ANDE Director, Research & Impact
- Amanda Epting, Manager, Practical Impact Alliance | MIT D-Lab
16:15 – 16:30
Innovator Roundtable 2
Elevator pitches by innovators selected by the UN
16:30 – 17:40
Roundtable on the Role of Government, Private Sector Entrepreneurs, Development Finance Institutions, and Social Enterprises in the Deployment Ecosystem
All too often, official discussions about STI for the SDGs focus on what governments are doing while shortchanging the activities of non-government entities that are actually in the field providing vital services (off grid power, potable water, wifi connectivity etc.) to the more than 50% of the population that government programs have failed to reach as of mid-2019. This raises the question -- what is the appropriate role government vs. the private sector and social enterprises? Should governments sit passively on the sidelines and let others do the work, unencumbered by government interference and regulations? Should they actively empower others to do the work and, if so, how? Or should governments attempt to do everything themselves? A related question concerns the role multilateral and bilateral development agencies? Are they designed to finance social enterprises or are they constrained by their operating procedures (need for a sovereign guarantee in the case of the IBRD) to financing primarily government programs? Panelists representing several social enterprises will discuss how they structured their interactions with governments and official agencies, whether government or non-government institutions were more critical to their success, and what, if anything, governments should do to assist impact investors, private corporations, foundations, NGOs and others to speed deployment.
Moderator and Panelist: Joshua Setipa, Managing Director, UN Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries
- Dan Bena, Senior Advisor, Safe Water Network
- Andy Beard, CEO and Co-Founder, Vanu
- Laura Koch, CEO, Dolium
- Donna Katzin, Founding Executive Director, Shared Interest
- Katherine Lucey, CEO, Solar Sister
- Randy Welsch (by video), Cofounder and President, Jibu
17:40 – 18:00
Wrap Up – Next Steps and Introduction to STI Forum and G-STIC
