NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Global Solutions Summit 2023 (GSS 2023) will be held at the margins of the STI Forum in New York, with a focus on Leveraging the Diaspora, Youth, and the African Continental Free Trade Area to Harness Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs 2030.

GSS2023 will address following question: How can Africa achieve the SDGs by leveraging the diaspora, youth, and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area to (i) accelerate the development and deployment of sustainable, inclusive technology and (ii) develop value-added activities in Africa’s manufacturing, agriculture, and service sectors?  This focus is explicitly designed to complement the discussions at the Fifth African Science, Technology and Innovation Forum 2023 which convened in Niamey, Niger on February 26-27, 2023 and the  1st STI in Africa Day which will convene at the UN on May 2.

GSS2023 will assemble a roster of thoughtful doers — women and men who are actively working in the field to surmount these development challenges – to (i) discuss specific capacity building policies and programs, including workforce training and development, that would strengthen the local private sector’s ability to find, evaluate, adapt, utilize, and deploy technology to address priority development objectives; (ii) showcase financially and socially sustainable, inclusive business models for deploying development solutions; (iii) explain how the Diaspora can support these objectives; and (iv) highlight the importance of developing technology roadmaps to guide public and private implementation of these development objectives.

The co-organizers of GSS 2023 are the Global Solutions Summit (GSS), in partnership with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and its Affiliate Member, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).