Merci, Paris! Together, Exploring New Horizons.
ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026
Live Events at OECD-ICSB Forum
Live Reporting
Day 3 is well underway at OECD Headquarters, with research rooms running back to back. Paper presentations are now live across the rooms, as researchers share findings on SMEs, AI, scale-up finance, deeptech, and human-centered entrepreneurship.
After a day of great sessions, we're underway with our final roundtable of Day 2 at the OECD-ICSB SME International Conference: New and Emerging Topics. This forward-looking discussion in Room CC7 is exploring the future of SMEs, emerging global trends, and the new opportunities shaping the next frontiers of entrepreneurship. The conversation will help inform ICSB's Top Ten Trends for MSMEs.
Narmina Hasanova spoke as an entrepreneur and business executive who has led and scaled multiple SME ventures across diverse industries in Azerbaijan. She shared how she makes decisions without always having all the answers, and how paramount a strong mentor can be. She noted that young girls who grow up around entrepreneurship are more likely to succeed, and she is committed to opening as many doors as she can for them.
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AI Must Create Capability
Latest from the Forum
News, research, and commentary shaping the conversations we'll bring to the OECD-ICSB Conference in Paris.
The OECD shares 10 key research resources with ICSB to help bridge research, policy, and practice across four major discussions at the Paris SME World Forum.
A new European Commission recommendation confronts a coming wave of business handovers. Whether there is anyone in a position to take them on is a separate problem, and policy has barely begun to name it.
A small minority of firms generates most new employment. Nearly fifty years after economists first proved it, the money to grow them still isn't there.
New OECD-ICSB analysis points to a blind spot at the center of entrepreneurship policy.
Women and young people are more educated, connected, and digitally capable than any generation before, yet remain underrepresented among the founders building the next economy. The challenge is not talent. It is access to capital.
Small firms doubled AI adoption between 2023 and 2025 and still fell 11 points further behind. Five open questions for the OECD-ICSB Forum, Paris, October 2026.
A record 5.7 million new business applications may be signaling something bigger than an entrepreneurial boom. In an age of Permanent White Water, AI is changing who can become an entrepreneur, how businesses are built, and what it means to be an SME.
