Program Details
In partnership with:
Learn More
UNICEF Innovation is an interdisciplinary team of individuals around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen UNICEF's work. We build and scale innovations that improve children's lives around the world. UNICEF Innovation works across three main areas: Providing support to hundreds of global UNICEF innovation projects that may need new partners, technologies or connections Development of and experimentation with new operational models, such as the UNICEF Fellows program Looking at the 3–5-year future horizon for UNICEF, including things that are coming but not yet ready, such as 3D printing, the future of transportation and identity, digital currency and other future possibilities
Learn More
Produced by IDG, the DEMO conferences in the United States, China, Brazil, Russia and Vietnam focus on emerging technologies and new product innovations. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies and have served as launchpad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Salesforce, Webex, Tivo, VMware, Fusion-io and thousands of others, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships and influence early adopters. The DEMO Scholarship Partner Program, subsidized by corporate sponsorships, offers multiple scholarship opportunities to ensure that deserving entrepreneurs have the chance to introduce cutting-edge technology products at DEMO that might have otherwise gone undiscovered.
Learn More
Fast Company is a leading progressive business media brand with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethonomics (ethical economics), leadership and design. Written for, by and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company and FastCompany.com inspire readers and users to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead conversations and create the future of business. Launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors, Fast Company magazine was founded on a single premise: A global revolution was changing business, and business was changing the world.
Learn More
The South African Innovation Network (SAINe) is a non-profit network providing a neutral platform for activating the multi-helix principle in Southern Africa with the aim of enhancing and promoting the innovation climate in the country. The main aim of the activities associated with the innovation network is to remedy the current lack of reliable data on innovation-related topics as well as contribute to information on progress made in South Africa on innovation. The network also serves as a national resource, providing information on upcoming and ongoing innovation activities as well as assisting with local and international benchmarking.
Overview
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network, SABLE Accelerator and GREEN Network are partnering with UNICEF on a landmark initiative designed to encourage corporate social responsibility by crowdsourcing breakthrough ideas, inventions, products and emerging technologies that can advance the work done worldwide by the UNICEF Innovation Center.
Entitled "Succeed Where There's a Need," this program seeks to create a global open innovation network for the world’s best and brightest youth, innovators, technologists, IT professionals, product developers, researchers, entrepreneurs, academics and post-graduate students. These individuals will come together to identify, adapt and deploy inventive technology solutions that can help UNICEF scale its efforts to meet the ever-growing needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and excluded children across 190 countries.
A dedicated community site, powered by innovation platform leader IdeaScale, will enable participants to share ideas, vote and discuss refinements to “inspirations that overcome limitations.” It will register and profile contributors and run crowdsourcing contests and challenges developed by UNICEF Innovation Labs located in 15 countries. You can preview this site, get a sneak peak of our upcoming plans and learn how you can get involved as an innovator or sponsor at causetech.net.
We have established strategic alliances with media companies and organizations across globe to team with us in this initiative. These partners include news channels, tech hubs, incubators, development groups, entrepreneur associations, and impact investors who can help develop "innovations that overcome limitations."
Campaign Partner Organizations
- C-Suite Network
- SAINe
- Silicon Cape Initiative
- AfriLabs
- Association of African Business Schools
- Weaverlution
- United States Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship
- Stanford d.school
- UC Berkeley Development Impact Lab
- UC Berkeley Blum Center for Developing Economies
- Innovus
- MIIS Center for Social Impact Learning
- International Development Innovation Network
- Fast Company
- DEMO
- IDG Enterprise
- World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship
- Edison Awards
- Mashable
- Churchill Club
- Commonwealth Club
- Toniic
- LaunchLab
- ThrdPlace
- African Nurses Entrepreneurship Network
- Founders Space
- Mpule Institute for Endogenous Development
- Stellenbosch University: Innovus
- Stellenbosch University: LaunchLab
For more information and to learn how you can get involved in this important initiative as an innovator or sponsor, please visit causetech.net.
Learn
Facts & Stats
Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion people lack any sanitation whatsoever, with 1.1 billion still practicing open defecation. - UNICEF
Worldwide, 121 million children do not receive an education. - UNICEF
Today, 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity, and 85 percent of these people live in rural areas far away from the grid. - ITDG
Each year, 3.4 million of those living without access to water die from a water-related disease. Nearly all those deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world. - Rauch International
One billion people around the globe lack access to adequate health care. This especially affects those living without access to water and nutrition and who lack proper sanitation. This means that millions of people die every day from diseases that could have been prevented. - WHO
Each year, over 7.5 million children under the age of five die from malnutrition and other preventable diseases. - Global Issues
Nearly 800 women die every single day due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth. - WHO
More than 200 million tons of human waste goes untreated every year. - UNICEF
In the developing world, 90 percent of sewage is discharged directly into lakes, rivers and oceans. - UNEP
Untreated sewage adds up to a major public health crisis that kills an estimated 1.4 million children each year. That's one child every 20 seconds, or more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. - Live Science
Today, 121 million children worldwide do not receive an education. Incredibly, nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. - Global Issues
More than 72 million children of primary education age are not in school and 759 million adults are illiterate. - Humanium
Read
Studies & White Papers
UNICEF & WHO: Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation 2014
UNICEF & WHO: Post-2015 WASH Targets and Indicators
UN Water: Investing in Water and Sanitation: Increasing Access, Reducing Inequalities
World Water Development Report 2014—Water and Energy
USAID Water and Development Strategy
Sustainable Development Begins With Education
Educational Gender Parity: Challenges of the Kenyan Girl
Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality For All
Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity
The Energy Access Situation in Developing Countries
Overcoming the Energy Poverty in Underdeveloped Countries
UNICEF & WHO: Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation 2014
UNICEF & WHO: Post-2015 WASH Targets and Indicators
Sanitation in Developing Countries: Innovative Solutions in a Value Chain Framework
UN Water: Investing in Water and Sanitation: Increasing Access, Reducing Inequalities
Articles
November 2014 - How Renewables in Developing Countries are Leapfrogging Traditional Power
November 2014 - UN Reveals Major Gaps in Water and Sanitation- Especially in Rural Areas
October 2014 - Better Water Management Needed to Eradicate Poverty
October 2014 - Mobile Learning Can Provide Solutions to Top 5 Issues of Education
October 2014 - Widely Used Sanitation Programs Do Not Necessarily Improve Health
September 2014 - Expert Calls for Moral Crusade to Bring Clean Water and Sanitation to Billions
August 2014 - Expanding Educational Opportunities for Girls Especially in the Developing World
July 2014 - Electricity Without the Grid
July 2014 - Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition
May 2014 - Closing the Gap: Gender Disparity and Education in the Developing World
May 2014 - WHO/UNICEF Highlight Need to Further Reduce Gaps in Access to Improved Drinking Water and Sanitation
April 2014 - How Can Educational ICT be Relevant to the Poorest of the Poor?
April 2014 - 5 Key Barriers to Educational Technology Adoption in the Developing World
March 2014 - Eliminating Extreme Inequality: A Sustainable Development Goal, 2015-2030
February 2014 - Equity and Social Cohension: The Contribution of Education to Peacebuilding in the Post-2015 Development Goals
December 2013 - A Critical Gap in Global Healthcare
March 2013 - Women Still Face Big Gaps in Access to Health Care
March 2012 - World Water Day: 10 Places Most in Need of Clean Water
October 2011 - With 7 Billion People, World Has a Poop Problem