About us

The RISE World Summit (RWS)

Breakthrough Interactions, Collective Impact

RWS & the SDGs - Flipping the SDG Narrative

The SDGs are the most comprehensive landscape for the world’s pressing problems. While the SDGs are well known as 17 different goals, the 169 targets are less known and the interlinkages between them even much more unknown. This has led to an uneven focus on the goals and worse, a silo approach to program design and funding. The RISE World Summit seeks to rewrite the Agenda 2030 narrative by inspiring its PECOworld community participants to take on new roles as Partners, Entrepreneurs and Citizens for Ownership and collective impact across the SDGs and re-create a new and just world for all.
Introduction Billions of dollars have been spent on aid across decades if not centuries and still, we grapple with poverty, violence and disasters. There is a pressing need to find new resolutions to the challenges the world faces and to take them to every corner and cluster that requires them.    As is often quoted, no one institution, community or country can do this on its own and collaboration is key. Moreover, it is the values we share that drive us to create shared value. The RISE World Summit (RWS) provides value-based thought leadership based on the 4 RISE values – Responsible, Inclusive, Sustainable and Eco(system)-friendly for individuals and institutions to 
  1. identify new roles as changemakers in the PECOworld community 
  2. discover new opportunities and partnerships
  3. above all to adopt a systems approach for stronger solutions and viable innovations  
  RISE World Summit takes a systems view for sustainable development, a paradigm shift in mindset and action. RWS thus becomes a space for all to rejuvenate and reconnect with the RISE universal values that drive positive action and outcomes for the SDGs.  The ever increasing scale of the summit is testimony to the same.  

A movement called RISE

Our experience in event management and alliances made us realise the enourmous use of resources in the name of outreach. Moreover, most conferences catered to Sponsors and Speakers with little facilitation for participants to truly gain value beyond knowledge-sharing and visiting-card-networking!
Idobro launched The RISE Summit in 2013 as an experiment in cost-effective stakeholder engagement to foster partnerships to regain a better and greener world by:
  1. Building a collaborative forum to leverage strengths and networks, provide common infrastructure to create awareness and inspire action
  2. Cutting across silos for cross-sectoral dialogue 
  3. Allowing every participant a voice and democratise resources and opportunities
In 2016 we made Agenda 2030 our beacon with a focus on interlinkages between the 17 goals for integrated development.
RS2013 had 200 attendees from 15 cities in India and grew from a one-city-two-day event to a two-city-five-day event in 2020. The last two editions were held virtually. RWS2022 saw 4700 participants from 61 countries.
Most critically, minus Human resource cost, the conference budget, physical or virtual has been between US$ 5000 to 10000 only!
The Summit has demonstrated that people-powered solutions based on Partnership, Entrepreneurship, Citizenship and Ownership (PECO) can address some (if not ALL) of the world’s most pressing issues. Above all, it has the potential to be a network of networks that can cover every person, region and problem and leave no one behind.

The Impact

RISE Summit is a model for collaborative outreach, mobilization and action for sustainable development with over 5000 participants, 400+ Experts and 100+ partners in the last two years alone.
We believe that RISE has achieved its objective to drive:
  • Cross-sectoral dialogue on interlinkages between issues such as Health, Livelihood, Education, Women, Disability, Senior Citizens, Water, Waste, Nutrition, Sanitation, Clean-tech, Environment, Rural and Agriculture
  • Capacity building on operations – People, Technology, Finance, Markets, HR, Communication, Media, Events and Evaluation
  • Collaborative action for Impact – Responsible Procurement, Inclusive Policies, Sustainable Partnerships and Eco-friendly Practices.
Our Participants have benefitted tremendously from resources in cash or kind, new solutions and innovations, knowledge assets, projects and alliances that helped their initiatives gain traction in new geographies and/or dimensions. The change in silo mindset and convergent action for the SDGs, is evident from the numerous testimonies on our website and on social media. Not least of all has been the replication of event design in other conferences and Unconferences!
Beyond an UnConference, the RISE Summit with #EveryParticipantASpeaker is unique in design, content and participation. Distinctive features since the inception in 2013, include:
  1. No PANELS and No Presentations – All activities are participatory with a non-hierarchical and interactive design in 3 formats – The FORUM, FEST & TOURS
  2. No Sponsors, only partners and co-hosts with the freedom to co-create content 
  3. Multi-stakeholder convening in a safe space for open and deep conversations – participation from students to senior citizens, grassroot NGOs to International Foundations, UN Agencies to Government departments and Industry to social enterprises and women entrepreneurs
  4. Academic premises and student volunteers to ensure their early involvement with practitioners and policy-makers 
  5. Registration for a single activity instead of a full program
The event format for the RISE Summit is planned for inclusion, relevance and flexibility. Participants from any sector and group can attend one or more activities as per their interest and convenience. Independent experts use open design methodology to organically develop and ensure engaging conversations across the spectrum of Women, social and green issues. The sessions are co-created by Partners who seek to further their mandate through breakthrough interactions with a wider constituency for significant outcomes and sustainable solutions to achieve Agenda 2030.

Way Forward

The RISE Summit has sustained itself on a shoestring-budget and scaled 20 times over 9 years. With the potential to be a network of networks that can cover every person, region and problem and leave no one behind, there are 3 specific initiatives we are working on to push the developmental needle and the SDG narrative:
We believe that RISE has achieved its objective to drive:
  1. The RISE Initiative – Global Goals, Local Solutions

More than an event, the RISE Initiative is the year-round engagement among community members and other stakeholders. The outcomes of the Summit provide ideas and innovation for replication and scale while Regional Forums can break the SDG silos and foster local alliances with a systems approach for integrated development. 

 

  1. The RISE PECOworld Community for Agenda 2030 

A tech-enabled platform to support 24*7*365 access to the RWS participants who form the PECOworld Community for people-centric solutions – Partners, Entrepreneurs and Citizens who take Ownership and action for the SDGs

 

  1. The RISE Mindset Movement to encourage value-based leadership for the SDGs (RISE 4 SDGs – I drive the SDGs) 

Expand the RISE footprint through members who discover redesigned roles and relationships to restore our world for the common good. This requires a unique mindset that seeks Purpose, Progress, Prosperity and Peace.

The Ask

Supporting RWS would certainly validate our vision and mission of encouraging SDG interlinkages to create sustainable universally applicable solutions. Also, it would mark the Summit a marquee platform to be associated with thus providing the momentum to grow and build the RISE PECOworld community of Partners, Entrepreneurs and Citizens who take Ownership of the SDGs to take action and collaborate for a new and just world for all.
Iconic partners would also inspire participants and stakeholders to widen and deepen the developmental agenda, build new relationships and equations that could catalyse our world. Last but not the least, the visibility due to the association would motivate more replication of our formats, toolkits and methodology to support organizations globally who have been struggling to build sustainable partnerships around SDGs.
RISE, now into its 10th year has had representation from across geographies and stakeholders. With people-powered solutions activated at different levels in society, RISE presents a compelling framework and methodology for replication to leave no one behind.

Recognition

Karon Shaiva, the convenor of the Summit has been acknowledged as an expert voice in multiple forums, especially on the topic of SDG interlinkages. As part of India’s 75th Independence celebration, she was awarded as one of the 75 women in STEM by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and British High Commission,India. She is the only woman recognized under the “sustainable development” category.
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Babson Senior Fellow:

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