Deadline: July 22, 2018
Application are open for the UNICEF Innovation Funds for Drone Startups 2018. The UNICEF Innovation Fund is looking to make up to $100K equity-free investments to provide early stage (seed) finance to for-profit technology start-ups that have the potential to benefit humanity through the use of drones.
If you’ve got a start-up registered in one of UNICEF’s programme countries and have a working, open-source drone prototype or service (or you are willing to make it open-source) showing promising results, the UNICEF Innovation Fund is looking for you.
Benefits
- Seed funding: The Fund provides $50- $100,000 in equity-free seed funding. The money is intended for prototype testing and validation, and to get it to a stage where the company has proof that the solution works.
- Product and technology development: Selected startups will receive technical assistance from the UNICEF Ventures team to help validate and improve their solutions.
- Business Growth: The Fund taps into a network of mentors who help startup teams develop their business model and strategy to grow their company and ultimately profit.
- Networks and platforms: UNICEF Ventures has a Drones lead and data science team with access to corporate and academic partnerships and use cases that selected drones start-ups can benefit from.
- Maximize impact: As the world’s leading organisation for children, UNICEF has a network of experts and partners across its Country Offices who can provide geographically localized advice and partnerships needed to reach more users.
- Drone Corridor: Selected start-ups will have access to the UNICEF Drone corridor in Malawi providing the physical space for testing their solutions. Data from peer companies testing in the three drone corridors where UNICEF is present will be made available.
Eligibility
- You must be registered as a private company in a UNICEF programme country;
- You are working on open source technology solutions or willing to be open-source under the following licenses or their equivalent: BSD (software), CERN (hardware), or CC-BY (content);
- You have an existing prototype of the solution with promising results from initial pilots;
- Your solution has the potential to positively impact the lives of children.
Application
For more information, visit UNICEF Innovation Funds for Drone Startups.
