New York City - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and EY today kicked off the global segment of the ‘Istanbul Innovation Days’ (IID) with a collaborative online dialogue to explore the role of stakeholders in politics, business and society for the transition to an inclusive and sustainable future.

The Istanbul Innovation Days, which began in 2015, is an annual series of events and discussions which engage individuals, communities, organizations and policy makers from different sectors who are building new futures, designing new paradigms and challenging the status quo. The initiative has grown over the past three years to the point where IID 2021 will feature some thirty conversations and events around the world over 8 weeks.

The focus is on learning from practice and exploring avenues for system transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Over the past year, the COVID pandemic has triggered, among other things, a radical rethink of development.

The IID 2021 will explore questions around how we can rethink development going forward and unlocking new pathways to an equitable and sustainable world.

IID 2021 is structured around 3 “moves”: questioning identity and its roots- development as a paradigm based on Western legacy;  ‘vibrations’ in the present- where opportunities for renewal are being shaped; and accelerating the prototyping of alternative narratives – shaping different possible futures.

The main IID event will take place 23-25 March and will feature panelists from the United Nations, Private Sector, Governments and Civil Society.

Among the speakers invited feature Alicia Garza, Principal of Black Futures Lab and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and Alaa Salah, a Sudanese student who gained world-wide media attention from a picture of her taken by Lana Haroun that went viral during the Sudanese revolution in April 2019.

The dialogues will be streamed using Web Summit’s advanced event management solution, a first for the world's largest technology conference.

To register for the main IID event 23- 25 March please visit: https://www.innovationdays.co/register-for-iid-main-event/.

To view a full list of events and register for individual conversations, please visit: https://www.innovationdays.co/agenda/.

For more information about IID 2021, please contact dylan.lowthian@undp.org.