ITPO Shanghai joins United Nations Global Innovation Center (UGIH) in 2024 Climate Change Retreat

The UNClimate Change Global Innovation Hub (UGIH) successfully conducted its first retreat on the 6th and 7th of February 2024 at the UN Offices in Bonn. Project Executive of UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub Massamba Thioye gave welcoming remarks. The retreat was attended by 64 participants from UN organizations, cities management, financial consulting companies, tech companies, foundations, incubators and accelerators, VC firms, research centers, publishers, and start-ups, including Chair of UN SDSN Phoebe Koundouri, Director of Sustainability and ESG of KPMG Jorn Verbeeck, Chief Green Transformation Officer of Huawei Victor Chen, Global Head of Amazon Web3 Innovation Damu Winston, Chair of Sustainable Impact Capital Kadir S. Gungor, Director of Human-Centric Solutions of Dubai Expo City, etc. As an important partner, ZHAO Xiaolei, Head of UNIDO ITPO Shanghai was invited to participate in the UGIH 2024 Retreat and shared her ideas.

This two-day retreat with its partners offered an opportune moment to take stock of what has been achieved since its establishment, the lessons learned from actions and interactions, and areas of improvement. During the retreat, partners delivered pitches outlining their suggestions to the UGIH community based on their businesses. Breakout group discussions were also held during the event, focusing on resource mobilization and new operating models for UGIH.

As an important partner of UGIH, ZHAO Xiaolei, Head of UNIDO ITPO Shanghai, was invited to speak at the event. Themed by "Think Big, Work Together", ZHAO Xiaolei first introduced China's three major innovation centers: the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Greater Bay Area, highlighting their respective characteristics and main industries. She then discussed the multi-driven innovation system, namely market driven, policy driven, application driven, and industry driven innovation. She particularly emphasized the importance of green & digital transformation and climate action in promoting future innovation. ZHAO Xiaolei highly recognized UGIH's core values of "Caring, Sharing, and Daring", stating that they align well with the mission of UNIDO ITPO Shanghai: Caring: Strengthening Global South cooperation by supporting delegate program; Sharing: Sharing the applicable innovation solutions and promote innovation investment by activities and platforms, such as  UNIDO global call, World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Carbon Neutral Expo, etc.; Daring: Setting up the innovation accelerators or demo bases focused on Artificial Intelligence technology application. ZHAO Xiaolei expressed UNIDO ITPO Shanghai's willingness to work together with UGIH to promote the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During the event, ZHAO Xiaolei also visited UNIDO ITPO Germany and discussed further cooperation opportunities with them.

The Global Innovation Hub, launched in November 2021, aims to promote transformative innovations for a low-emission and climate-resilient future. Hosted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Innovation Hub leverages the convening power and climate leadership of the United Nations with the dynamism of the private sector. The Hub will provide a global cross-disciplinary community of practice with a space— physical and virtual—to share ideas and design climate solutions in a spirit of radical collaboration.