United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (UN WSIS Forum 2020)

Other Activities / By

 Developing Active Communities and Networks of Collaboration and Support of Sustainable Entrepreneurs Delivering Local Impact with a Global Outreach” Geneva, 7 September 2020

On 7 September 2020, World Entrepreneurs and Andalucía Emprende – the entrepreneurship support institution of the regional Government of Andalusia, Spain – co-organized the Session 385 of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (UN WSIS Forum). The Forum is the world’s largest annual multistakeholder platform to hold discussions and recommend specific actions for the advance of the knowledge society, innovation and technology to achieve the SDGs. It is jointly organized by four UN organizations, including ITU, UNCTAD, UNESCO and UNDP.

This Session 385 consisted of a regional workshop on the development of support communities and collaborative networks to help entrepreneurs to transform our World with their initiatives, delivering local impact with a global vision, in the spirit of the UN 2030 Agenda.

“To transform our World, we do not need to accomplish great feats or to be endowed with great or special talents and skills. We only need to take action and make things happen to improve the state of things around us, with our creative and entrepreneurial spirit. As the UN Agenda 2030 reminds us, the world faces a series of common global challenges that affect every country, every territory and every community in different ways. Transforming our World requires that people act in an entrepreneurial and creative manner to generate solutions that adjust to our different realities and needs locally to improve lives and achieve shared prosperity, while caring for our environment, our Planet. Moreover, it requires entrepreneurial people to collaborate with other communities to scale their impact globally through their collective effort, thus becoming real world entrepreneurs.” – L. Gennes, World Entrepreneurs

The panelists discussed how support networks and communities could help entrepreneurs transforming our World, by focusing their missions on bringing together those who make a difference locally, creating social value with their projects, initiatives and solutions that can be replicated on a global scale. In this context, the panelists shared their visions, experiences and thoughts on what the essential factors for the design and development of these communities and networks should be in order to render the necessary support to purpose-driven entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in an inclusive, integrated and agile manner, from a human and innovative perspective. 

Based on experience, World Entrepreneurs suggested that a sustainable structural approach building on human empowerment, transformative innovation and collective leadership should be adopted by these support networks, organizations and communities as key factors to fulfill their mission of inspiring and accompanying sustainable entrepreneurs in their journey, and connecting them to scale their impact internationally.

Through the exchange of experience, the panelists built on these key factors, also addressing the specific needs for women entrepreneurs and the fundamental role of technologies to funnel their support in a sustainable fashion. 

Leticia Gennes, Director of World Entrepreneurs, and Rosa Siles, Managing Director of Andalucia Emprende, facilitated this regional workshop, starting with the introductory remarks and a presentation on the key topics. The workshop built on the exchange of experience with our guest speakers Julio Rozo, Founder of Amazonia Emprende (Colombia), and Beli Casillas, Founder of MicoTime (Spain), two high-impact entrepreneurs creating value-based communities around their green initiatives and projects. They both aim to preserve the amazing biodiversity of our Planet from their territories, by undertaking initiatives that also empower others to develop and participate in nature-based solutions, projects and activities, and helping them learn about and protect our forests and ecosystems, as well as to contribute to mitigate the impact of climate change, while achieving shared prosperity. They featured two local initiatives targeting the same global challenge in a sustainable and replicable manner. This session concluded with an active interaction with the audience led by Laia Puyol, expert in collaborative innovation.

Key Remarks and Conclusions by World Entrepreneurs 

Our capacity to transform our World together is determined by our entrepreneurial, innovative and collaborative effort as a society. Moreover, our collective effort can greatly benefit from the power of networks and technology to accelerate our local impact globally, by enabling knowledge sharing and the replication of our good practices and sustainable solutions at scale for the progress of our humanity, our shared prosperity and our beloved planet.

Our entrepreneurial spirit is the innate human ability to generate and transform ideas – as diverse as our humanity – into a reality that can lead change for the benefit of our families, communities, societies, economies and planet. Moreover, we believe that this change can be catalyzed and scaled globally through our collective effort, enabling the transformation we all cherish to achieve a more equitable, sustainable and inclusive World.

Entrepreneurs are people – including managers, leaders, innovators, scientists, explorers and citizens of all ages and from all places – leading change for a better World, locally and globally, with their initiatives, communities, projects and organizations, beyond their nature, sector and scope, in the spirit of the Agenda 2030.

We believe that, to build communities, nations and societies that are more inclusive, innovative, sustainable and resilient, we need to support our universal entrepreneurial spirit and world entrepreneurs. This requires strong support institutions, communities and networks that can articulate multiple ecosystems around and with them on permanent basis to inspire their ideas and actions, to accompany them in their journey to materialize their initiatives and to connect them to scale their solutions and impact, understanding that every life and every experience count.

Based on experience, World Entrepreneurs suggests that the following key elements may be necessary for the sustainable management and leadership of organizations, networks and communities that support world entrepreneurs, their initiatives and ecosystems to transform our World, together:

Purpose: Achieving and helping others achieve the SDGs, setting objectives, principles, values and strategies that are ethical and sustainable, targeting the empowerment of people, organizations and communities to contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth in the spirit of the UN Agenda 2030.

Human empowerment: building personal, technical and technological skills and knowledge to develop, lead and manage purpose-driven projects and initiatives in an entrepreneurial, innovative and collaborative manner. 

 Collective leadership and effort: promoting collaborative models and partnerships, based on trust, empathy and shared value, to co-create, experiment and learn new solutions and services that mobilize resources, knowledge and means to generate and support sustainable development projects, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Networks and transformative innovation: building collaborative networks and promoting the use of technology infrastructure to connect, communicate and give visibility and access to people, organizations, knowledge, resources and solutions in an inclusive, agile and integrated manner. Moreover, enabling the articulation and support of digital international cooperation ecosystems to innovate solutions for the advance of the SDGs, locally and globally, based on the creation of collective value, knowledge and impact.

Sustainable and human-centric model: setting an integrated, transparent and results oriented management and organizational structure, enabling a culture of human equality and empowerment, good governance, impact iteration, effective communication, knowledge sharing, learning and change.

In closing, we believe that collaborative and support structures, organizations and networks, technology infrastructure and digital transformation play a key role in building our New Impact Economies and Societies, where more people, organizations and communities can be permanently and digitally ready, connected and interconnected to address our common global challenges, at the local and international level, co-creating innovative solutions to achieve a more sustainable, inclusive, equitable and resilient Growth for All, leaving no one behind or disconnected.

“This regional workshop allowed us to activate those with a drive to transform our World by undertaking ventures with a local impact that can eventually reverberate across the globe. As a result, panelists and the audience enjoyed a space for interactive participation, having not only learnt but also drawn up together a working sheet to implement all the real opportunities to cooperate that emerged throughout the event”. – WSIS Forum Outcome Report 2020.

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