How to foster ICT innovation

The need for homegrown ICT innovation to boost development goals was widely discussed at WTIS.

During a panel discussion on the topic, Sarah Sung Ju Eo, Senior Researcher for the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT), presented the Republic of Korea’s approach to innovation, including the country’s more than 20 USD million investment in ICT startup consulting and seventeen“Centres for Creative Economy and Innovation” nationwide. She shared an example of a “Smart Farm” that was able to significantly decrease management time and expenses thanks to services provided by KT that allow a farmer to, for instance, control the temperature and humidity inside a greenhouse and water crops remotely with a smartphone.

Google’s Public Policy Manager for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Andrew Ure, spoke from a different perspective, saying that innovation today is “disbursed, disaggregated, connected and at scale” — and that the key was to unlock people-centered innovation through scalable platforms that best enabled it.

As for the stumbling blocks to innovation, Mr Ure and others pointed to specific regulatory and tax policies, but they also emphasized the need to create a culture where innovation and entrepreneurship can thrive. “Tolerance for failure is right at the top of the list” of what’s needed to create that culture, said Mr Ure.

There was keen interest in ITU’s efforts to help foster innovation, particularly after the panel discussion on that topic. One participant from the Republic of Korea recalled previous ITU announcements about its drive to push innovation for SMEs as part of its Connect 2020 agenda and asked what ITU is doing in that regard. A participant from Bahrain asked: “How can you benchmark innovation?” And another participant from Iran asked what the major obstacles to ICT-enabled innovation are.

Indeed, the strong demand for information on best practices for fostering ICT innovation indicates that ITU’s efforts to connect key public and private stakeholders around this topic will be highly valuable in coming months and years.