Call For Applications: The UNICEF Venture Fund Gender-Responsive Innovation Challenge 2024
UNICEF Venture Fund Gender-Responsive Innovation Challenge. The UNICEF Venture Fund is committed to diversity and inclusion in its approach to early-stage investing and catalyzing novel innovations developed by startups leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data science (DS), drones, blockchain, or extended reality (XR). These innovations aim to address the unmet needs of marginalized and underserved children and their families.
The challenge
Recognizing structural and systemic barriers in the technology sector that 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
Selection Criteria
The Venture Fund will select five outstanding companies in gender-responsive innovation which will receive an award:
The selection committee comprised of GITEX Africa and UNICEF Venture Fund will evaluate the nominated companies according to the defined criteria to assess and select the winners of the challenge.
GRIC winners will be announced at the GITEX Africa Summit conference on 29-31 May in Marrakech, Morrocco.
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.
Deadline: May 24th, 2024