The UNICEF Venture Fund, in collaboration with Giga, is looking to make up to $100K equity-free investments (in cryptocurrency) to provide early stage (seed) financing and mentoring to for-profit technology startups that have the potential to benefit humanity.<\/p>\n
Applicants will receive funding in cryptocurrency (bitcoin or ether) through their CryptoFund. Given the current global climate and a dramatic shift to a digital world as a result of COVID-19, open-source solutions that address critical needs for society are as important as ever.<\/p>\n
Start-ups registered in one of UNICEF\u2019s programme countries with working, open source blockchain prototype (or willing to make it open source) showing promising results and female founders are encouraged to apply.<\/p>\n
UNICEF is looking to provide investment-style funding to early-stage technology startups. Only entities that fulfill the following mandatory requirements will be considered eligible:<\/p>\n
\u25cf Registered as a private company at the time of the Innovation Fund award (projected: 3 months from submission of EOI)<\/p>\n
\u25cf A private company registered in a UNICEF programme country<\/p>\n
\u25cf Working on open source technology solutions (or willing to be open source) under the following licenses or their equivalent:<\/p>\n
(i) for software, a GNU General Public license, MIT or BSD,<\/p>\n
(ii) for hardware, a CERN, MIT or TAPR open license and<\/p>\n
(iii) for design or content, a CC-BY license<\/p>\n
\u25cf An existing prototype of the open source solution with promising results from initial pilots<\/p>\n
Giga is a joint initiative launched by UNICEF and ITU in September 2019 to connect every school to the Internet and every young person to information, opportunity and choice. It uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities.<\/p>\n