G-STIC – a three day event with a series of conferences aimed to accelerate the development of technological innovations in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reached close to 2000 participants and 150 speakers from 75 countries.
G-STIC, the global conference on sustainable technology and innovation, has lived up to its promise. Many interested people, high quality lectures, valuable conclusions, in-depth panel discussions and a very constructive atmosphere. That's all it should be. Dirk Fransaer was a very satisfied man when he looked back on the event on Friday.
"Every edition more people and above all a very positive response from the visitors. G-STIC is the conference you can't and won't miss anymore when you're working on sustainable technology and innovation. Stakeholders and opinion makers already say that they will definitely be there again next time..."
Once again, G-STIC was able to bring a number of exceptional speakers onto the stage this year, such as a Bertrand Piccard (Solar Impulse Foundation), Hans Bruyninckx (EEA), Chad Frischmann (Drawdown project), Richard White (AB InBev) and Alain Bernard (Deme).
The great importance of G-STIC is that the results and conclusions of the discussions, the panel discussions and the lectures are passed on to the United Nations. "This is important for VITO," explains Dirk Fransaer. "The UN and governments now want a database of technologies - a living library. It is up to us to engage in discussions with organisations to see which technologies can be included that will help to achieve the SDGs."
And what can we expect for G-STIC 2020? "At the end of next year, we will be celebrating a number of anniversaries: the UN was founded 75 years ago, the SDGs will be five years old... We will try to link G-STIC to those anniversaries with a partnership with which we can reach an even larger audience, as well as with broadcasting via the internet so that we can be followed worldwide..."
The next event is reserved for Oman, where the ISRTC will take place from 10 to 12 February 2020.
