UN Women and UNDP YAS Innovation Challenge

This Challenge invites African youth entrepreneurs to step forward to help realise the Goals of Africa: We call on young people, especially women and girls, to present us with their innovations for SDG attainment in their communities and countries across Africa. Areas of particular relevance for this Challenge include youth access to sustainable livelihoods, youth engagement in governance / political participation, leadership and decision making, as well as youth action in preventing violence and other harmful practices against young women and girls. Winning entries will receive funding to develop, validate and scale innovative ideas. The grants will be awarded to entrepreneurs who would like to test their innovative solutions or grow existing ventures, as per the following categories: Idea Stage: 5,000 USD (seed grants) Growth Stage: 10,000 USD (scale grants).

Learn more and apply here:
https://yas-portal.azurewebsites.net/challenges/un-women-and-undp-yas/
(Initial sign up required)

African Youth for Sustainable Development Goals Implementation

Through this challenge, UNDP will award grant financing to East and Southern African youth to develop and implement ideas which address SDG challenges in their communities and countries. The grants will be awarded to entrepreneurs in the following categories:

• Scaling [10 000 - 6 000 USD]
• Idea Stage/Validation [5 000 - 1 000 USD]

In addition, the YAS! challenge gives applying entrepreneurs an opportunity to nominate a local entrepreneurship ecosystem catalyser. An eco-system catalyser can be an incubator, accelerator, small business service provider (legal/marketing/accounting), who will be expected to support the entrepreneur with their business idea or YAS! ambassadorial duties. In selected cases, UNDP and Accenture will also provide business development support to winning innovators, including access to mentors and capacity building to implement their ideas. 

Learn more and apply here:
https://yas-portal.azurewebsites.net/challenges/open-innovation-challenge/
(Initial sign up required)