As requested by the General Assembly resolution 70/1 on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the President of ECOSOC will convene the meetings of the STI forum once a year to discuss science, technology and innovation cooperation around thematic areas for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The General Assembly also decided that the meetings of the forum will be co-chaired by two Member States and will result in a summary of discussions elaborated by the two co-Chairs.

The second annual Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, on May 15 and 16, 2017.

The theme of the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) is "Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world", and the Member States have decided that the HLPF 2017 shall focus on six SDGs (1, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 14) in addition to SDG 17 that will be considered at each HLPF. In this context, the following topic may be considered for the STI Forum 2017: "Science, Technology and Innovation for a Changing World - Focus on SDGs 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 14".

The UN Inter-Agency Task Team on STI for SDGs (IATT) was mandated to work with the 10 representatives from civil society, private sector and scientific community to prepare the STI Forum. H.E. Mr. Frederick Musiiwa Makamure Shava, the President of ECOSOC, reappointed  H.E. Mr. Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations and  Dr. Vaughan Turekian, the Science and Technology Adviser to the US Secretary of State, to act as co-chairs for the 2017 STI forum.

The second Call for Innovations was launched for the sharing of innovations that provide solutions targeted to these six SDGs. Innovators from around the world were invited to submit their scientific and technological solutions to the challenges posed by the six SDGs.

The Call for Innovations is now closed. More than 110 inspiring innovations from all the globe were submitted through the Global Innovations Exchange platform.

The following outstanding innovators were selected to attend the STI Forum 2017 at UNHQ and showcase their solutions:

Featured innovations for the second STI Forum

• Missing Maps: crowdsourcing digital map creation
• Babajob: Informal Sector Jobs Marketplace
• Virtual Farmers Market
• doctHERs
• Virtual Water Prospecting Program to locate naturally desalinated self-recharging & self-replenishing Water Sources
• Ignitia
• Farmer Query System
• OMOMI
• Mobilized Construction
• Paper Airplanes
• JokkoSante, pharmacy community
• CodePhil: Digital Literacy in Rural Philippines for Sustainable Livelihoods & Community Resilience

In order to enable as many voices as possible to be heard at the second Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs, e-discussions will be held in the run-up to the conference. The online discussions will be open from 17 April to 5 May 2017 and feed directly into the Forum.

The objective of the e-consultation is to mobilize all stakeholders to share information on trends in the deployment of science, technology and innovation for the SDGs, specific solutions and achievements, state of the art expertise on specific issues and practice areas, emerging priorities, critical knowledge and innovation gaps, as well as their views on ways of mobilizing science, technology and innovation responses to address these gaps.

The consultation is structured around the following two topics:

1. Science, technology and innovation for the SDGs 1, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 14
2. STI plans, policies and capacity building

We encourage you to participate in the discussions and share your experiences and perspectives at this link: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/TFM/STIForum2017/OnlineDiscussion