Our unique pan-African innovation space that scripts SDG success stories!
Registrations for the SDG Innovation Challenge 2022 are closed, but here's how you can join in leveraging youth capacity towards SDG action.
You are young, African, and want to work with like-minded people committed to making a difference from the grassroots level up? This ideathon is open to students, professionals, community activists, social entrepreneurs, changemakers, and all other interested folks in Africa: Awaken the SDG innovator in you and sign up today!
The SDG Innovation Challenge is your space to be!
Designed as a virtual, pan-African ideation space, the SDG Innovation Challenge is a powerhouse for young people from across the continent to come together and co-develop practical solution ideas to grassroots challenges while pushing the needle of sustainable development on a global scale. Conceived in 2020, this innovation challenge calls upon participants to employ their design and complex thinking skills that solve problems in a measurable and qualitative manner. The COVID-19 pandemic left a debilitating imprint: according to the World Bank, COVID-19 has pushed nearly 40 million people into extreme poverty in Africa and harmed the economy and livelihoods in multiple ways.
The force of innovation sets the engine of sustainable growth running, developing initiatives that build resilience, empower lesser privileged sections of the population, alleviate environmental stress, and so on! Moreover, we emphasize collaboration and partnerships, in alignment with SDG 17 (Partnerships to achieve the goals), as a central axis around which our efforts are oriented!
With this background, we present the SDG Innovation Challenge 2022, which builds upon its precedents to create a bigger space for expanded outreach and wider horizons! Under the theme Transformative Solutions against Global Challenges – Accountability in Leveraging Youth Action to Create and Empower, the SDG Innovation Challenge converges young talent with three primary goals:
The SDG Innovation Challenge is where motivated young Africans come together to co-develop practical innovations that further sustainable development of their local communities. There are numerous reasons to participate; here are a few of them:
Registrations for the SDG Innovation Challenge 2022 are closed, but here's how you can join in leveraging youth capacity towards SDG action.
To participate in one of the events happening virtually this 28-30 November & 1-3 December, you must register by 1 November 2022, before 8 PM GMT. Here are some important considerations to keep in mind!
Before registering, read through these consideration and keep these important points in mind:
Register your group by 1 November 2022 at 8 PM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) … and take a chance at creating Africa’s next Winning Sustainable Solution idea!
The registration follows a two-step process:
All registrations will be screened and undergo a pre-selection. Selected participants will be confirmed by 11 November. Once selected, groups of 4-7 participants will enter our 48 hours innovation marathon EITHER from 28-30 November OR from 1-3 December to build a team and unpack challenges faced by their local communities and relating to the Challenge theme. Together, they design practical solution ideas to strike at the roots of problems and tackle them bottom-up!
The solution ideas submitted during the event will then be assessed by an independent panel of judges. The ideas with the highest evaluation will have the opportunity to present their proposal at the 5th African Youth SDGs Summit, Africa’s biggest Sustainable Development Youth congregation. In addition, the top teams receive continued support in the form of digital literacy tools for startup upscale, support for business modeling and business registration, recommendations for investment match-making opportunities, access to business incubation, pro-bono mentorship, and more. To crown it all, an SDG Innovation Fund will soon launch to crowdsource financial support for leading project ideas!
The SDG Innovation Challenge is open to participation from young people across Africa.
You want to work across domains and gain insights into the brightest minds tackling sustainable development from the grassroots level up? Here is an opportunity for young, pan-African social innovators and entrepreneurs to change the world, one idea at a time!
Registration for the challenge happens on a group basis. Please see the “How to Participate” section for more.
Following the registration deadline, participants will receive further instructions about the activities and the technologies deployed during the event. And then, the challenge is on: Each participating group must be an interdisciplinary team and develop a solution idea which they will consolidate in a short video pitch at the end of the challenge.
The SDG Innovation Challenge 2022 is a 48-hours innovation marathon. Keep a close watch on this space to stay updated on the latest dates and times of the events!
Groups of 4-7 people can register with a shared vision, goal, or project idea.
Because we encourage maximum group diversity and new collaboration opportunities, a connector space on Facebook is available for anyone interested in joining the SDG Innovation Challenge to connect with like-minded innovators and join forces in order to register.
Click HERE to access the online registration form, so sign up your group to the SDG Innovation Challenge
Groups of 4-7 people can register with a common vision, goal, or project idea.
The participants selected are informed. The candidates will now proceed to contest in SDG Innovation Challenge 2022.
Selected participants receive detailed instruction and are admitted to the virtual event infrastructure.
The first phase engages up to 100 SDG enthusiasts from across the African Continent to get creative and hands-on during our 48-hours innovation marathon.
Participants will work in teams of 4-7 people and co-create innovative approaches to community challenges. At the end of the innovation marathon, teams submit their solution idea, which will be assessed by a judging panel following the event.
Both phases follow the same process. Selected teams will be assigned to Challenge 1 or 2 based on availability and team preference. At the end of each event, teams submit their solution idea, which will be assessed by a judging panel after concluding both challenges.
The second phase engages up to 100 SDG enthusiasts from across the African Continent to get creative and hands-on during our 48-hours innovation marathon.
Participants will work in teams of 4-7 people and co-create innovative approaches to community challenges. At the end of the innovation marathon, teams submit their solution idea, which will be assessed by a judging panel following the event.
Both phases follow the same process. Selected teams will be assigned to Challenge 1 or 2 based on availability and team preference. At the end of each event, teams submit their solution idea, which will be assessed by a judging panel after concluding both challenges.
To choose high-potential ideas emerging from the challenge, we consider public voting as one of the means to identify the top 10 project ideas to be handed over to be assessed by an independent panel of judges.
How does social media public voting work? Teams will create visibility for the ideas by circulating the pitch submission uploaded to our designated YouTube channel. The goal is to promote their pitches on YouTube and garner as much engagement (Youtube likes) on their pitch videos as possible between 4 and 10 Dec 2022. Videos with maximum engagement will be shortlisted and sent to our esteemed panel of judges.
Judges evaluate the top 10 solution ideas to decide on winners unanimously.
The Award Ceremony is when the judges' assessment will be revealed.
The ideas with the highest evaluation will have access to the award-winning package, which includes prize money (figuring a total of 1000 USD), incubation support, mentoring, and the unique opportunity to present their entrepreneurial idea at the African Youth SDGs Summit, Africa’s biggest Sustainable Development Youth congregation.
The SDG Innovation Challenge has witnessed two editions so far over the years 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the onset of the pandemic. Learn more about the tryst between Sustainable Development and Innovation!
The maiden edition of the SDG Innovation Challenge was held in 2020. With its thematic anchor – ‘ Securing the 2030 commitment beyond the post-COVID-19 Era ‘ – this marathon saw the framing of concepts that tackled SDG 3, SDG 4, and SDG 9. The event ended up contributing nearly 8 ideational blueprints and represented the potential talent in youth across the continent!
In 2021, the Challenge returned with double the capacity – it saw the registration scale tip 700 and resulted in as many as 20 solution ideas! As the figures grew, so did the impact and cross-domain networks. With cash prizes and numerous other incentives, the winners took home resources and aid that boosted their social innovation profiles and helped them act upon their creations!
Almost 250 young, passionate SDG practitioners, advocates, and leaders pan-Africa participated in the maiden edition of the SDG Innovation Challenge and formed part of an interdisciplinary team to produce innovative solutions to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals beyond the COVID-19 pandemic! Participants developed and pitched their solution ideas and competed for an opportunity to present at the prestigious AYSDG Summit 2020 and more!
For young people, and especially for vulnerable youth, the COVID-19 crisis poses considerable risks in the fields of education, employment, mental health, and more. To reduce exacerbating intergenerational inequalities and to involve young people in building societal resilience, under the theme Youth resilience in Covid-19 era: Pathways to accelerate actions towards achieving SDGs, the SDG Innovation Challenge 2021 converges young talent from multiple disciplines!
Our panel of evaluators for the SDG Innovation Challenge 2021 includes experienced, diverse, and dynamic thought leaders from around the world!
Learning Director, Melton Foundation
Alafia is the Learning Director at the Melton Foundation. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Dillard University, New Orleans, and an M.B.A. in Human Resources from Universidad Interamericana, Puerto Rico.
An Oakland, California native, Alafia is a social activist, entrepreneur, and educator.
Secretary General, World Assembly of Youth
Ediola is the Secretary General of World Assembly of Youth (WAY) and Director of World Youth Institute (WYI) and Global NGO Executive Committee (GNEC).
World Assembly of Youth (WAY) is the coordinating body of national youth councils and national youth organizations.
Co-founder & Program Director, Shibuka
Darrell is the Co-founder and Program Director of Shibuka, an NGO established in Rwanda just before the 2020 COVID lockdown to guide the sustainable development of young entrepreneurs and innovators through building sustainable collaborative communities leading to more investible and bankable projects. How the community members contribute to the SDGs is very much at the heart of Shibuka’s shared value-creation model of enterprise development.
Darrell is also a professor of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship at the University of Westminster (London, UK) where he guides the development of students to innovators and founders. Previously Darrell established two global enterprises, selling one to a VC -backed Management buy-out.
Steering Committee member, SCII
A member of the SCII- Steering Committee, Jessie is passionate about social innovation and has been working on transformative projects across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Her experience spans ecosystem & venture building, entrepreneurship, as well as business operations & strategy. She is currently contributing to building a social innovation ecosystem and impact startups in Nigeria and beyond.
Advisory Board Member, UNLEASH Innovation
Nick has developed tools, processes, and services that help organizations go to market effectively and efficiently.
Among others, his areas of expertise include performance & innovation management, service & customer experience design, and strategy development. He has supported over 300 startups and is an UNLEASH Innovation Advisory Board Member.
Executive Director, Melton Foundation
Steffen is the Executive Director of the Melton Foundation.
He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Max Weber Institute of the University of Heidelberg and a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Nonprofit Management & Law from the University of Basel.
Economic Analyst, UNDPGhana
Sylvia is an economist with technical expertise that stems from my over ten years of experience in research, planning, policy, advocacy, youth programming, extractives, effective development cooperation, and community development work, with hands-on experience providing technical expertise and advice toward development and implementation of development programs that promote Inclusive Growth.
Embracing SDG 17 - Partnership for the Goals, the SDG Innovation Challenge is a collaborative effort of numerous local, regional, and global organizations, including the following:
Meet Melton Foundation
Co-Organizer
Read BioMeet TECHFARM Hub
Co-Organizer
Read BioMeet GrassRoots Hub
Co-Organizer
Read BioMeet African Youth SDGs Summit
Partner
Read BioMeet Youth Advocates Ghana
Co-Organizer
Read BioMeet Shibuka
Partner
Read BioMeet The Spaceship Academy
Partner
Read BioMeet World Assembly of Youth
Partner
Read BioAn international 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the Melton Foundation promotes and enables global citizenship as a way for individuals and organizations to work together across boundaries of place and identity to solve challenges in an interconnected world. Through a global fellowship and collaborative programs in and beyond six global citizenship hubs, the Melton Foundation contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by converging individuals and organizations from diverse cultures, regions, and backgrounds to shape fresh narratives of and shared value through deep collaborations and powerful actions.
TECHFARM Hub is an Innovation and Business Development Hub promoting disruptive knowledge, mindset, skills, technologies, and resources to upscale young Innovators, Entrepreneurs, Agripreneurs, and Startups who solve pertinent challenges and become productive and profitable.
GrassRoots Hub is an eco-entrepreneurship and SDGs Innovation Lab with a global community of grassrooters sharing and generating insights and ideas to ensure impact from local communities to a global level. GrassRoots Hub educates, innovates, and incubates start-ups and connects accelerators to leading companies, research institutions, foundations, non-profits, and investors.
The African Youth SDGs Summit is Africa’s largest youth forum on the Sustainable Development Goals. Launched in 2017, the Summit has evolved to bring together a multi-sector coalition of youth, development experts, government and UN entities, NGOs, and the private sector to work together on creating the Africa we want.
In 2023, the continent’s largest youth summit in sustainable development will convene for the 5th time! For more information and to register, click here.
Youth Advocates Ghana (YAG) is a Ghana-based NPO dedicated to restoring hope, educating and improving the well-being of vulnerable children, young people, and their communities. Among different projects and initiatives, YAG has been spearheading the organization of the African Youth SDGs Summit, an Africa-wide advocacy platform to further SDG awareness and attainment.
Shibuka is committed to developing strong and sustainable young entrepreneurs through a range of interventions, working in collaboration with a range of public and private sector organizations, in Rwanda and across Africa, through an open-source global knowledge entrepreneurial platform and community.
Shibuka is a local NGO registered through Rwanda Governance Board in Rwanda. Follow their work here.
The Spaceship Academy is the starting place for first-time impact entrepreneurs to learn how to tangibly solve real-world problems through business. Through self-paced, online programs, their programs leverage tried and true frameworks and tools from environmental-centered design, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and not-for-profit spaces.
It doesn’t matter if you’re thinking of starting a business or not. For impact to be sustainable, it needs to be financially sustainable. The Spaceship Academy focuses on the entrepreneurial mindset and tools that accelerate your participation in a regenerative economy.
The World Assembly of Youth (WAY) is the international coordinating body of national youth councils and national youth organizations, comprising currently over 140 member organizations from all continents. As the international coordinating body of national youth councils, WAY has special consultative status with the United Nations, the highest status possible for a non-governmental organization. WAY co-operates with the UN and many of its special agencies, particularly with UNAIDS, UNEP, ILO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, UNCTAD, and WHO.