5th Global Forum on Innovation & Technology Entrepreneurship

May 28-30th, 2013, in East London, South Africa

South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology will host the 5th Global Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a biennal infoDev flagship event that convenes a global grassroots innovation and entrepreneurship community to discuss issues of interest, explore new business models, ideas and methodologies, as well as to network with one another, with a special focus on the needs of African innovators:

The 5th Global Forum will feature the following activities:

• Join interactive sessions on mobile innovation, agribusiness, clean technologies, and women’s entrepreneurship.
• Participate in a business incubation training just before the Global Forum, an entrepreneurs’ fair exhibiting SMEs and startups, as well as site visits exploring South Africa’s innovation landscape.
• Celebrate inspiring entrepreneurs from developing countries at infoDev’s Dragons’ Den pitching competition and meet financiers, business incubator managers, industry leaders, policymakers,
  members of the media, and donor representatives.

Previous Global Forums were held in Finland, India and Brazil and convened over 1,000 professionals from more than 70 countries.

For more information about the Global Forum, key program highlights, registration, and logistics, please visit:

www.globalforum2013.co.za 

infoDev's 4th Global Forum held in Helsinki in 2011

infoDev and its program partners within the Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy program are proud to say that the 4th Global Forum was a resounding success! Bringing together more than 600 people from over 90 countries, this milestone event offered various opportunities for networking and knowledge sharing across the globe. In addition to many Davos style discussions and deep dives around mobile applications, climate technologies and agribusiness, you could really feel the buzz at the Top50 SME Fair - the first of its kind held in conjunction with the Global Forum.

Program highlights included:

infoDev's 3rd Global Forum held in Brazil in 2009

3rd GLOBAL FORUM ON INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
XIX National Seminar on Science Parks and Business Incubation

Renewed Commitment to Fostering ICT-enabled Enterprise Development

Photo: infoDev

Global Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Brazil 2009

From October 26 to 30, 2009, the city of Florianópolis (SC) was the world capital of I&E, receiving approximately one thousand leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals and scholars from various parts of the world. The reason for this gathering was two events: the infoDev Global Forum on Business Incubation and the National Seminar on Technological Parks and Business Incubators.

In September 2008, infoDev established a strategic partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MTC), the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Businesses (SEBRAE), and the National Association of Entities Fostering Innovative Undertakings (ANPROTEC). Through this partnership, Brazil joined infoDev's Donors Committee and announced its intention to host the 3rd infoDev Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship in 2009. This partnership has been the very reason for being of this Global Innovation & Entrepreneurship movement.

While the Global Forum proposed a participative vision of business in the interest of world development, the National Seminar sought ways of transforming innovative micro and small businesses into sources of economic and social leverage, always under the prism of investment and internationalization.

The objective of the events was to discuss policies targeted at innovation:

• Identifying the principal mechanisms for fostering and strengthening public- private partnerships;
• The role of business incubators in the development of such sectors as agribusiness and clean energy;
• The types of investment that can and are being made in new innovative companies;
• Internationalization strategies that stimulate cooperation among innovative undertakings; and
• The attractiveness of technology parks for public and private investment.

The scenario for these two complementary events is one of the 10 most dynamic cities in the world, according to

Newsweek magazine. Florianópolis has gained notoriety as it simultaneously brings together technology, industry and tourism. These characteristics have given the capital of Santa Catarina a well deserved reputation as the “Brazilian Silicon Valley”.

agenda and presentations

The program, sessions description, and presentation can be downloaded here.

Biographies of key speakers can be found here.

The Program Overviews for both the 3rd Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship and the XIX National Seminar on Science Parks and Business Incubation are available at the hosting website at http://www.gf-bns.net/ingles.

VIDEO INTERVIEWS

infoDev’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship program aims to build local capacity in developing countries to create the conditions that foster innovative enterprise creation and growth.  infoDev meets this goal primarily through its global network of business incubators.  The network was launched in 2002 with support from the Government of Japan.  Today, the infoDev network consists of nearly 300 incubators in over 80 developing countries assisting 20,000 entrepreneurs that have created more than 220,000 jobs.

In late 2009, infoDev convened many of the network’s members at the 3rd infoDev Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Florianopolis, Brazil.  During the Global Forum, infoDev’s program manager and several members of the network were asked about their views on the incubator network and the future of innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries.  The videos found below represent highlights from those interviews.

Access the video interviews here

About the Hosts

infoDev is a partnership of international development agencies, coordinated and served by an expert Secretariat housed in the Global ICT Department (GICT) of the World Bank, one of its key donors and founders. It acts as a neutral convener of dialogue, and as a coordinator of joint action among bilateral and multilateral donors—supporting global sharing of information on ICT for development (ICT4D), and helping to reduce duplication of efforts and investments. infoDev also forms partnerships with public and private-sector organizations who are innovators in the field of ICT4D

The Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) was created in 1985 in order to deal with topics related to the national scientific and technological legacy, while defining national science and technology policies, innovation, the information sciences and research and development. The MCT coordinates the implementation of programs and measures aimed at consolidating National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy. The objective of this policy is to transform the sector into a strategic component of Brazilian economic and social development, in such a way that the benefits of this process can be distributed fairly to all of society. MCT is also charged with implementation of the National Program of Support to Business Incubators and Technological Parks (PNI), which is designed to bring together, coordinate, improve and publicize institutional and financial support activities targeted to undertakings at business incubators and technological parks.

  The BrazilianService of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) is a private nonprofit organization that has the role of fostering competition and sustainable development of micro and small scale undertakings. The institution was created in 1972 as a result of pioneering initiatives that had the objective of stimulating entrepreneurship in Brazil.

     Anprotec is an association that represents the interests of business incubators, technological parks and innovative undertakings in Brazil. Its activities are based on the fostering of activities in the areas of training, coordination of public policies and generation and dissemination of knowledge. The Association has a long 21-year history and now brings together 255 associated entities, representing approximately 400 incubators and 6,300 innovative undertakings which, taken together, employ approximately 33,000 people in all parts of Brazil.

  CERTI (Centers of Reference in Innovative Technologies) is a private nonprofit organization created in 1984 to provide support to companies in incorporating knowledge and technology into their products and processes. As an institution of science, technology and innovation, CERTI was founded with the objective of performing applied technological research in a framework in which Brazil required significant leaps forward in terms of quality and development of its own innovative know-how, particularly in the area of the information sciences and state-of-the-art technologies. The Foundation has partnerships with universities and research centers in the country and abroad, including UFSC, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the United States and the PTB (Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt), in Germany.

    Santa Catarina Network for Fostering Technological Entities is an institution representing business incubators and science parks located in the State of Santa Catarina. Recepet have the mission of promoting new technology through development and consolidating the business incubators. This reflected on the brand that passes on to growth and union to showing the importance of business incubation and incubator’s clients.

Related articles

 Apply to be a 2009 Global Forum Innovator - April 13, 2009

 infoDev announces winners of Global Innovators Contest 2009 - June 2, 2009

 Global Forum Flyer 2009 - June 29, 2009

 Message from infoDev's Program Manager: Global Forum 2009 Outcomes and Highlights

2nd GLOBAL FORUM ON BUSINESS INCUBATION 2006:
Empowering Econoies Through ICT-enabled Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Renewed Commitment to Fostering ICT-enabled Enterprise Development

infoDev's 2nd Global Forum on Business Incubation took place in India November 6-10, 2006. The event highlighted the commitment of infoDev and its Global Network of Incubators' to foster ICT-enabled enterprise development in the developing world; solidified the Regional Networks of incubators; and called on infoDev to play an increasing role in capacity building, knowledge-sharing, monitoring and evaluation, and awareness-raising.

 

More than 300 participants from 60 countries gathered in Hyderabad India to learn more about how to most effectively promote ICT-enabled entrepreneurship, and to increase their capacity through networking and exploration of partnerships. 

"We need to extend the benefit of IT and Internet to fuel innovation in traditional businesses...We need to break the myth that technology only serves the rich and we need to bring the benefit to the large section of the society" said the Chief Minister of the State of Hyderabad in his opening speech.

Dr. Reddy, Minister of Industry, Tourism and Sugar followed, stating that "to keep pace with paradigm shift in the economy, Technology Business Incubators have emerged as a powerful tool for nurturing technology and knowledge based enterprise and generation of value added employment."

Following the opening, the 2nd Global Forum was comprised of panel discussions with distinguished speakers from the private and public sector and academia, and parallel sessions where practitioners discussed key challenges, opportunities and lessons from their work in promoting ICT-enabled entrepreneurship.  Along side this program the Regional Networks from Africa, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean discussed the priorities and action plans for their regional network activities.

Also showcased at the Forum were video case studies of infoDev supported incubators Busy Internet in Ghana, ITCP in Brazil, TRECSTEP in India and CRC Incubator in Vietnam (see below). 

Zhu Hongyan from the Tianjin Women's Business Incubator in China said "in Hyderabad we had the opportunity to

 

interact with the Vietnamese CRC Incubator. They also expressed an interest in learning more about the issues associated with women entrepreneurs, while TWBI in turn can learn from our Vietnamese counterpart on how to garner private sector support. The Forum has been educational not only from the formal program, but also through the networking opportunities."

Similar exchanges continued to take place throughout the Forum, connecting organizations from different countries, joined by their common interest to promote ICT-enabled economic opportunities.

The five day event ended with a Statement from the Participants as well as presentations of the Regional Network Action Plans (see below). Clear common threads among them were the call for increased capacity building for incubators, awareness-raising among policymakers, and international knowledge-sharing.

For the second time, the Global Forum on Business Incubation was co-hosted by infoDev and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the government of India.  Upon the presentation of the regional action plans, DST announced its intention to help fund the Asia regional network of incubators. For the second time, the Global Forum on Business Incubation was co-hosted by infoDev and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the government of India.  Upon the presentation of the regional action plans, DST announced its intention to help fund the Asia regional network of incubators. 

The Global Forum on Business Incubation forms part of infoDev's Incubator Initiative, an Initiative started in 2002 to facilitate ICT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries. The 2nd Global Forum marked a milestone for the Initiative, and the outcomes of the Forum, along side that of the recently concluded evaluation of the Initiative, will form the basis for the next phase of work in this area

Related Articles

  Forum Agenda and Presentations

  Business Incubation Case Study Videos

  Recommendations and Regional Action Plans

  infoDev's  Incubator Initiative

  infoDev Incubator Support Center