UNICEF CLIMATE INNOVATION TECH START-UPS CHALLENGE

Application Deadline: 21 October, 2025

LOCATION: Multiple Regions

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. 

They 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. 

ELIGIBILITY:

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 

BENEFIT:

The UNICEF Venture Fund has been specifically designed to finance early-stage, open-source technology that can benefit children. The core motivation of the UNICEF Venture Fund is to identify “clusters,” or portfolios of initiatives around emerging technology, so that UNICEF can both shape markets and learn about and guide these technologies for children. They invest in solutions clustered around $100 billion industries in frontier technology spaces such as blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and AI.

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