New report on COVID impact on business innovation launched at Expo 2020 Dubai

A new report that brings together success stories from organisations across the world was launched at Expo 2020 Dubai on Wednesday.

The Triumph of Innovation Impact Report, by UBI Global in partnership with District 2020, examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social and governance initiatives that followed on innovators in the global business community. Along with incubators and accelerators, the report also revealed the impact of these external factors on corporate innovation teams.

It was also announced that the next World Incubation Summit will be held at District 2020 in the fourth quarter of 2022, bringing together more than 500 attendees across global start-up programmes and corporate innovation teams to take part in workshops, networking, tours and pitches.

“Dubai is already a leading global center for entrepreneurship, knowledge transfer, and innovation, offering an ideal launchpad for SMEs and global talent. District 2020 aims to contribute to the emirate’s future vision by providing a global innovation ecosystem and community that facilitates co-creation between organisations of all sizes from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies to government entities through matchmaking, events, pilot projects in our living lab and more,” said Tala Al Ansari, Director of District 2020 Innovation Ecosystem and Scale2Dubai, at the launch of the report. “We believe that with great challenges, come great learning opportunities. We are excited to see and share the success stories of global businesses triumphing through the pandemic as a result of innovation.”

Ali Amin, Co-founder and CEO of UBI Global said: “Expo 2020 is the perfect place to release the…report and to announce next year’s World Incubation Summit. Dubai is a rich launch pad for start-ups and innovation, and we’re excited to watch how it progresses over the coming months and years and we’re pleased to partner with District 2020 to propel this further.”

During the event, a panel of the world’s top-ranked business incubators and accelerators including SETsquared (UK), GVA (Russian Federation), DMZ (Canada) and Plug and Play (UAE) also undertook a deep dive into the study’s results. A further panel discussion on corporate start-up collaboration led by Founder Institute’s Regional Director Sameer Sortur featured innovation experts from Dubai’s leading businesses including Emirates, Etisalat, and Siemens.

Following the six months of the World Expo, District 2020 will re-purpose 80 per cent of the Expo’s built environment into an integrated mixed-use community that will continue to attract businesses and people to work, live, visit and enjoy.