Human inventiveness is unlimited, and we need learn how to tap into this infinite potential. We can do this by connecting transformative change with emerging innovation because it is through technological, social, digital, and scientific breakthroughs that we create and strengthen pathways to sustainability. By putting innovation at the core of transformative change processes we not only nurture emerging ideas and amplify pioneering approaches but we make it possible to integrate collaboration and input from various stakeholders, this moving innovation from being an isolated improvement or a brilliant invention into a tool at the service of the future of humankind.
Conference 3 – Innovations
Conference 3 - Innovations 10 Mar | 2 - 4 PM CET
How do we guide innovations towards regenerative futures?
Documentation Video
Program
Dr. Petra Kuenkel
Introduction to the Conference - How do we guide innovations towards regenerative futures?
Dr. Petra Kuenkel
Global Transformation and Leadership Expert; Member of the Executive Committee, Club of Rome, Founder, Collective Leadership Institute, Fellow World Academy of Arts and Science
Dr. Petra Kuenkel is a thought-leader, renowned author, and leading strategic advisor for multi-stakeholder approaches in global sustainable transformations. As an executive committee member of the Club of Rome and founder of the Collective Leadership Institute she empowers leaders to take decisive action for our planetary future. Her academically grounded key note speeches inspire audiences worldwide with ideas for actionable pathways to a better world. Her ground-breaking publications focus on transformation literacy, stakeholder partnerships, collective stewardship and life-serving new economic architectures.
Picture ©Christian Jaeggi
Dr. Mariana Bozesan
Keynote conversation: Integral Investing - How can investments guide innovations towards sustainability?
Dr. Mariana Bozesan
Award-winning Integral investor, Serial Tech-Entrepreneur, Member of the Club of Rome, Fellow World Academy of Arts and Science
Dr. Bozesan is an award-winning integral investor and successful serial tech-entrepreneur leveraging exponentially growing technologies to reach carbon neutrality and accelerate the implementation of the UN SDGs within Planetary Boundaries by 2050. She is the author of Integral Investing: From Profit to Prosperity, a report to the Club of Rome and the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS). The prominent alumna of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) is also the recipient of the Golden Angelina Award, as Europe’s Female Angel Investor of 2019, conferred by BAND, the German Business Angel Network and BAE, Business Angels Europe. In 2017, she was also named Best European Early-Stage Investor 2016 by EBAN, the European Business Angel Network.
Elaine Thomas
Keynote conversation: Innovative approaches in conflict-affected areas in Asia - Role of innovation in improving resilience in fragile contexts
Elaine Thomas
Principal Operations Coordination Specialist (Conflict-Affected Situations), Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Asian Development Bank
Elaine is an expert in bringing new approaches to solving development challenges. Over the course of her career in ADB, she has led ADB’s work on civil society engagement, designed and administered projects in the health and education sector in Southeast Asia, and is now implementing ADB’s FCAS and SIDS Approach by supporting clients to work effectively in fragile and conflict-affected situations.
With more than 25 years of development experience, she has also lived and worked in the field in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, The Gambia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan.
Interactive session - What are parameters for life-enhancing technological, social, digital, and scientific innovation?
Douglas F. Williamson
Innovations in practice - How can we support pioneering approaches?
Douglas F. Williamson
Managing Partner Collective Leadership Institute USA and Senior Project Manager
Douglas Williamson is Senior Project Manager at CLI. He is an education, facilitation, and sustainability communications expert and a high-energy, multi-skilled leader and team player with more than 20 years’ experience in the areas of partner relationship management, strategic planning, project management, natural resources management and international affairs.
Having worked with several international environmental NGOs, the United Nations University and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Division, Mr. Williamson has a history of success in conceptualizing, planning, co-organizing and implementing a broad variety of projects and initiatives. He is an engaging and energizing workshop and course facilitator, as well as an award-winning environmental filmmake
Tariq Al-Olaimy,
Collaborative innovation in the MENA region - Transforming sustainable development challenges into opportunities
Tariq Al-Olaimy,
Managing Director, 3BL Associates
Tariq Al-Olaimy is Co-Founder and Managing Director of 3BLAssociates (3BL), a people + planet think-do-tank established to accelerate the global transformation and regenerative development through collaboration. 3BLhas advised Nobel Peace Prize winners and nominees, governments, and corporates on inclusive, multi-stakeholder, and inter-species models of transformation.
As a not-for-profit social enterprise with impact in over 90 countries, 3BL’sthink-do-tank projects include Diversity on Board, a platform that brings greater parity of gender, youth, and other unrepresented groups to advisory board positions in the MENA region; Recipes for Wellbeing, an association that works to support the well-being of change-making organizations; and Public-Planet Partnerships, a planet-centered framework that facilitates collaborations between humans and the rest of nature.
Among the first 100 Biomimicry certified specialists in the world, Tariq has conducted trainings across six continents, and he has held advisory board and co-chair roles with organizations such as UNESCO, EAT Foundation, and theGlobal Shapers Community – an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Tariq is a Fellow for the Royal Society of Arts, and has received multiple global recognitions for leading projects that contribute towards the SDGs; including being recognized as a ‘Climate Trailblazer’ by the Global Climate ActionSummit, awarded as an Expo 2020 Global Innovator, and is the first person from the MENA region to be recognized by GreenBiz and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development as one of their “30 under 30” leaders for breaking new ground in sustainability innovation. Tariq has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and Stanford SocialInnovation Review. He currently hosts the World Expo 2020 ‘People and Planet’Podcast.
Taras Derkachi
Integral investing and transformation incentives for SME
Taras Derkach
Career Hub Coordinator – CSR Ukraine
Taras Derkach is the head of the Career Hub in the CSR Development Center. Since 2016 he has been developing the all-Ukrainian career advice platform Career Hub. He is coordinator of the center in the program “Dream and Act”, the initiative “Ukrainian Pact for Youth 2025” and organizer of projects for students and youth: “Profession Map”, forums “Business Youth: the effect of WOW from Cooperation”, “Career talks” and other.
Interactive session - Nurturing innovation
Outlook - Where from here?
Innovations
Innovation is a key driver for shifting humankind out of the current dangerous path – but it can do so only if we are able to focus innovation on life-enhancement for all. A regenerative future has driving principle guiding technological and social innovations. This is not about confining inventiveness, but it is about setting the right parameters, and asking how can technological, social, digital, and scientific innovation strengthen life-enhancing actions?
Innovation needs to be contextualized, anchored in continual knowledge exchange, and integrated in informal, indigenous, and traditional knowledge systems. Transformation literacy empowers social entrepreneurs and encourages both private and public sector to incentivize those innovations that help us live well within the planetary boundaries
“Innovation doesn’t happen out of the blue. It is an evolving process that requires learning, challenging existing knowledge, and understanding something new. Ultimately, innovation leads to change and to creating new wisdom.”
Bettina Stamm, author of The Future of Innovation
How do we nurture pioneering approaches?
Life-enhancing innovation is a mix between individual genius, perseverance, collaborative inspiration and learning together. Inventiveness, if guided towards life-enhancing innovation, reframes reality, helps us understand something new and helps the world to become a better place. Making this individual and collective process more conscious is a cornerstone in creating a sustainable future. We can nurture pioneering approaches when we:
- create the space for creativity around transformative ideas;
- encourage exchange of good practices and expert knowledge;
- nurture risk-taking and self-responsibility.
The guidance innovations need is an irrevocable commitment to life-enhancement by all actors. We need business to reinvent the purpose of business, NGOs to invent new ways to care for social and ecological integrity, and governments to guide and finance innovations that serve people and planet.
In this conference session, we will explore how we can amplify and scale pioneering approaches so that they lead the way and get us active to steward transformative change together.