ITU Acceleration Centre Meeting

18 – 22 August 2025 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Event Concept

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development was launched by the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau to offer a new framework to help countries build critical local enablers to bridge the digital innovation gap and accelerate the impact of their digital innovation ecosystems on cross-cutting sectors for an inclusive and sustainable future.

The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in its role as a capacity-building partner of the Alliance, will host a five-day workshop on Policy Experimentation to support the capacity development of the Alliance Network of Acceleration Centres. The hosting of this event is part of the implementation of TDRA’s Partner2Connect pledge to invest AED 5 million to support the ITU-TDRA joint initiative, the International Center of Digital Innovation (I-CoDI), which aims to empower Member States in advancing digital innovation in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
This event marks the second time TDRA will host the ITU Acceleration Centres to deliver capacity building through I-CODI facilitation. Objectives of the workshop
The objectives of the workshop are to:

Provide updates and discuss the progress and lessons learned by the Centres in aligning with the Alliance goals and strategic objectives.
Strengthen the Centres’ capacity to foster an agile policy and regulatory environment through stakeholder engagement, co-design of adaptive policies, development of sandboxes, and support to their implementation and institutionalization to attract investment and drive thriving digital economies.
Engage participants in hands-on case work and equip them with tools to build and apply competencies in key aspects of policy experimentation.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

Understand the broader policy context by identifying political, economic, social, and technological factors that influence policy design and implementation.
Assess policy gaps and opportunities by examining challenges and proposing adaptive strategies to guide policy development and reform.
Design policy interventions using co-creation methodologies and evidence-based approaches to ensure relevance, agility, and impact.
Establish experimentation spaces through practical case studies, such as designing and implementing global HealthTech or regulatory sandboxes and living labs.
Plan and manage policy implementation through the development of institutional mechanisms and the application of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools.
Strengthen the capacities of ITU Acceleration Centres to design and implement policy experimentation initiatives through the use of practical tools and experiential learning.