Media Center

We are living in an inter-connected world and share common contexts and challenges especially among developing countries in the global south. Among us we have overcome many challenges and have many more to overcome, we are not alone” said Dr. Sharad Sapra, Director of UNICEF's Global Innovation Centre at the opening ceremony of the inaugural Tsinghua-UNICEF youth innovation forum.

Indeed we are not alone in our quests to improving the lives of the most vulnerable worldwide. Through public-private partnerships, cross-sectoral collaborations and human-centered design processes, all built upon a series of “innovation principles”, UNICEF is rooted in and supported by a diverse and expanding global network of partners with the shared purpose to drive results for children.

Tsinghua University  is one of the newest members of the global network of partners joining hands with UNICEF. As a globally renowned university in engineering, technology and design, and with distinguished alumni in every sector in China and beyond, Tsinghua University is in a strong and unique position to strengthen and benefit from UNICEF's innovation portfolio.

The inaugural Tsinghua-UNICEF youth innovation forum, a joint activity under the broader framework of the longer-term strategic partnership, concluded successfully on October 18, 2015 at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. The forum brought together more than 200 young people, designers, technologists, social entrepreneurs, academics, policymakers and industry leaders from China and the global South.

Mr. Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF and Dr. Chen Xu, Chancellor of Tsinghua University both sent video messages to congratulate the opening of the forum and commitment to the partnership.  In the video message, Mr. Lake noted that young people can help address some of the problems confronting children today and that the forum was an opportunity for young people to contribute to “building a better, safer, healthier world for children everywhere through innovation,” especially as the global community turns its attention to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Chancellor Dr. Chen Xu who visited UNICEF NYHQ in August 2015, said that strengthening the Tsinghua-UNICEF partnership is an important contribution to advance the cause for women and children.

©UNICEF/China/2015/Xia Yong Panelists, young innovators and UNICEF staff at the Tsinghua-UNICEF Youth Innovation Forum.

The opening session featured young innovators from China, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and Lebanon who are generating or have the potential to generate positive social impact through creative. Among these innovative solutions are extending access to healthcare information and services to hard-to-reach communities, using mobile technology to connect farmers to the market, providing access to education content and services, and prototyping low-cost incubators for resource-scarce environments. Young innovators were given the opportunity to interact with and direct questions to development and industry experts, to obtain meaningful insights to further develop their initiatives. Representing partners in the global development sector is Dr. Yinuo Li, Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation China, who is also a Tsinghua alumna. Representing the global technology industry are Dr. Eric Chang, deputy Director of Microsoft Research and Gansha Wu, Director of Intel Labs China and Dr. Haifeng Wang, vice president of Baidu. Christopher Fabian, co-lead of UNICEF's innovation unit, said after the opening session that it was also a refreshing and stimulating experience for experts to hear from young innovators from a variety of backgrounds designing solutions for their peers.

The forum ignited forward-looking conversations and helped build networks for responding to critical needs of the world's most disadvantaged children. Senior leadership from the ICT industry (including Baidu, Intel, Microsoft, Tencent) spoke at the forum and share insights on the updates their research and projects around data, information, robotics, artificial intelligence to name just a few.

As Dr. Sharad Sapra mentions “China has the intellect, the resources and the desire to improve the life of not only its citizens, but of those across other developing countries…it is logical for us to look upon China to play a leadership role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.” Meanwhile, China's "internet plus" action plan and the broader "innovation-driven development“ strategy are aligned with how UNICEF sees innovation, which includes but is not limited to technology, as a key implementing strategy to drive results for the most vulnerable children.  This could happen in a number of ways, such as the co-creation of products and services from China for the world, or bridging the digital divide within and beyond China by supporting infrastructural and content development and extending access to information and quality learning. The private sector, including Baidu and Tencent, have already been undertaking initiatives with Tsinghua, UNICEF or independently, towards such direction.

UNICEF staff members also shared experience and insights from a series of innovation projects to deliver results for children around the world. These include U-Report, RapidPro, internet of good things and upshift. Faculty, students and members of the private sector all expressed amazement upon learning about UNICEF's work on innovation. Many forum participants expressed that they did not previously know that UNICEF has a dynamic and growing portfolio in innovations around real-time data, access to information or youth engagement, and that they look forward to discuss further with UNICEF around the emerging areas of focus including wearables technology, mobile money, learning, identity, transport and logistics.

To further expose young people to challenges UNICEF faces and methods UNICEF uses in driving results for children, a Design for UNICEF workshop around “wearables for social good” was held during the forum. During the workshop, 40 students were guided through an ideation process by a senior frog designer, and in the end six ideas were generated among the groups.

The high-level, long-term and strategic partnership between Tsinghua and UNICEF on innovation reflects a commitment from both sides to facilitate ideas exchange, capacity building and co-creation to create a lasting impact of the lives of children worldwide. Some of the upcoming collaborations in the pipeline include the co-creation of products and services for children with disabilities as global public good, master's degree program collaboration on the GIX platform (global innovation exchange institute by Tsinghua and University of Washington), as well as student international exchange as “innovators in residence”. 

UNICEF China looks forward to connecting with innovators from all sectors in China to share ideas, experiences and to explore common grounds towards partnerships for children.