Under the theme “Shaping Future Governments”, the World Government Summit (WGS) is the largest global platform dedicated to exploring the future of governments driven by technological advances and evolving citizen expectations, and showcases future trends in government services, leadership, and innovation. The summit brings together over 3,000 leaders, policy makers, academics, and key representatives from international organizations from over 130 countries.

One track of the WGS is the “SDGs in Action @ WGS” program. This program was organized in collaboration with the United Nations, the World Bank and OECD. Stakeholders from around the world looked at the key challenges to the implementation of the goals and to identify potential solution.

The 2017 edition of the “SDGs in Action @ WGS” looked at the role of Science, Technology and Innovation in the implementation of the SDGs. The Format of the program was a mix of plenary and cluster discussions that lead to ideas that where pitched to the delegates and voted on.

Professor Patrick Paul Walsh chaired a cluster on SDG 10 that produced a winning idea that will be showcased at the UN Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (STI Forum) in May 2017.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/TFM/STIForum2017

The winning idea uses existing technologies to create a crowd sourcing and financial matching platform to enable STI transfer to deliver government services in poor countries.