At the Frontier of Tech Innovations for Inclusive Environmental and Social Impact
How UNICEF and partners are leveraging AI to deliver use cases on today’s possibilities for children’s wellbeing, and influence a new pace of change globally
As global challenges like social inequality and climate change intensify, harnessing frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) is an ally to explore. UNICEF Office of Innovation (OOI)— in collaboration with like-minded partners like Arm—is paving the way at explorations in the intersections of AI, Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and sustainability that support underserved children and young people worldwide.
“The rapid growth in AI technologies holds great promise for advancing UNICEF's priorities. However, we must ensure these tools are effective in diverse country settings and accessible to all. Our Ventures team aims to steer AI investments towards open-source solutions that support the SDGs, leaving no child behind in this transformation.”
— Katherine Hoffmann Pham, AI Advisor, UNICEF Office of Innovation, Ventures Team
Transforming learning and accessibility
In education, adaptive AI solutions are bringing personalized learning, and improving proficiency. With nearly 240 million children estimated to be living with disabilities, innovations in machine translation, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech technologies hold much promise in dismantling significant barriers to learning and communication.
One powerful example is Bookbot, a virtual reading assistant that originated in Indonesia, where diverse regional accents and dialects pose additional challenges in language learning. Successfully customized for local languages, it has helped children develop literacy skills tailored to their unique needs. With support from the Venture Fund, Bookbot partnered with the University of Dar es Salaam to develop Swahili speech recognition models, achieving some of the lowest error rates for both adult and child Kiswahili speech. The team is also experimenting with AI-generated books, creating culturally relevant content tailored to different difficulty levels—an innovative solution that supports local-language learning while circumventing copyright issues.
Looking ahead, Bookbot plans to scale its impact by leveraging a cost-effective pipeline that gathers training data via mobile devices. This approach enables rapid expansion into new languages and enhances speech recognition functionality not only for teaching reading skills but also for evaluating reading comprehension. With growing interest from UNICEF country offices in places like the Dominican Republic and India, Bookbot is poised to support teachers and government evaluators in conducting reading assessments faster and at scale.
"The Bookbot app is helping children with limited access to books across Indonesia learn how to read. Our speech recognition technology has also shown incredible results increasing the reading fluency of children with learning difficulties."
Adrian DeWitts, Founder, Bookbot
OOI's work in accessibility also extends to innovative language technologies that break down barriers for marginalized communities. In Burkina Faso, the U-Youth app now integrates text-to-speech and translation technologies for Moore, a language spoken by half the population. Developed in collaboration with local vendors, the initial system combines a French-to-Moore dictionary with adaptations for accurate pronunciation.
Building on this foundation, UNICEF is preparing a second phase that leverages machine learning models to enhance both translation and text-to-speech quality. With plans to scale these solutions regionally to languages such as Dioula and Fulfulde, and across sectors like education and health, this initiative demonstrates the potential of AI to empower students and community health workers, ensuring that no one is left behind.
Enhancing health and environmental wellbeing
The digital transformation of healthcare is essential for enhancing the quality of care, reducing errors, and ensuring equitable access, all while cutting costs. Our AI-driven investments are transforming health care delivery through data analysis, streamlining vaccine supply chains, and identifying health risks to protect children’s wellbeing through diagnostic support for neonatal sepsis, respiratory diseases and eye care.
Building on the success of using AI in primary health care, the current use case has turned to a critical connection of public health and climate: air quality monitoring. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, air pollution contributes to over 2.2 million deaths annually, with children particularly vulnerable to respiratory diseases and neurological disorders. In Lao PDR, especially in rural areas, only a handful of sensors currently monitor air quality allowing for real-time decisions, e.g., closing of schools. In response, the government and UNICEF Lao PDR country office are deploying 150 cutting-edge air quality monitoring sensors across the country in partnership with OOI.
“Tackling air pollution is crucial for the future of Lao PDR, especially for our children, who are most vulnerable to its harmful effects. Clean air is a fundamental right and essential for their healthy development. The partnership with Arm to install 150 air quality sensors across the country, combined with AI monitoring, is an incredible first step towards raising awareness and deepening our understanding of this pressing issue.”
Bilal Aurang Zeb Durrani, UNICEF Representative, Lao PDR
These sensors, integrated with an AI model from the Artificial Intelligence for Development programme, will combine real-time sensor data with satellite imagery to deliver precise air quality assessments. By the end of 2024, these sensors will be operational, enabling the Government of Lao PDR to make data-driven decisions and respond swiftly to pollution spikes. To promote AI literacy among students and young people, efforts include developing and translating training materials on air quality sensors, along with hands-on workshops to teach students and school personnel how to set up, maintain, and interpret sensor data. These initiatives aim to foster informed decision-making and drive social and behavioural change in collaboration with key government stakeholders.
Shaping the future with AI-driven insights
AI-driven use cases are providing real-time insights that can push the boundaries of how technology innovations can improve the lives of all children, everywhere, today in the face of intersecting challenges of climate change, inequality, and exclusion, and reshape the futures of countless young lives for future generations.
