Innovation Factory – Global partnerships to promote digital innovation for sustainable development

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the importance and potential of digital innovations to address global challenges. Digital innovations provide access to knowledge, education and the labour market, improve communication or even create opportunities for the development of new business ideas. In this way, they break down political, social and economic structures and are therefore potentially transformative.

The aim of the Innovation Factory was to increase usage of digital innovations by SMEs across the five pilot countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico and Senegal). In the framework of this project, adelphi conducted a series of idea competitions in the five pilot countries and supported selected innovators through a bootcamp for digital innovations in the idea stage, an accelerator program, and a digital innovation academy. These programmes helped enterprises refine and further develop the business models behind the innovations. The focus of this project was on women entrepreneurship (ICT4Gender), climate change (ICT4Climate) and refugees and migration (ICT4Migration). A Digital Innovation Toolkit supported the implementation of the enterprise support programmes.