Insights from UNICEF Climate Innovation Challenge
1,200 startups, five regions and a five-year ambition for child-centered solutions.
Climate change is the defining threat to children's futures. It is also one of the most consequential frontiers for innovation — and the question of where the most promising solutions are emerging, and how to find them, is one UNICEF's Office of Innovation is committed to answering rigorously.
The UNICEF Office of Innovation launched the Climate Innovation Challenge with the India Health Fund and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. The goal was specific: identify promising climate technologies across emerging markets, draw a clearer picture of where innovation is gaining traction, and lay the groundwork for a five-year commitment to source and scale transformative solutions for children and communities most exposed to climate risk.
The response was striking. More than 1,200 startups applied from across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Over 85 per cent were early-stage, 88 per cent youth-led and 79 per cent woman-founded. This was a signal that climate innovation is being built from within the regions where it is needed most, by the people who understand those contexts best.
From that global pool, five ventures were selected for deeper engagement: technical support on open-source development, guidance on business and diversity strategy, and mentorship to stress-test their models against community deployment contexts — including how to work within national systems and with UNICEF country offices and partners.
“The mentorship helped translate promising concepts and prototypes into collaboration and deployment opportunities that could unlock growth,” said Heta Kosonen, Innovation Manager, UNICEF Office of Innovation.
ClimatrixAI (Nigeria) combines satellite imagery, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) models to generate hyperlocal predictions of floods, heatwaves and environmental hazards.
For founder Umar Fahm, the Challenge sharpened the human dimension of what is often framed as a technical problem:
“The Challenge has given us confirmation that the problem we’re trying to solve is not only technically relevant but also acutely human. It helped us hone our focus on how climate intelligence needs to ultimately serve children and vulnerable populations, not just governments and enterprises. Going forward, the most important thing we need is partnership — with governments, multilateral bodies and ecosystem enablers who can help take promising solutions and scale them up as national systems.”
RIFFAI (Thailand) integrates geospatial data, weather forecasts and AI models to predict environmental change and accelerate renewable energy deployment.
Founder Kolatat Katousano came away with a renewed focus on resilience — and on the stakes of getting infrastructure decisions right the first time:
“Being recognised among the top climate tech startups validated that accelerating renewable energy deployment through AI-powered satellite intelligence is not only commercially relevant, but socially urgent. The Challenge sharpened our focus on resilience — especially for regions where delayed or failed energy projects mean prolonged exposure to climate risks. To reach real scale, climate innovators need structured public–private partnerships and long-term deployment pathways with governments and development agencies.
Respirer (India) uses AI and high-frequency environmental monitoring to map pollution patterns in school zones and cities, helping cities design safer environments for children.
Founder Ronak Sutaria identified the true barrier to scale, and it isn't technology:
“Participating in the Challenge confirmed that our technical direction is aligned with strategies addressing vulnerable populations. It reinforced that we are solving the right problem in the right way. The biggest barrier to scale is not technology — it is system integration. Climate-health innovations in schools need structured pathways into public education systems and national climate strategies so solutions can move from pilots to city-level or national adoption.”
Tryolabs (Uruguay) is a woman-founded AI company developing generative AI and GeoAI tools that turn fragmented climate data into actionable insights for governments and public-sector partners.
Customer Success Manager Daniel Olhagaray pointed to the challenge that sits beneath most promising open-source innovations: sustainability:
“The Challenge validated that the solution addresses a real need in the climate space and meets UNICEF’s standards for openness and impact. For teams building high-impact climate tools, the biggest challenge is not innovation — it’s sustainability. Open-source digital public goods require long-term technical stewardship, clear funding pathways, and continued partnerships to remain effective for the communities they aim to serve.”
NAXA (Nepal) blends community insights with climate and hazard data to generate localized risk profiles and multilingual preparedness messages for vulnerable regions.
Founder Uttam Pudasaini spoke of the barriers that many climate innovators face when trying to scale:
“Participating in the Challenge was valuable because it placed our work within a global ecosystem of climate innovators tackling similar problems. It demonstrated that the barriers we encounter, fragmented data systems, limited operationalization of early warnings, and the need for locally adaptable tools, are shared across many regions… For climate innovators working in adaptation, resilience, and disaster risk management, scaling impact requires a different type of support than traditional innovation programmes often provide. One of the most important needs is long-term partnerships that allow proven solutions to expand across multiple countries or programmes.”
Taken together, what these ventures reveal is not just technical ingenuity — it's an ecosystem coming of age. The most promising climate innovations are being built inside the regions where climate risks are felt most acutely, by founders who understand the communities they serve.
For UNICEF, the Climate Innovation Challenge was a market test. The findings offer insights on which solutions are ready for deeper investment, which ecosystems need more structured support, and where the right partnerships can shift innovation from prototype to population-level impact.
The ambition ahead is significant, and the foundation being built here is real.
