Multimedia Reporter
Mariel Alison L. Aguinaldo
StartupBlink has released their COVID-19 Innovation Ranking, “an algorithm ranking the top 20 innovating cities and countries in relation to the COVID-19 crisis”. The ranking is based on their Coronavirus Innovation Map, launched last March, as well as data gathered by their partners, the Health Innovation Exchange by UNAIDS, Moscow Agency of Innovations, Crunchbase, Meetup, and SEMrush.
The algorithm is split into two categories, each with 20 spots. For rankings by city, San Francisco, USA takes the top spot, a feat that it also accomplished in StartupBlink’s 2019 startup ecosystem rankings report. It is followed by two other US cities, Boston and New York, with Toronto, Canada and Milan, Italy rounding out the top five.
While it may seem counterintuitive for cities badly hit by the crisis to rank high, some of them are actually overperforming in developing innovative solutions. These include London and Paris, which are sixth and tenth on the list respectively.
As for rankings by country, the top five spots are occupied by the United States, Canada, Estonia, Switzerland, and Israel. The Philippines places 20th on the list, a notable feat considering that the country rarely ranks this highly in any of StartupBlink’s reports. Other notable overperformers are Ireland, sixth on the list, and Italy following at seventh.
Currently, StartupBlink is working on their next global ecosystem ranking report. This will be published in May.
