
You are young, African, and want to work together with like-minded people committed to making a difference from the grassroots level up? This ideathon is open to students, professionals, community activists, changemakers and interested folk in Africa :
Save the Date!
The SDG Innovation Challenge is your space to be!
Designed as a virtual, pan-African ideation space, the SDG Innovation Challenge is a power-house for young people from across the continent to come together in developing and connecting practical solution ideas to grassroots challenges while pushing the needle of sustainable development on a global scale. Conceived in the pandemic era in 2020, this challenge calls upon participants to employ their design and complex thinking skills that solve problems in a measurable and qualitative manner. The 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 has the power to set the engine of sustainable growth running, developing initiatives that build resilience, aid lesser privileged sections of the population, alleviate environmental stress, and so on! Moreover, we emphasize on 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:
To participate in this event happening virtually this 22-24 September, you must register by 4 September, 2022 before 8PM GMT.
Before registering, here are some rules to keep in mind:
Register your group by 4 September 2022 at 8 PM Greenwich Mean Time … 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 9 September. Once selected, groups of 4-7 participants will engage over the course of 48 hours from 22-24 September 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 to 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!
Register today and join a unique pan-African ideation space for young people to come together in developing and connecting practical solution ideas to grassroots challenges while pushing the needle at a global scale.
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 to 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.
Applications close on 4th September 2022, 8 PM GMT.
Groups of 3-7 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.
Groups of 3-7 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.
SDG enthusiasts from across the African Continent get hands-on during the 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.
The solution ideas submitted during the SDG Innovation Challenge will be assessed by an independent panel of judges.
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 of up to 500 USD, incubation support, mentoring, and the unique opportunity to present their entrepreneurial idea at the African Youth SDGs Summit, Africa’s Africa’s biggest Sustainable Development Youth congregation.
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 up to 500 USD, the winners took home resources and aid that boosted their social innovation profiles and helped them act upon their creations!
Get inspired by the impact created by our previous editions below!
The SDG Innovation Challenge has witnessed two editions so far over the years of 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the onset of the pandemic.
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!
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 Shibuka
Partner
Read BioMeet Youth Advocates Ghana
Co-Organizer
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.
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.
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.