UNICEF’s Venture Fund Gender- Responsive Innovation Challenge

The challenge

Recognizing structural and systemic barriers in the technology sector which lead to the dominance of certain types of solutions and founders, the UNICEF Venture Fund is seeking to facilitate an inclusive and gender-responsive innovation in three key areas:

Area 1: Investing in diverse and underrepresented founders (especially women founders)

Area 2: Increasing the availability of digital products and services that can solve the specific unmet needs of vulnerable and underrepresented populations (such as children, women, people living with disabilities and refugees)

Area 3: Facilitating inclusive user design in the development of innovation to

Benefits

Companies will receive mentorship and technical assistance from Venture Fund experts to enhance their investment readiness and potential for future funding from the Venture Fund. It will comprise:

• 10 hours of technical mentoring consisting of Open Source, business development, frontier technology, software development, diversity, equity, and inclusion mentorship,
• Additional support to understand and navigate the Venture Fund sourcing and selection process.
• GRIC winners will be announced at GITEX Africa Summit conference on 29-31 May in Marrakech, Morrocco.

Eligibility

The Venture Fund is particularly seeking solutions that:

• Address challenges to accelerate results for children.
• Are optimized for low-resource environments (e.g., low connectivity, limited mobile access).
• Focus on reducing, rather than widening, inequalities.
• Are able to deliver in multiple languages, including smaller languages.

For more information and application.