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infoDev and the World Bank Group, along with the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam (MoET) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam (MoST) will co-host a coordinated series of workshops on Next Generation Business Incubation in Vietnam, from 15-17 November 2011, at the Sheraton Hotel in Hanoi. The workshops are made possible by funding from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and AusAID. The event will cover the following workshops:

 On Tuesday 15 November, a stakeholder workshop on designing a climate innovation centre (CIC) in Vietnam will bring together climate innovation stakeholders from both the public and private sectors to help design a CIC suited to the Vietnamese context. In the morning, a panel of experts will discussion the policy perspective on Vietnam’s green growth, technology and innovation potential and the private sector’s experience of climate innovation in Vietnam. Participants will then break into working groups in the afternoon to carry out a ‘gap/needs’ analysis of climate innovation in Vietnam addressing the issues of technology development; access to finance; company growth and entrepreneurship; market transformation; policy and regulation.

 On Wednesday 16 November, a stakeholder workshop on best practice in business incubation will facilitate the sharing of incubation experiences in order to promote and refine the model for business incubation, especially in universities. The morning session will be dedicated to a panel of experts who will discuss the status of technology business incubation in Vietnam and lessons learned from technology and university based incubation in the rest of the world, including India, the Philippines and Thailand. In the afternoon, the attendees will break into working groups, each group discussing how to develop solutions to confront technology business incubation challenges, as well as strategies to seize the opportunities. The concluding session will formulate recommendations and plan the next steps towards the next generation of technology business incubation in Vietnam.

 During the morning of Thursday 17 November, a high-level policy dialogue on Vietnam’s incubator policy will give the audience the opportunity to discuss the policy and strategy outcomes from the first two days of workshops and to explore how to further develop technology business incubation in Vietnam.

On the afternoon of Thursday 17 November, infoDev will host the working-level kick-off meeting of the pilot program on virtual business incubation, for which a grant has been awarded to the START TOPICA consortium. For more information, please contact Dr. Tim Kelly, at tkelly@worldbank.org.

The workshops will be preceded by a two-day-program of business incubator manager training on Sunday 13 and Monday 14 November 2011. For more information, please contact Mr. Julian Webb at: julian.webb@creedaprojects.com.au.