The council of ICAO aims to strengthen its discourse with industry leaders through the Industry Consultative Forum (ICF). The innovation Fair followed an extensive three day programme. Following administrative announcements and the opening remarks from the President of the ICAO Council, Day 1 kicked off with the Representative of Austria, Mr. Christian Schleifer, moderating the first session. Mr. Shleifer is the chairperson of the ICAO Council small group on innovation. 

He quickly pointed out how innovation was one thing ICAO was never famous for, the other being gender neutrality. "We have to do something" he claimed, "there are urgent needs to make changes in aviation." He concluded his opening remarks by comparing examples of innovation in aviation. The first being "the equipment we used to cross the Atlantic" as he introduced to the audience a Sextant from the US Naval Observatory, Washington DC dated 1944 and, on a much smaller scale, a hand held multi constellation GNSS receiver.

Following this he proceeded to demonstrate the many paper documentation in the airline industry, such as paper boarding passes, which have already gone electronic. He then went on to display the other essential documentations such as physical flight crew licenses of Europe, Canada and USA, along with medical accreditation, radio-station license, ICAO maintenance license, flight log and map. As he concluded, he turned to the panelists, whom are Director Generals of Civil Aviation Authorities, and asked "Is there potential in the CAA that this can be simplified, maybe electronically?" The remainder of the fair proved that going paperless is just one simple example of innovation that can be done within this industry.