Turn Ideas into Impact

The Institute for Economic Development hosted a special Knowledge Talk during the World Bank – IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. This interactive session highlighted the Institute’s groundbreaking innovations aimed at accelerating the journey from knowledge creation to real-world impact. 

The session featured Gero Carletto, Interim Director of the Institute, and Renos Vakis, Lead Economist at the Institute. Together, they shared how the Institute is rethinking knowledge diffusion and showcased the new tools that are helping make research more accessible to development practitioners. 

Participants included World Bank staff, as well as visitors and delegates to the Spring Meetings activities. The event included a live demo of the Institute’s AI tools, such as the Accelerating Development – Ideas for Impact podcast, a multilingual series that translates research into practical insights, and AVA (ai), an innovative tool designed to help users explore and synthesize World Bank’s reports and publications. 

This Knowledge Talk highlighted how the Institute is harnessing technology to break barriers to knowledge access and building partnerships with global researchers and think tanks to find new solutions to development challenges. After the event, participants got to explore these tools and learn more about the Institute’s work.  

Listen to the Accelerating Development podcast and subscribe to never miss an episode and read more about AVA (ai) to request early access to this tool.