Innovative entrepreneurial ventures can realize their full potential only if they scale well beyond being viable, local businesses and serving a small customer base. Start-ups can scale organically, through acquisitions or through collaboration. In public sector, innovators need access to demand that government services can offer. On the one hand, this demand helps the innovator get test reference, validate product, establish credibility and grow. On the other hand, government needs accelerated public service transformation to meet citizens’ needs. In private sector, collaborative strategies are most interesting as they allow start-up partner to profit from the resources and backbone of the large corporate partner. Corporate partners benefit from start-up’s ideas/concepts, possibilities to test ideas quickly and outside complex structures, access to technology, rapid prototyping as well as its entrepreneurial spirit and culture. These collaborations enable the scaling of innovative ventures to the benefit of all parties concerned.

Supporting the innovation in isolated sectors is not enough. There is a need for a digital innovation ecosystem that will support innovations emerging in unconventional ways across government and business. Major changes in what is regarded as innovation within governments and corporations are needed: a change of internal approaches to innovation, a change of external relationships between traditional and non-traditional stakeholders and the environment.

This session will discuss:

• Mechanisms of co-creation with small innovative firms, and integrating the digital ecosystems to various segments of the economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, services, etc.
• Building programs fostering open innovation ecosystem, embracing open innovation and networked approaches to sourcing ideas and capturing value in both the public and private sector.