UNICEF’s Venture Fund is turning its gaze to climate change not as an abstract threat, but as a force reshaping the lives of children today. With its latest initiative, the Climate Innovation Challenge, the fund is supporting frontier technologies that protect children’s health, bolster climate resilience and help communities adapt and thrive.
Why now matters
Every year, climate shocks, floods, droughts, and worsening air pollution erode access to safe water, education and health services. Vulnerable children are often the first to suffer. UNICEF’s approach is simple yet urgent: to support early-stage start-ups in emerging markets that utilize AI, machine learning, blockchain and data science to deliver tangible solutions.
These are not “nice to haves.” When air quality sensors reveal unsafe pollution levels or when early warning systems give communities minutes rather than hours to respond, lives are saved. When cooling technologies in health clinics reduce heat impacts, children have a better chance of avoiding heat-related illness.
Target areas: health, adaptation, disaster readiness
UNICEF is focusing on two key areas:
- Climate and Health
Innovations in this area include tools for monitoring air quality; detecting lead in air, soil, water and food; platforms that integrate environmental, meteorological, health data and applications that support frontline health workers. They also cover climate-sensitive infectious diseases, these are malaria, cholera, vector-borne illness and how to respond to them in changing climates. - Adaptation, Resilience and Disaster Risk Management
Here, the fund seeks systems that can predict or warn of climate risks, models for resilient infrastructure, financing mechanisms for rapid response and technologies that support energy resilience in vulnerable settings. Think blockchain verification of service delivery, community energy networks or parametric insurance that protects in disasters.
What UNICEF looks for
To qualify, start-ups must meet multiple criteria:
- Be registered for-profit companies in eligible UNICEF programme countries.
- Have a working prototype or minimum viable product showing promising early results.
- Be open source, or willing to be.
- Offer solutions that clearly benefit the most vulnerable children.
- Produce measurable, real-time public data.
Crucially, the solutions should work well in low-resource environments: low connectivity, limited infrastructure and multiple languages.
How UNICEF supports innovators
The Innovation Challenge does more than give grants. It offers mentoring and technical assistance in digital skills, business development, technology scaling, inclusion and equity. The aim is to enable start-ups to improve their impact and become investment-ready.
Collaboration is central: partners like India Health Fund and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership bring expertise and networks.
A vision for sustainable impact
By centring children in climate tech innovation, UNICEF aims not only to respond to emergencies but to reshape systems so they are more resilient. For entrepreneurs, this presents an opportunity to build technology that matters, scale solutions that deliver and enter markets defined by urgency and moral imperative.
This challenge is open until 21 October 2025. For emerging market founders working in climate-health, adaptation or resilience, this could be the moment to amplify your innovation. Apply here: https://form.jotform.com/252503471775358
