Innovation

The original story was published in R adar Magazine Sustainability  Issue 16, written By Matt Loose.   Arm, the semiconductor intellectual property supplier, and UNICEF have been working with technology since 2015 to transform the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. Their  Wearables for Good Challenge  aimed to demonstrate how wearable…

Daniel Ouedraogo, Senior Youth Engagement Strategist from UNICEF Cote d’Ivoire, shares about their Cote d’Ivoire UNICEF office strategy and new approaches to working with youth. He also tells how  U-Report  and other UNICEF supported platforms have enabled local young people to raise their voice and take actions on issues they care about.  A…

Solutions should always be grounded in the people who use them. This is the value of “human-centered design”, an approach UNICEF is using to complement traditional expert- and research-based thinking. By understanding the people who will use the solutions — their wants and needs — UNICEF is developing creative, sustainable solutions they will…, Winning proposals included:, The Brown Paper Bag project, a digital online community for girls to discuss menstruation with their peers Raaji , a female character who tackles the shame and stigma surrounding periods and conveys powerful messages to young women in short animations MAAM, a fun and interactive virtual support network to de-stigmatize conversations around…

UNICEF’s Innovation Fund goes beyond just offering seed funding to its companies. We connect them to UNICEF’s community of global experts and partners – and to each other, providing pathways to accelerate their solutions to market and connecting solutions to each other to build globally scalable platforms. On February 5-7, the UNICEF Innovation…, What is the potential of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science to solve big challenges in the AAC field like the lack of interoperability between symbol systems?, There are no viable AAC systems or technologies which translate how a concept is represented in one symbol set to how it may be represented in another symbol set, preventing greater communication mobility for AAC users. AI technologies have shown great potential in translating between languages as well as in generating automatic descriptions of…, What new opportunities can emerge for AAC users from making different symbol sets and communication boards publicly available and open source?, AAC symbol sets are either not open source or not shared/easy to locate on the web under a creative commons license. This can create a duplication of efforts around the development of symbols sets, and additional challenges for multicultural communities who need access to multiple symbols sets. Moreover, without this publicly available data, the…, Can we contribute to and build on an Open Board Standard that creates greater interoperability between AAC applications?, Most AAC applications make it difficult for speech and language therapists, parents and other users to import or export communication boardsfrom one application to another due to incompatible board formats. This can create additional work and obstacles for AAC users to personalize their communication boards. The UNICEF Innovation Fund…, How are we collecting the data we need to show evidence of impact?, When using AAC applications, speech and language therapists are required to evaluate an AAC user’s progress — but that data is rarely collected through an AAC application (usually paper-based), making it difficult for an AAC company to demonstrate evidence of impact. The UNICEF Innovation Fund accessibility cohort will work with mentors to develop…

UNICEF France and U-Report France participated in the “Being a citizen of the world” event organized by the French Development Agency (governmental financial institution) in Paris on February 13th. “An afternoon to think the world,” was the focus of the French Development Agency (AFD) for the meeting that took place on February 13 at the Forum des…

23-26 January , 2018 – UNICEF Innovation Futures Lead & WEF Global Future Council on Human Rights chair –  Erica Kochi  joins world leaders, industry experts, and changemakers at Davos 2018’s “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World” to discuss the opportunities and implications of  emerging technologies — and the responsibility we all…, Artificial Intelligence – the promise and perils, Last year, the  technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution  were highlighted but largely confined to a separate building called The Loft. This year, at any given time, at least a quarter of the rooms in the Congress Center (the building with the highest profile World Economic Forum events) hosted panels and discussions about these new…, Education is dead, long live learning?, There was a definite call to expand the notion of education beyond the classroom into learning skills needed for children to become productive members of society. Many pointed toward the involvement of business as crucial to these efforts – as a pipeline and pull towards employment, as well as a partner in providing accreditation and defining the…, Blockchain: A New Operating System for Society?, Clearly, there is a lot of interest – given the marked increase in value of cryptocurrencies over the past year. In the international development space, there is also tremendous interest – from using blockchain for identity, land titles, and generally the provision of all social services. We’re still in the early days of blockchain and most of the…

In Cote d’Ivoire, more than 50% of our population are under the age of 25. These 14 million young activists and changemakers within their community represent the generation that will lead progress towards a future that is brighter, better, and more gender equitable. Across the country, many of these girls and boys have raised their voices on the…, 1. Listen to youth as DECISION MAKERS, To make decisions that matter to young people, young people need a seat at the table too. Which is why our U-Report leadership is largely made up of young influencers who bring forward their personal stories, social networks, creative ideas for the future and work expertise to help shape the type of events, discussions, and topics we discuss on U-…, 2. Work with STRONG social influencers and role models, Amie  is one of our first U-Report ambassadors called  porte-voix or “megaphone” . She is an influential girls’ rights advocate and founder of  Ayana Webzine , a blogspace that talks about issues like menstrual hygiene management to ending violence against girls. She uses her digital platform to highlight the stories and voices of young girls,…, 3. Create an OPEN conversation and dialogue, “Where is the nearest health centre for family planning services and info?” “I have really bad period pains… What can I do to make it better?” “What does UNICEF do in Cote d’Ivoire, and how can I help?” These are just some of the questions that we get from U-Reporters across Cote d’Ivoire. The platform allows youths to receive real-time…, 4. Discuss what matters to girls, while engaging boys, As important as it is to create a virtual platform for youth to voice their opinions and concerns anonymously and from anywhere in the country, it is also important to take that virtual network offline. U-Reporters regularly come together to meet one another in person. They participate in events and meetings across Cote d’Ivoire to brainstorm on…, 5. Create a physical network of young, empowered changemakers, As important as it is to create a virtual platform for youth to voice their opinions and concerns anonymously and from anywhere in the country, it is also important to take that virtual network offline. U-Reporters regularly come together to meet one another in person. They participate in events and meetings across Cote d’Ivoire to brainstorm on…

They came in three. Hurricane’s Irma, Jose and Maria battered their way through the Caribbean and Southern Florida last summer, with 185mph winds causing an estimated $67 billion worth of damage. Many homes, schools and hospitals were ripped apart, with communities working desperately hard to ensure people remained safe. One important way of…

‘Zika is here to stay.’ That’s the message the World Health Organization published on 21 November – when it changed the status of Zika from a Public Health Emergency of International Concern to a long-term health situation. UNICEF is working across Latin America and the Caribbean to prevent Zika, and to make sure that families affected receive the…

On any given day, more than one billion of the world’s children go to school to get an education – one of the most reliable pathways out of poverty. To “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and to promote lifelong learning” (SDG 4) ,  UNICEF supports governments to set standards for securing safe, rights-based, quality education for…

At UNICEF Innovation, we’re supporting our partners to help build models that give us a better understanding of empathy. We hear in the news about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a tool for evil — how robots can take over the world, or how automation will take away jobs. Often that comes from an understanding of a mechanical type of AI. …

Today we’re proud to announce that after a highly competitive process,  CIREHA (Argentina) ,  Daokudai (China)  and  Ninaad Digital Technology (India)  have been selected to join the UNICEF Innovation Fund’s AAC cohort. Read more about our newest portfolio companies and what it means to be part of a UNICEF Innovation Fund Cohort below. In June,…, How We Got Here: Our Strategy, AAC technologies are meant to  help people with communication impairments supplement or replace existing speech, writing or nonverbal communication to express ideas, thoughts, and needs . They primarily consist of PECS (picture exchange communication systems) and text to speech applications to support standard AAC systems. Despite the saturation…,  , Assistive Communication Technologies Cohort:, Beijing Daokoudai UNICEF Innovation   Beijing Daokoudai [China] is developing Yuudee 2, an application being built to help children with autism develop complex sentence structures to express themselves and socially integrate. Find out more about their solution  here . CIREHA (Argentina) UNICEF Innovation   CIREHA [Argentina] is developing Cboard,…, Cultivating an AAC Ecosystem: The “Cohort Model”, The AAC call is the Innovation Fund’s first experiment in designing and launching a “cohort model”. What does this mean to us? By bringing together portfolio companies working in the same technology space, open source solutions are connected early on during their development phase. Companies are creating interoperable solutions that build on each…, Upcoming Cohort Calls, The Innovation Fund has put out a series of calls around different portfolio areas which include  Data Science ,  Virtual Reality  and Blockchain . Please look out for this through our social media channels and newsletter. Visit:  https://www.unicef.org/innovation/venturefund