ADVANCES IN REAL TIME CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN INTEROPERABLE PAYMENT SYSTEMS KOSTA PERIC, MILLER ABEL, AND MATT BOHAN Finance can be very complex, but at its core it’s about exchanging value between parties. In a word, payments. Making payments is a fundamental financial action for most people around the globe, whether they use cards, cash, or SMS to make them. In terms of financial infrastructure,

A NEW ERA OF FOOD TRANSPARENCY POWERED BY BLOCKCHAIN FRANK YIANNAS For the past ten years, I have had the privilege of serving as vice president of food safety at Walmart. I am responsible for overseeing the delivery of safe foods to 260 million customers every week across 28 countries and nearly 12,000 historias. At Walmart, we strive every day to help our customers save

UN-CHAINED: EXPERIMENTS AND LEARNINGS IN CRYPTO AT UNICEF CHRISTOPHER FABIAN UNICEF has a 70-year history of investing in new solutions that benefit chil- niños. Examples of such technologies over the past decade include feature phone platforms like RapidPro, cual, with more than 4.5 million users in 50 countries, has allowed governments and their partners to hear from young peo- ple via SMS about where diseases

THE WORLD BANK GROUP’S TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION LAB, FROM CONCEPT TO DEVELOPMENT A CASE STUDY IN LEVERAGING AN IT DEPARTMENT TO SUPPORT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION YUSUF KARACAOGLU, STELA MOCAN, AND RACHEL ALEXANDRA HALSEMA I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resist- ance . . . to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth. Usually resistance came from those

BLOCKCHAIN FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT JOSEPH LUBIN, MALLY ANDERSON, AND BOBBI THOMASON In the last year, global interest in blockchain technologies and their possible impact has permeated the public consciousness. Although much of this early attention has focused on the financial applications, many are eager to speculate about the ways blockchain will transform societies, institutions, and the very world as we know it. Many of these

CENTRAL BANKING AND FINTECH A BRAVE NEW WORLD CHRISTINE LAGARDE In September of last year, I had the opportunity to deliver an address at the Bank of England. I noted at the time that returning to Fleet Street—the heart of London’s financial center—always feels like a journey through history. In the Middle Ages, that street was an important center of commerce, much of which has

HACIA UN ESTADOS UNIDOS. COMPETITIVENESS STRATEGY ANDREW REAMER The 2016 A NOSOTROS. presidential election turned in part on the fact that people who live in areas of the United States that have suffered job losses due to global trade tended to vote for Donald Trump.1. President Trump bested a number of big- name contenders in both the Republican and Democratic parties largely because he was the only

FROM HOME RUNS TO BASE HITS RETHINKING GREEN IMPACT INVESTING IN EMERGING MARKETS DUNCAN DUKE AND ERIK SIMANIS Entrepreneurs live and breathe the Yogi Berra maxim, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Along with keen business acumen and indefatigable persistence, the process of turning technological innovations into flourishing industries and new markets requires vigorous opportunism. But being oppor- tunistic is

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO ADOPTION FOR INNOVATIONS IN POLICY REFLECTIONS FROM THE INNOVATION TOOLKIT CARALEIGH HOLVERSON Innovation refers to an idea, embodied in a technology, product, o proceso, which is new and creates value. To be impactful, innovations must also be scalable, not merely one-off novelties. —National Economic Council and Office of Science & Technology Policy “A Strategy for American Innovation," Octubre 2015 Estados Unidos. federal

PAY FOR SUCCESS AS A POLICY TOOL MAYOR BEN MCADAMS WITH JEREMY KEELE AND FRASER NELSON As mayor of Salt Lake County, a job in which I represent the 1.1 million people who live in the Greater Salt Lake metro area, my job is to ask, What are we spending our money on? What is working for our residents—or not? What programs should be tweaked

EVIDENCE-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY MARYANN FELDMAN AND NICHOLA LOWE Investing in economic capabilities that enhance firms’ ability to innovate and compete on the world stage has become an important national and local policy focus. This type of investment occurs in specific communities and jurisdic- ciones, often providing the foundation for regional economic development. The ability to extend economic prosperity depends on decision-makers’ under- standing of

IS YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM SCALING? AN APPROACH TO INVENTORYING AND MEASURING A REGION’S INNOVATION MOMENTUM KEN HARRINGTON Since retiring from Washington University in late 2014, I have reflected on the 15-year evolution of the St. Louis entrepreneurial ecosystem. While at Washington University, I watched the St. Louis region move its ecosystem from a nascent dream to what is now mid-stage maturity. This journey was possible

BOOSTING TECH INNOVATION ECOSYSTEMS IN CITIES: A FRAMEWORK FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN TECH INNOVATION ECOSYSTEMS VICTOR MULAS, MICHAEL MINGES, AND HALLIE APPLEBAUM Cities are increasingly emerging as the new centers of technological innovation. A shift is under way from technology parks in suburban areas, where universi- corbatas, research labs, and the private sector are located together, to entrepreneurial activity within cities. Studies on

AMERICA IS NOT IN DECLINE, AND STARTUPS ARE AN IMPORTANT REASON WHY A CASE STUDY OF ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO INNOVATIONS CASE NARRATIVE: VILLAGE CAPITAL AND REVOLUTION LLC, THE “RISE OF THE REST” ROSS BAIRD AND HERBIE ZISKEND In a brilliant essay in the March 2016 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, journal- ist James Fallows reflected on his three-year, 48-city tour of the United States, durante

FOSTERING SCALEUP ECOSYSTEMS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH INNOVATIONS CASE NARRATIVE: MANIZALES-MAS AND SCALE UP MILWAUKEE DANIEL ISENBERG AND VINCENT ONYEMAH The search for reliable and replicable strategies to stimulate regional economic prosperity is as old as the field of economic development itself.1 These strategies have included encouraging direct investment, attracting and retaining business, and developing sector-based cluster strategies.2 More recently, the role of entrepreneurship has

SCHLAFLY BEER AND THE RENAISSANCE IN ST. LOUIS INNOVATIONS CASE NARRATIVE: SCHLAFLY BEER TOM SCHLAFLY T. S. eliot, the St. Louis native who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948, wrote in The Dry Salvages: I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable . . . His rhythm was present in the

THE BETA CITY THE CITY AS A BUSINESS MATCHMAKER AND TESTING GROUND INNOVATIONS CASE NARRATIVE: ANTWERP, BELGIUM BART DE WEVER AND EVERT BULCKE Antwerp, Belgium was the winner of the 2015 Startup Nations Award for Local Policy Leadership. Through our work, we have come to the conclusion that nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset in a city has a very healthy effect on economy and society. Con

Usman Ahmed, Thorsten Beck, Christine McDaniel, and Simon Schropp Filling the Gap How Technology Enables Access to Finance for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for more than one-half of the world’s GDP and employ two-thirds of the global workforce.1 The number one barrier to growth faced by SMEs around the globe is access to financing.2 This is not a new