Innovation with purpose to spur gender equality and sustainable development
UN Women Deputy Executive Director highlights the importance of innovation, technology and partnerships for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals at the launch of the SAP Next-Gen Programme in New YorkDate:
Speaking at the launch of SAP Next-Gen Programme in New York on 27 April, UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director, Mr. Yannick Glemarec highlighted that innovation, technology and partnerships are pre-requisites for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was founded on the principle of leaving no one behind. However, existing trends will not result in the achievement of the SDGs, and instead shows a growing gender digital divide. At the same time, innovation and technology provide unprecedented opportunities to break isolation, create economies of scale, and change social norms to both close the gender digital divide and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs and gender equality. “Leveraging the full potential of innovation and technology to bring about such transformative change will require multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaboration across industries and between the UN, the private sector, national governments and civil society,” highlighted Mr. Glemarec.
The SAP Next-Gen Programme in partnership with the Hasso Plattner Institute is an innovation platform that facilitates such collaboration. It enables companies, startups, partners and universities to connect and innovate with purpose linked to the SDGs.
"SAP Next-Gen is focused on 'Innovation with Purpose,' strongly supporting solutions for the UN Global Goals including Goal 5, Gender Equality," said Ann Rosenberg, Vice President and Global Head of SAP Next-Gen. "During the upcoming SAP Next-Gen Global Challenges (http://events.sap.com/sap-next-gen-global-challenges/en/home) we expect students, startups, corporates, and SAP colleagues will develop disruptive solutions to accelerate innovation with the purpose of supporting gender equality and the other UN Global Goals."
“UN Women’s Innovation Unit looks forward to working with a wide range of partners through the SAP Next-Gen platform to make innovation work for women and girls worldwide”, said Mr. Glemarec. UN Women’s Innovation Unit focuses on leveraging innovation and technology to address the barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Specifically, it builds market awareness, investment and industry wide action to grow the innovation market for women and girls; supports a gender-responsive approach throughout the innovation cycle; promotes women as innovators; and directly creates innovative solutions that meet the needs of women and girls.