The impact of the ITU Innovation Centre in New Delhi, India, is steadily expanding beyond the country’s borders, evident in more than two years of capacity-building and policy-shaping initiatives in Asia and the Pacific.

Since its inauguration in March 2023 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Innovation Centre has hosted a range of events and workshops and launched the ITU Innovation Café as a platform for brainstorming, turning innovative ideas into real impact, and deepening partnerships on all aspects of digital transformation.

The Innovation Centre is also fulfilling objectives of the Kigali Action Plan by hosting activities that contribute to improving digital skills, and leveraging technology to combat climate change.

The Innovation Café

The ITU Innovation Café made its debut in February during the Workshop on Digital Transformation in Fiji. Since then, six Innovation Café events have been held in various formats (in person, online, and hybrid) on topics including artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, digital ID, sustaining smart islands in the Pacific, e-waste, and more.

So far, the Innovation Cafés have brought together more than 160 participants from 16 countries and several UN agencies across Asia and the Pacific.

Recent activities: impact stretches across regions

In February, participants representing 12 countries in Africa and Asia and the Pacific attended the Innovation Centre’s first face-to-face training on ICT policy for good, which explored the role of ICTs in promoting economic growth, innovation, and sustainable social progress.

In May, representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the UN system came together for training on AI standards and technology, funded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, as part of the project Artificial Intelligence Technology and Standards Capacity Building in Asia Pacific.

The project was a follow-up to the 2024 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in New Delhi; it showcased the collaboration between ITU’s Telecommunication Development and Telecommunication Standardization bureaus to build skills in new technologies and bridge the standardization gap (the difference between countries in their ability to develop, use, and influence international technology standards).

More workshops, for Asia and Pacific subregions, will be organized from July to September as part of this project. See more about the ITU Innovation Centre.

This is an ITU Development #DigitalImpactUnlocked story