This session will focus on the educational challenges that arose from the worldwide closure of schools during the pandemic.

The speakers will look at these challenges from a variety of perspectives. They will share their ideas about how to mitigate the loss of learning, emphasizing issues such as school dropouts, developing a new way of learning through curricular reorganization, teachers’ appreciation, and digital inclusion.

The panel will propose ways to improve education programs, especially those for vulnerable, marginalized, and disadvantaged groups, including indigenous peoples, girls and women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty.

Climate-related destruction and disruptions are on the rise, which is why investing in risk management and preparedness, as well as building resilience to cope with the aftermath of disasters, is of growing importance. Integrated technologies play a fundamental role in this.

Integrated adaptation frameworks and decision-support tools that anticipate multi-dimensional risks and accommodate community values are more effective than those with a narrow focus on single risks. There is a clear and present need to explore funding structures and technologies—from innovations around infectious diseases, to safeguarding against floods, insurance tools and capitalizing on progress in sensor technologies—that can advance joint efforts for development and climate action, especially in developing countries.

This is a global problem that requires a global effort. Developed countries are being urged to significantly scale up technology transfer, climate finance and capacity-building for adaptation to respond to the needs of developing countries as part of this global effort, which includes the formulation and implementation of national adaptation plans and adaptation communications. In this session the speakers focus on innovative integrated technologies. They will discuss the benefits, key enablers, location or sector specific challenges, and the general difficulties.

The Earth is dominated by water: about 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water and the oceans alone hold about 96.5% of the Earth’s total water. Water also exits in the air as water vapor, in the ice caps and glaciers, in rivers and lakes, in soil and in underground aquifers. The water cycle, or the continuous movement of water between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere, distributes water and regulates global weather patterns and is therefore fundamental to life on the planet. Furthermore, the oceans produce about half of the oxygen in our atmosphere, acts as a sink and reservoir for greenhouse gases, support all biodiversity, and are responsible for the existence of a large variety of ecosystems that are critical to our wellbeing and the health of the planet.

Despite their life-giving role, the health of the oceans is deteriorating at an alarming rate as a result of human activities and climate change. Eutrophication, acidification, warming, deoxygenation, deforestation, overfishing, and pollution are some of the threats to the health of our oceans, which in turn adversely affects, directly or indirectly, biodiversity, the proper functioning of ecosystems and the welfare of billions of people.

The plenary session will feature discussions related to the current state of the oceans, the resilience coastal communities, and the blue economy.

Advanced technology innovation ecosystems in the United States of America are by and large clustered in a relatively small number of cities. These include Boston, Seattle, Austin, San Diego and the well-known cluster in the San Francisco area. All of these clusters are characterized by specialization and the agglomeration effects of the human networks involved. To date these areas have continued to generate enhanced levels of innovation, economic growth, and productivity despite high salary and housing costs.

The success of these innovation ecosystems stems from the implementation of long-term incentives, investments, and collaborations among governments, academia, corporations, NGOs, financial entities, and others. Given the urgency to address sustainability challenges, achieving rapid innovation and implementation successes at the global level is critical.

This session will address specific strategies and opportunities focusing on the Boston life sciences cluster and the Brazilian and Belgian efforts in life sciences and sustainability technologies. The panel discussion will be supplemented by presentations by four advanced technology companies that represent a sample of the specific opportunities of the G-STIC conference. Emerging companies such as these represent an important, concrete, pathway to achieve the rapid advances necessary to address major sustainability challenges through international collaborator networks.

The World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organization (WAITRO) encourages innovation and drives sustainable development by empowering member organizations and facilitating collaboration across borders and boundaries.

During this session the speakers will discuss the main obstacles to implementing SDG 17 and how we can overcome them. They will also look at the key trends in research collaboration for sustainable development and the role played by public-private partnership in achieving the SDGs.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the huge inequities in access to vaccines and the gap in the level of immunization between developed and developing countries and especially in the least developed countries. These disparities made global efforts to tackle the pandemic harder. They led to more hospitalizations and deaths, and exacerbated the impacts of long covid. Economies were also unevenly impacted as different countries emerged from the worst of the pandemic at different rates. These consequences were felt far more acutely in the most vulnerable countries.

The pandemic also exposed and exaggerated the imbalance in access to technology and the inequitable terms related to technology transfer agreements. The dependency on critical health goods and consumables manufactured by a few countries became even more evident, especially when the pandemic started to impact the supply chain and restrict the flow of goods around the world. All of these issues point to the urgent need for greater international collaboration and unity so the world is better prepared for the next major health emergency. This starts by addressing local health needs and ensuring that there is equal access to immunization and vaccines.

During this event, the first panel will address the funding mechanisms that are needed to accelerate vaccine innovation. The second panel will highlight some of the regional experiences of creating skills for local production and investment in the development and introduction of new vaccines to support immunization programs. They will also express their ideas about how to and address public health emergencies.