IGCN Innovation Accelerator for Young Professionals - Resident Coordinator's Speech, Gita Sabharwal

It is a pleasure to join you at the IGCN Innovation Accelerator for Young Professionals empowering the next generation of innovators.

This event exemplifies the kind of leadership and mentorship needed for young professionals in the private sector to step up their game to foster innovative solutions towards the sustainability objectives of participating companies. 

You are the second group of over 50 young professionals in this initiative and your community is set to grow both in country and globally as we learn from you all and take this agenda forward.

We at the UN in Indonesia are keen to facilitate this process.

We want to make sure you also become champions of the UN and multilateralism while giving shape to your innovative solutions.

Allow me to give you my views on why this initiative is so important.

Indonesia is a land of start-ups and unicorn companies.

Your country ranks fourth within Asia with nearly 2,500 new start-ups. This is extremely encouraging.

Just as encouraging is that many young people aspire to have their own start-ups or work for one. This trend is especially true across universities.

In tandem, an enabling ecosystem is growing with support from the government, private sector and venture capitalists.

The Young Professionals programme is an example of how the private sector can invest in this process through IGCN. 

Innovations are critical to accelerating progress on the SDGs.

Indonesia is bucking the global trend where currently only 17% of these goals are set to be achieved by 2030. Progress here has been much more robust with 62% of indicators on track.

Your contributions as young business leaders and innovators to speed up this progress even further will be invaluable. Your ability to think outside the box and leverage new technologies are amongst your biggest assets. 

When you apply your know-how and enthusiasm to SDG challenges and think big, you can play a great role in supporting emission reductions and greening industry for the green, blue and circular transformations. 

Similarly, leveraging technologies will allow you to bridge geographic and social divides by finding solutions that empower people everywhere for inclusive, sustainable and just growth. 

I understand you have presented several innovative solutions in alignment with the SDGs.

Recently I spoke with young innovators and they have told me of their brilliant solutions with major real-world impacts.

Pak Deskiniel with PLN has designed a community-based system for solar energy generation for Papua province which has the lowest rate of electricity at just 65%. 

Rather than link remote, isolated villages to the grid at great expense, the solution will enable villagers to generate their own electricity for 24 hours a day. This is five times cheaper than the conventional method of electricity generation. 

This model is being scaled up to other remote areas.

Another innovation, by Pak Alvin with TBS Energy, envisions turning waste into energy in NTT, the third poorest province. This too is a replicable model. 

These innovators stressed the importance of mentoring from companies for broadening the perspectives of young people.  

You can all make a difference and today is a great opportunity for me to engage with you and learn of your ideas.

For my generation many opportunities you enjoy didn’t yet exist. Your mind-set is forward-looking, and you have new technologies such as AI at your fingertips.

The IGCN Innovation Accelerator activates the latent potentials of future business leaders and change-makers like you to address challenges and capitalise on opportunities.

A key aspect of this is the partnership with BRIN, including setting up an innovation hub, to offer sustainability solutions for a network of innovators. 

The UN is proud to be part of this initiative. 

We look forward to bringing to bear our technical expertise in supporting you and other young professionals while institutionalising an enabling framework in partnership with government and IGCN.

Let me conclude by congratulating all of you. Your can-do spirit is exactly what we need in today’s difficult global context.

Thank you.