Meet the ILO Innovation Scouts

At the Engagement Zone of the International Labour Conference, four teams of ILO Innovation Scouts presented bold new ideas for technical cooperation projects. The session was part of the Innovation Sparks Network, launched earlier in the year by the International Training Centre (ITC) to foster creative problem-solving across the ILO. The teams, selected for seed funding through the network, pitched their proposals to an engaged audience of delegates and constituents, including Italy’s Labour Minister Maria Elvira Calderone.

The projects tackled a range of frontier challenges. One team introduced AI-Powered Foresight, a toolkit using artificial intelligence and virtual reality to help the ILO anticipate geopolitical disruptions and build strategic agility. Another presented ILO Workverse, a VR platform for immersive, simulated social dialogue, piloted in Uganda to include youth from refugee and host communities. Innovate4Change proposed transforming traditional conferences on child labour into interactive, tech-driven experiences with tools like VR field visits and AI chatbots. Finally, TVET AI focused on reforming vocational education in Kenya through generative AI that helps trainers quickly produce high-quality, inclusive learning materials.