GEN Global Assembly Interactive Workshop: Sharing What Works in GEN Atlas

Session Description

GEN Atlas is designed to capture and share the most effective entrepreneurship support mechanisms worldwide—but what’s missing? This collaborative workshop will guide you through practical strategies for implementing GEN Atlas in your local context and invite you to shape the platform’s future as the definitive global resource for startup support best practices. 

Workshop Activities:

1. Introduction to Atlas 

• Mission, features, and global reach.
• Examples of Atlas policy case studies. 

2. Using GEN Atlas in Your Local Ecosystem 

• Map your local entrepreneurship landscape using Atlas’s 8 core themes.
• Identify local gaps and select relevant Atlas case studies.
• Collaboratively develop action plans for adapting and piloting Atlas policies in your region.
• Peer sharing and feedback on implementation strategies. 

3. Crowdsourcing Insights to Refine GEN Atlas 

• Brainstorm: What features, content, or tools would make Atlas indispensable for your local work?
• Group clustering and prioritization of ideas.
• Co-create actionable recommendations to enhance Atlas’s usability, inclusivity, and impact. 

4. Next Steps & Actions

• Personal action pledges for using or contributing to Atlas.
• Outline of follow-up and ongoing collaboration opportunities. 

Key Discussion Questions 

• Which local challenges can Atlas help address, and how can its case studies be adapted for your ecosystem?
• What policy mechanisms, regions, or support models are missing from Atlas?
• What tools or features would make Atlas easier to use and more impactful for local policymakers and practitioners?
• How can Atlas better support inclusive, replicable, and data-driven entrepreneurship policy worldwide?
• What are your next steps for leveraging Atlas in your work, and how can you contribute to its growth? 

Who Should Attend: 
Policymakers, entrepreneurship advocates, ecosystem builders, researchers, and anyone passionate about advancing startup support globally. 

  Takeaways: 

• Practical implementation plan for using GEN Atlas locally
• Opportunity to shape the future of a global policy resource
• New connections with peers and policy innovators worldwide 

Be part of the movement to spread innovative entrepreneurship policy and unlock opportunity everywhere. 

About the GEN Global Assembly

The GEN Global Assembly (GGA) brings together diverse experts and practitioners from around the world to brainstorm strategies and learn skills for strengthening the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. To kick off the GEC, the immersive GGA workshops will provide the tools and insights to help us build thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems together around the 2025 themes, including "Improved National Operations and Performance".

About Improved National Operations and Performance

A thriving global entrepreneurial ecosystem needs support organizations that are impactful, data-driven, and scalable. Whether leading GEN in your country, running a entrepreneurial support organization or being part of a national innovation agency, effective leadership requires planning, coalition building, and measured performance to drive operational sustainability and growth.  
 

Session Recap: 
Unlocking Global Entrepreneurship Policy with GEN Atlas

(AI-generated session recap made available by Google NotebookLM)

Discover how the world's largest compendium of entrepreneurship policy case studies can inform your work and drive innovation in your ecosystem.

1. Brief Summary

This session introduced Gen Atlas, a comprehensive online portal designed to help policy makers, researchers, and practitioners worldwide access, understand, and leverage innovative entrepreneurship policies. With over 420 entries from more than 90 countries, Gen Atlas aims to spread best practices and effective policy by providing objective, comparable case studies structured around key questions like aims, implementation, cost, and impact. The platform categorizes policies across eight key themes critical to thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems and features a new four-level impact rating system to evaluate evidence of a program's success. The session also included interactive elements, inviting participants to brainstorm local policies for inclusion and discuss how they would use and improve the Atlas tool.

2. Outline

• Introduction to Gen Atlas: The world's largest compendium of entrepreneurship policy case studies and knowledge portal.
• Mission: To make it easier for political leaders and policy makers to spread opportunity and elevate economies through entrepreneurship.
• Structure of Case Studies: Objective, consistent, and comparable, focusing on six core questions (aims, how it works, cost, implementation, impact, lessons learned).
• Eight Key Themes: Identification of themes underpinning thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems, including Finance, Education, Market Opportunities, Inclusivity/Culture, Regulation, Ecosystem Development, Science/Tech/Innovation, and Policy Process.
• Impact Rating System: Introduction of a new four-level evidence system to evaluate program impact.
• Enhanced Search Functionality: Ability to filter policies by various criteria including themes, mechanisms, geography, cost, and evidence level.
• Call for Contributions: Invitation for individuals with in-depth knowledge of innovative policies to suggest entries or become contributors. Gen Atlas is described as a living resource.
• Interactive Workshop: Participants brainstormed local policies corresponding to the eight key themes and discussed potential uses and improvements for Gen Atlas.
• Audience Feedback & Discussion: Sharing insights on leveraging Atlas for idea generation, policy mapping, identifying best practices, connecting businesses to resources, searching by pain points, integrating with research, advocacy, and more.

3. Notable Quotes

• "Gen Atlas, the world's largest compendium of entrepreneurship policy case studies... we want to make that mission just a little bit easier."
• "Policy makers want to know above all else what difference did this program make..."
• "...this is really a great way for us to identify what worked in other countries to be implemented locally."
• "...having true vetted numbers is another way that we could use the platform and then the other one building on just the knowledge sharing piece is it can also be a way for individual groups to actually share their successes..."

4. Key Takeaways

• Leverage Global Insights: Gen Atlas provides a centralized portal to find and understand innovative policies and programs implemented worldwide, offering inspiration and potential models for local adaptation.
• Strengthen Policy Development: The structured case studies and impact rating help users "firm up the why," identify potential impact metrics, vet new ideas, estimate needed resources, and build a business case for policy changes or new initiatives.
• Identify Best Practices and Resources: The platform can be used to find best practices, such as successful accelerator programs, and potentially connect small businesses with resources available in other regions or countries.
• Inform Advocacy and Collaboration: Atlas can support advocacy efforts by highlighting alternative policy approaches or showing successful models used elsewhere. It also offers potential for global collaboration and connecting directly with experts or policy makers.
• Improve the Tool by Contributing: Users are encouraged to contribute knowledge of local policies and provide feedback on how to make Atlas more useful, for instance, by enabling searching by specific "pain points" or including "how-to" content and better indicator inspiration.

5. Resources Mentioned

• Gen Atlas: Described as the world's largest compendium of entrepreneurship policy case studies and a knowledge portal.

6. Action Items

Attendees were encouraged to consider:

• Which local challenges can Atlas help address in their ecosystem?
• What policy mechanisms or support models are missing from Atlas?
• What tools or features would make Atlas more useful for them?
• How Atlas can better support inclusive, replicable, data-driven entrepreneurship policy globally?
• What are their next steps for leveraging Atlas?
• How might they contribute to its growth? Users can apply to become a contributor or suggest a policy for inclusion.