The Emerge Partnership was formed last week at the ITU Telecom World event in Budapest, Hungary, bringing together a group of stakeholders to provide thought leadership and best practice advice to help inform government policy-making for startups and innovators.
The Emerge Partnership will engage in supporting innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and includes representatives from the United Nations (UN) and other international organisations, the ICT industry, incubators and accelerators, and development and innovation practitioners.
It was launched as a means of facilitating public-private collaboration, after large multinationals, startups and SMEs outlined key priorities and requirements for government policymakers to provide a vital enabling environment for innovation and private enterprise.
A communiqué issued by the new partnership focused on increasing the innovation capacity of small firms in the ICT sector, while encouraging the spread of digital social innovation aimed at helping to improve people’s lives. It seeks to enable entrepreneurial ecosystems to create and sustain private-sector-led innovation and economic growth.
The Ministerial Round Table at the event issued the ‘Budapest Call for Action’, reaffirming the political will to accelerate innovation for social impact in line with the Connect 2020 Agenda adopted at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in November last year. The call for action emphasised the importance of fostering entrepreneurship and welcomed the establishment of the Emerge Partnership.
It highlighted the role of ICT-based innovation in addressing key socio-economic and environmental sustainability challenges, such as those addressed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and other national and regional frameworks.
“As the digital transformation continues to bring unprecedented potential for socio-economic growth, there is a very real danger that the digital divide between the connected and the unconnected will deepen, rather than disappear,” said ITU secretary-general Houlin Zhao.
“Economic policies that promote innovation and entrepreneurship will be essential to bring ICTs to every person and business in the world and kick-start rapid growth.”
