Scaling-up Innovation and DigitalTech for Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

Digital technology fuels with new form of innovation can accelerate the inception, scaling and evolution of entrepreneurship. Digital technologies and innovation play a crucial role in transforming the entrepreneurship ecosystem by providing access to vast amount of data, enabling automation and optimisation of process, improving decision-making capabilities, enhancing communication and collaboration. Moreover, the integration of innovation and digital technology has opened up new opportunities, increased efficiency and transformed traditional business models.

Looking at the region, ASEAN presents a huge potential to advance digital technology and innovation as the engine for economic growth. For instance, digital economy of the region is predicted to reach US$430 billion by 2025 with sectors such as e-commerce and financial technology continue to drive the growth. However, the digital ecosystem scene is still faced with several challenges. ASEAN Member States (AMS) have varying degrees of digital readiness and digital usage for entrepreneurial purposes (including for startups and MSMEs involvement in the digital economy) are so far concentrated with few AMS. As such, there is a need to identify key factors that would promulgate and foster innovation ecosystem across the AMS.

Today, governments, private sectors, public sector, international organisation and enterprises of all sizes across the globe are racing to innovate better, faster, more efficient to maximised digital and innovation digital tools for scaling up business and build a competitive advantage. There is also an opportunity to foster a deeper understanding between the role of innovation and digital tools to support the digital entrepreneurship in the region.

Therefore, building an entrepreneurial ecosystem that foster the creation and evolution of digital technologies and innovation has become a vital issue. The upcoming seminar will be a deep-dive into:

1. The current landscape of innovation/entrepreneurial ecosystem and the adoption of digital technology – drawing insight from other region and/countries’ initiatives;
2. Ways to navigate digital transition (innovation strategy, promoting data-driven innovation, creating ecosystem to help local actors embrace digital tech, etc) and its challenges;
3. The importance of entrepreneurship mindset, skills and digital assets to turn crises into opportunities;
4. Cross-sector collaboration, including from market and policy lenses, to foster digital entrepreneurship in ASEAN and beyond.

Programme and Agenda