On 27, 28 and 29 September, the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), will proudly host the 2nd Digital with Purpose (DWP) Global Summit at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

Over the last couple decades a new trend has emerged that provides us with new opportunities - sometimes challenges – digitalisation. The Digital With Purpose Global Summit aims at putting innovation and digital solutions at the core of the sustainability agenda, and sustainability at the core of the digital agenda. We have enough evidence that digital is the key to address the most pressing sustainability challenges and to empower worldwide leaders in building a more sustainable future.

But we still lack the tools, business models, talent models, skills and collaborations to fully exploit the opportunity of digital - while also ensuring such crucial factors as trust, equity and control over the personal data of our citizens and above all human-centricity. To unleash the full potential of digitalisation we must now dare to look beyond improvements in the current system and put human needs and global sustainability at the core of what we do.

Today we find ourselves in a situation where humanity is facing multiple concurrent catastrophes: the existential threat of climate change, the collapse of biodiversity, growing inequality of income and opportunity. Our growth trajectory is not sustainable and has not benefited everyone alike. Our ´natural capital´ is at a serious tipping point, putting each and every one of our gains at risk.

The DWP Global Summit represents a unique opportunity for private and public sector companies, vertical industries, and cities to showcase the benefits of Digital and Sustainable solutions. This year’s Summit will have a strong focus on Biodiversity as well as on Smart and Sustainable Cities and Education. The Summit will seek to find answers to how can digital technologies preserve and protect all life forms and help to manage resources in a more efficient way? How can we digitally transform cities? And how can we use technology to provide universal access to education and learning, disrupt an obsolete education system,  and elevate the potential of our future generations? 

Three sessions at the 2023 Summit have been curated and will be hosted by the Financial Times. The Summit is a flagship event for digital leaders and convening public and private sector decision-makers to accelerate the use and uptake of digital innovations that benefit society and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.