ITU AI for Good Innovation Factory Startup Competition

The ITU AI for Good Innovation Factory is the leading United Nations-based startup pitching and acceleration platform helping AI startups grow and scale their solutions to address global challenges aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The program features monthly regional pitching sessions highlighting startups across regions and sectors leading to the AI for Good Innovation Factory Grand Finale at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva Switzerland in July 2026. Four winners are selected for their innovative and scalable AI-powered solutions with the top startup receiving a $20,000 grand cash prize. The program provides global pitching opportunities funding connections to investors expert mentorship exclusive networking with UN agencies and industry leaders and media exposure. Regional events are held worldwide including in Turkey Africa and other regions to identify top startups. This competition is open to ventures leveraging AI machine learning and advanced algorithms to address real-world issues in areas such as healthcare climate sustainability education agriculture disaster response and digital inclusion. This is distinct from the Google.org AI for Social Good awards which provide larger grants to established organizations and from the Technovation AI Ventures Accelerator which focuses specifically on young women.

The AI4D Responsible AI Empowering People program is a major joint initiative by Canada International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) investing over CAD 100 million to support responsible AI development and deployment in the Global South. The program funds research organizations in developing countries to generate knowledge shaping inclusive ethical and sustainable AI policies. Individual grants of up to CAD 1 million support projects studying socio-economic impacts of AI building local AI research capacity strengthening health systems through contextualized AI solutions and developing responsible AI frameworks. Recent calls have focused on AI impacts in Africa awarding up to four grants per call. The related AI for Global Health (AI4GH) initiative provides CAD 22.3 million over seven years specifically for AI health research. IDRC also partnered with the International Science Council to explore AI impacts on science systems in the Global South. This is distinct from TWAS Seed Grants which target individual early-career African researchers and from Humanity AI which is a US-based philanthropic coalition.

The UNICEF Venture Fund provides up to US$100,000 in equity-free seed funding to early-stage, for-profit technology startups in UNICEF programme countries (developing countries) that are developing solutions to improve the lives of children. The Fund focuses on frontier technologies including data science, machine learning, AI, and blockchain. Specific AI focus areas include using ML/AI techniques to understand the digital world and its dynamics, understanding relationships between variables that impact development indicators (learning, socio-economic, resilience, health), and applying optimization techniques to improve service delivery and resource allocation. The Fund runs multiple thematic open calls throughout the year including Data Science & AI, Climate & Health, FemTech, and Child Online Safety. Startups must be registered in a UNICEF programme country, have a viable working prototype, and commit to open-source licensing. Women-led startups, young founders, and founders from emerging markets are especially encouraged to apply. The UNICEF Venture Fund has invested in over 200 startups across more than 70 countries since 2016.