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Announcements: Call for Innovations & Innovation Award

Written by | 31 August 2017

Innovators are encouraged to submit innovative practices to fuel new research on innovation trends and that can be considered for the UAE’s new Edge of Government Innovation Award. We have extended the deadline for submissions to 22 September 2017 based on feedback from the innovation community.

After a successful collaboration over the last year, OPSI and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation (MBRCGI) are happy to announce the continued collaboration and partnership for another round of work to help shape the agenda for the 2018 World Government Summit (11-13 February 2018), including case studies on leading-edge innovations, and interactive displays at the Summit’s Edge of Government experience. To kick things off, we are launching a new Call for Innovations to crowdsource examples of innovation. In addition to fuelling our research, the innovations will be considered for the UAE’s Edge of Government Innovation Award. Finalists will be invited to present their innovations in Paris at the OPSI conference Innovation in Government: The New Normal (20-21 November 2017). Winner(s) will be recognized at the Summit and will be invited to showcase their work in front of a global audience at the World Government Summit.

Call for Innovations (submissions due 31 August  22 September)

This is the second year of this productive partnership. Last year, we worked with the MBRCGI to hold a global Call for Innovations to identify key examples of the ways central governments are transforming their operations and improving the lives of their people. The response was above and beyond our expectations. We received over 150 innovations from 46 different countries. This surfaced a number of global trends in innovation, which we covered in Embracing Innovation in Government. We illustrated these trends through 10 case studies of leading-edge innovation.

The selected projects weren’t only featured in the report. The MBRCGI team worked with professional designers to transform the innovations into interactive displays, which they presented at the MBRCGI Edge of Government experience at the World Government Summit (OPSI recap of the event). The Summit is the largest annual gathering in the world focused on shaping the future of governments through innovation, with past speakers including world leaders (e.g. Barack Obama) and leaders of industry (e.g. Elon Musk). For 2017, the event brought together over 4,000 government officials, thinkers, policy makers, and industry experts from over 130 countries to discuss ways to harness innovation and technology to solve challenges facing humanity.

Innovation is a broad, fast-moving field. By no means did we cover all relevant topics in our report, since a lot has happened in the last year. Therefore, to help us learn more, we need you. We are holding another Call for Innovations through OPSI’s online submissions platform to discover additional new examples (a Call for Innovations PDF form is available for preview purposes). We’re looking for innovations from the last few years that are novel (such as applying creative and non-obvious solutions), have been implemented in some way (even a pilot), and have made an impact. As before, the World Government Summit will sponsor several teams behind these innovations to attend the 2018 Summit and inspire creativity in working toward our common goals through interactive exhibits.

We are interested in submissions for innovations of all kinds, but we are also particularly interested in exploring innovative, “edge” approaches to some specific themes:

  • Identity: in all its facets – from new ways to preserve cultural identity to creating new national or transnational narratives (e.g., around the issue of integration of migrants or transborder cooperation), from technical ID systems and rethinking personal data to creating new types of embassies.
  • Time: from innovative approaches to forecasting to generating efficiencies and accelerating implementation, and also innovative approaches to revisiting the past or celebrating slowing things down when beneficial for citizens.
  • Interdependency and interconnectedness: from interventions that take a system-wide approach to complex social problems (e.g. regulation of the sharing economy) to bringing down traditional government silos (e.g. local/federal), from policies and government programs that take into account intragenerational issues to rethinking government services to maximise social capital.

Have you worked on an innovative project we should know about? Or perhaps you know of one? Please let us know by completing our online form before 31 August 22 September 2017.

Announcing the Edge of Government Innovation Award

In addition to showcasing innovations in a report and at the Edge of Government experience, we are also excited to announce the Edge of Government Innovation Award. The award will be bestowed by the UAE, and the award process, including criteria for the identification and selection of innovative projects, will be facilitated by the OECD. Nominating an innovation for the award is easy – all submissions to the Call for Innovations will be considered nominations.

Award Participation Benefits

Award semi-finalists will be sponsored to present their innovative work in Paris at the OPSI conference Innovation in Government: The New Normal (20-21 November 2017). Finalists will be recognized at the Summit and will be sponsored to accept the award and present their work in front its global audience in Dubai.

In particular, the selected winner(s) for the award will enjoy the following privileges:

  • Opportunity to be declared the winner of the Edge of Government Innovation Award
  • All-expenses paid invitation to the World Government Summit
  • Public recognition during the World Government Summit and through other channels, including reports, websites, and traditional and digital media
  • Innovation transformed into experiential exhibit showcased at the World Government Summit’s dedicated Edge of Government experience (which can be re-used by the finalists for other platforms and venues)
  • Networking opportunities with high-profile attendees at the World Government Summit
  • Media interviews opportunities at the World Government Summit

The deadline for submissions is 31 August 22 September 2017. Please direct any questions to [email protected] or @OPSIgov. We also encourage you to join our OPSI LinkedIn community to exchange ideas with fellow innovators and our newsletter to receive innovation updates.