We are now recruiting for a second cohort of 30 new Accelerator Labs to be based in UNDP around the world, including Belarus.

In 2019, UNDP built the world’s largest and fastest learning network on sustainable development challenges. The labs are designed to deliver a new generation of technology-driven and smart solutions in line with the challenges the contemporary world faces in economy, healthcare, environment, social development and equality.

Today 60 Lab teams operate in 78 countries. Together with national partners and governments they test and introduce advanced solutions in all spheres of sustainable development.

The laboratory will be built on Belarus’ significant potential in innovations and will tap into a variety of out-of-the box business models, such as:

Collective intelligence

The Labs use the power of the crowd, machine learning and distributed decision making to support partners to understand problems, develop new solutions, promote more inclusive decision making, and provide better oversight of what is done.

Solutions mapping

The Labs identify grassroots solutions and stretch their potential to accelerate development.  Mapping grassroots innovation in 78 countries will provide a test to our hypotheses that when a problem is mutating rapidly, bottom up innovation is more relevant than innovation driven by a single start up or central authority.

Experimentation:

The Labs apply experimentation closely with government partners to grow this as a mode of operating to reduce costs of large-scale public-sector reforms. Experimentation will help the network to learn whether particular assumptions are accurate before deploying solutions at scale, especially in the uncertain and volatile conditions that often dominate development progress.