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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.
Christine Volkmann, Professor and UNESCO Chair at Universitat Wuppertal, noted that the barriers women entrepreneurs face, such as access to capital, often reinforce one another. To help women, she helped create an online networking and mentorship network with over 150 mentors supporting women entrepreneurs.
After a successful networking and lunch session, we reconvene for our Women and Youth Entrepreneurship panel. This roundtable is exploring how women-led and youth-led businesses scale beyond the start, from access to networks and capital to the ecosystem interventions that support sustained, ambitious growth.
Donna Kelley, the Frederic C. Hamilton Professor of Free Enterprise Studies at Babson College, stressed the big need to teach AI to entrepreneurs, since the technology is constantly evolving. AI is an incredible tool which is allowing SMEs to launch at a faster rate.
Marc Gruber, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), shared his perspective on deeptech, including why Switzerland is a deeptech country and how Europe remains on the cutting edge.
A Historic First for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Review (IER)! For the first time ever, the IER banner was proudly displayed at a global forum, marking a special milestone at the ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026 in Paris. It was a pleasure to celebrate this moment alongside Lucia Cusmano, Head of the SMEs and Entrepreneurship Division at the OECD, and Vicki Whittaker, Executive Publisher at Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. As ICSB's newest fully open-access journal, IER is committed to democratizing knowledge, making innovation and entrepreneurship research accessible to everyone, everywhere, and connecting academic discoveries with policymakers, entrepreneurs, and communities around the world.
Our third roundtable of Day 2 is exploring what it takes to build supportive ecosystems for science-based ventures, from specialized incubation and acceleration to the research-to-market pipelines connecting universities, labs, and industry.
At the Scale-Up Finance roundtable, Lai-Chong Au, Group Chief Executive Officer of Delta Asia Financial Group, shared how her family's banking and financial business is implementing AI across Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong. Her view from inside the banking sector offered a real-world look at how financial institutions are using AI, a useful lens for SMEs thinking about scale-up and access to finance.
The second roundtable of Day 2, Scale-Up Finance, at the OECD-ICSB SME International Conference is examining the financing instruments and ecosystem conditions that enable SME scale-up, including venture and growth capital, as well as alternative and blended finance models.
AI Adoption Among SMEs Is Accelerating! At the ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026, Lila Fernández, the European Director of Strategic Account Services from Amazon, shared insights from Amazon's extensive survey of small and medium-sized enterprises, highlighting the rapid increase in AI adoption. SMEs are increasingly using AI to work smarter, automate time-consuming tasks, and accomplish in minutes what once took hours. The message is clear: AI is becoming a practical tool for small businesses to improve productivity, save time, and unlock new opportunities.
The first roundtable of Day 2 at the OECD-ICSB SME International Conference is exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping SME competitiveness, which use cases deliver real productivity gains, and how SMEs can build AI-ready teams through reskilling and training pathways.
The OECD-ICSB SME International Conference moves into its working heart today in Room CC7 at OECD Headquarters, opening with welcome remarks from the OECD and ICSB, followed by a keynote from Mr. Orkhan Mammadov, "Insights from Azerbaijan and Future Trends." Five policy roundtables follow: AI and SMEs, Scale-Up Finance, Deeptech Entrepreneurship and Incubation, Women and Youth Entrepreneurship, and New and Emerging Topics.
We were honored to welcome Marie-Florence Estimé, former Deputy Director of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs & Local Development, as our keynote speaker at the OECD-ICSB SME International Conference in Paris! A longtime friend of ICSB, Marie-Florence has been a steady champion of our community and of SME policy worldwide, and we're grateful to have her open this conversation on the future of small and medium-sized enterprises. Thank you for joining us and for being part of the ICSB family for so many years.
We're excited to announce a new journal at the OECD-ICSB SME International Conference in Paris! The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Review (IER) is ICSB's newest journal, published with Taylor & Francis, and it's open access, so research on innovation, policy, and entrepreneurship reaches readers everywhere without a paywall. All accepted Forum papers will be submitted for consideration to IER and will form a dedicated IER collection. Presenting in Paris is the start of a publication pathway, and each paper still goes through the journal's review process.
The OECD-ICSB SME International Conference is kicking off right now at the OECD. Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy, President and CEO of ICSB, and Lucia Cusmano, Head of the SME and Entrepreneurship Division at the OECD, are welcoming guests as policymakers, researchers, and entrepreneurs from around the world gather to launch three days of dialogue on helping small and medium-sized enterprises grow.
EDC Paris Business School students from China, France, and the United States took the stage at the ICSB SME World Forum pre-conference to share how, why, and when they use AI to grow their businesses. The panel compared DeepSeek, Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, and the takeaway was to match the tool to the business need. The session set an energetic tone for the OECD-ICSB conference opening in Paris later tonight!
Nameplate placed. Microphone ready. We're getting ready for tomorrow, October 22, as the ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026 officially kicks off at OECD Headquarters in Paris! 🇫🇷 Exploring New Horizons: SMEs at Frontier Speed!
A special thank you to Chérine Zgaya Bouzouita, Director of EDCube and Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at EDC Paris Business School, for hosting a wonderful pre-conference event for the ICSB-OECD SME International Conference in Paris. Grateful for your warm welcome and for helping kick things off. 🇫🇷 @EDC Paris Business School @EDCube @ICSB #ICSB #OECD #SMEs #Entrepreneurship #Paris
Lai-Chong Au, Group Chief Executive Officer of Delta Asia Financial Group, China. A wonderful conversation at EDC Paris Business School about how AI is reshaping the banking industry, on the eve of the SME World Forum in Paris.
Live from EDC Paris Business School! Dr. Jeff Alves, incoming Chair of ICSB, introduces the new Innovation and Entrepreneurship Review (IER) journal at the ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026 pre-conference event. Students, practitioners, and policymakers are joining the conversation, connecting entrepreneurship research with real-world impact.
Rico Baldegger, Co-Chair of the ICSB × OECD SME World Forum 2026, arrived at OECD headquarters in Paris this morning! He begins the day with preliminary meetings as final preparations get underway for three exciting days of global dialogue and collaboration. Later today, Rico will join us in welcoming attendees to the Forum's opening reception. Paris, we're ready!
Two papers, two different topics, one point and its counterpoint
#1045
Using Responsible AI to Close Gender Data Gaps in SME Statistics: Evidence from Morocco
Amal Idrissi · Morocco
11:45–12:00
Human-Centered Entrepreneurship: Reimagining Entrepreneurship for Human Flourishing
Ayman El Tarabishy · United States
12:15–12:30
Idrissi proposes using responsible artificial intelligence to accurately identify and address gender disparities within small business data. Together they reveal how integrating technical innovation with human centric philosophies creates a more inclusive and flourishing environment for global entrepreneurs.
Same forum, different worlds: what bridge would you build between them?