Deadline: Ongoing
The DPI Innovation Accelerator is a concerted effort, launched under South Africa’s G20 Presidency, to foster knowledge exchange, highlight practical use cases, and support the scaling of DPI that are secure, interoperable, with open standards, people-centred and rights-based.
By highlighting promising initiatives and sharing them with a broad community of governments, funders and ecosystem partners, the DPI Innovation Accelerator seeks to unlock new opportunities for collaboration and support.
To mobilize DPI innovations globally across the G20 Members and guests, and across African countries, South Africa’s G20 Presidency has launched the DPI Innovation Accelerator. This initiative is carried out in partnership with the African Union (AU) and knowledge partners, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Building on India’s G20 Presidency’s Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository—a digital repository that enables the discoverability of DPI technologies and supports knowledge-sharing among G20 members and guest countries—the DPI Innovation Accelerator will extend these efforts to identify and showcase DPI innovations from across Africa and around the world.
The DPI Innovation Accelerator is a concerted effort, launched under South Africa’s G20 Presidency, to foster knowledge exchange, highlight practical use cases, and support the scaling of DPI that are secure, interoperable, with open standards, people-centred and rights-based. By highlighting promising initiatives and sharing them with a broad community of governments, funders and ecosystem partners, the DPI Innovation Accelerator seeks to unlock new opportunities for collaboration and support.
The DPI Innovation Accelerator will bring to the fore Africa-based DPI innovations that demonstrate how safeguards and interoperability can unlock value for society and the economy, such as:
- What is the potential for DPI to facilitate digital transformation across the African continent and the operationalization of the AU’s single market agenda within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?
- How is DPI widening opportunities for Africa’s hundreds of millions of young people and for women?
- How can DPI transform the economy with public rails, expand social protection, and create space for new public, private sector and civil society innovations that harness Africa’s youth potential?
Benefits
- Selected submissions will be showcased at high-level events, including the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) meetings throughout 2025 and at the Global DPI Summit in November 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa.
- Up to five submissions will be featured at the G20 Digital Economy Ministerial.
- Existing DPI submissions selected will participate in the ‘Demo Day’ at the Global DPI Summit, with the opportunity to showcase features to a global DPI ecosystem audience.
- New innovation submissions selected will be matched with potential partners, funders and other structured support to be determined by the co-leads of the DPI Innovation Accelerator.
Eligibility Criteria
- The call for submissions is open to all DPI implementers. Governments, civil society organizations, academia, and the private sector, to submit an existing or prototype of a DPI innovation or implementation.
- Each submission should demonstrate how the DPI innovation or implementation, embedded with the governance principles outlined above, can unlock public value. This includes evidencing how it can accelerate social and economic progress, and respond to the unique and diverse contexts of different countries and regions.
- Submissions that demonstrate examples of DPI expanding access to services for women and young people, creating pathways for innovation across the public and private sectors, and supporting inclusive economic growth are especially encouraged.
Selection Criteria
- Selection criteria for the final showcase are as follows:
- DPI innovations and implementations should demonstrate a clear approach (e.g. blueprints), impact (based on measurement and public value), and insights on how safeguards can assist in building safe, secure and rights-protecting ecosystems that enable innovation through interoperability, open standards and competition.
- Submissions should demonstrate the impact of coalitions involving government and different stakeholders such as the private sector, civil society, and academia, on countries’ and/or regions’ digital economy and development through DPI.
For more information, visit G20 South Africa.
