Deadline to apply is 21 October, 2025
About the Climate Innovation Challenge:
UNICEF is launching a call for solutions from emerging markets in collaboration with India Health Fund (IHF), and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). To maximize impact, UNICEF will foster collaboration between early-stage frontier tech ventures and help scale proven climate adaptation solutions. This dual track approach seeks to drive impact and provide long-term sustainability.
We also invite value-aligned partners to support innovation challenges, design sprints and deliver strategic technical assistance to build greater equity and trust across technological solutions.
Through this challenge, we seek to:
- conduct a market mapping of child-centric climate innovators operating across emerging markets
- create capacity by offering mentorship and technical assistance from UNICEF Venture Fund experts to selected start-ups, enhancing their investment readiness and potential for future funding. This will comprise:
- 10 hours of technical mentoring consisting of open source, business development, frontier technology, software development and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mentorship
- additional support to understand and navigate the UNICEF Venture Fund sourcing and selection process
- highlight investable solutions that demonstrate public good and market opportunity
The UNICEF Venture Fund is particularly seeking solutions that:
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- address challenges to accelerate results for children
- are optimized for low-resource environments (e.g., low connectivity or limited mobile access)
- focus on reducing, rather than widening, inequalities, delivering results for diverse users and communities
- can deliver in multiple languages, including local and less used languages
At UNICEF, we prioritize solutions that leverage advanced technologies and uphold strict data protection measures and safeguarding principles to prioritize individuals’ privacy and wellbeing. Additionally, we value a comprehensive approach that strengthens systems and services, recognizing the importance of building resilient and sustainable infrastructure to effectively support health and mental health initiatives, and achieve lasting positive outcomes in the long run.
Companies need to fulfil the following mandatory selection criteria to be considered:
- be registered as a private for-profit company
- be registered in a UNICEF programme country (See the list of eligible countries here)
- have a working prototype or minimum viable product of the proposed solution, ideally, showing promising results
- be open source or willing to be open source
- have the potential to positively impact the lives of the most vulnerable children
- generate publicly exposed real-time data that is measurable
Click HERE to Apply
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Disclaimer: Edfrica does not have direct influence nor guarantee the outcome of this application following the support you receive from us
