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Awards OverviewLearn more about the awardsWhy now?

Awards Overview



SDSN Youth and Nova Impact have partnered to launch the Youth Innovation and the Global SDG Impact Awards. This initiative is a global call to action to recognize, showcase and invest in the next generation of youth changemakers and industry trailblazers that are accelerating solutions towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, announced by the United Nations in 2015. That’s a big task!
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As the world sets out to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we need the best and brightest ideas, solutions and collaborative partnerships. Our goal is to award ideas that have been rigorously designed to test, learn and scale solutions that are addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while leveraging the ideas, energy and commitments from youth and industry, to build a worldwide community of learning, practice, and action to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
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We welcome YOU to join this community, and in supporting us to turn ambitious ideas and commitments into reality. We are grateful for our inaugural Seed Grant Fund matching partner, Monash University, who is supporting us by providing $15,000 in matching dollars to launch this fund.

Learn More About The Awards

Youth Innovation Awards


The Youth Innovation Award will empower our members to continue to scale their Sustainable Development Goal solutions by providing them with funding, mentorship and access to a network of experts.

We will award Member initiatives that have the greatest potential to scale solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, but currently lack the funding and capacity to realize their impact.

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Global SDG Impact Awards


With the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognized as one of the most powerful drivers of inclusive growth and sustainable development, SDSN Youth is launching its inaugural Global SDG Impact Awards.

This Award will showcase, support and fund industry trailblazers that are making concreting commitments and innovative solutions that are in alignment with the SDG, and that can serve as a building block to begin a movement to scale SDG impact globally.

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Why Now?

The world faces unprecedented challenges and each year we continue to fall behind on our commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals. The lack of progress and structural impediments towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is compounding and accelerating key challenges we face this century from global poverty to rampant inequality, to a warming planet and mass biodiversity extinction, that will shape the ability for future generations to survive and thrive on this planet.
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Industry, critical institutions, government and humanity are at a crossroads. We are seeking to establish new ideas and opportunities towards bridging the Sustainable Development Goals gap by supporting and showcasing young people and industry that are reimagining new and innovative pathways towards scaling solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and that are shaping a sustainable world for future generations.

$2.5 Trillion

The Annual Financing Gap
that stands in the way of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
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Source

43 Years

Currently, we are 43 years behind schedule towards achieving the SDGs.
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Source

0

Countries are on track to meet all of the goals.


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Source

"In 2015, 10 percent of the world’s population or 734 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day."

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"Current estimates are that nearly are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by 10 million people in one year and by nearly 60 million in five years."

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"In 2018 an estimated 6.2 million children and adolescents under the age of 15 years died, mostly from preventable causes."

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"Before the coronavirus crisis, projections showed that more than 200 million children would be out of school, and only 60 per cent of young people would be completing upper secondary education in 2030."

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"While women have made important inroads into political office across the world, their representation in national parliaments at 23.7 per cent is still far from parity."

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"3 in 10 people lack access to safely managed drinking water services."

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"13 percent of the global population still lacks access to modern electricity."

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"Roughly half the world’s population still lives on the equivalent of about US$2 a day."

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"16 percent of the global population does not have access to mobile broadband networks."

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"Evidence from developing countries shows that of the population are still up to three times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than children in the richest quintiles"

"Half of Humanity – 3.5 billion people – lives in cities today and 5 billion people are projected to live in cities by 2030"

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"According to latest projections, the global population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050. The equivalent of almost three planets could be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles."

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"Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased by almost 50 per cent since 1990."

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"Over three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods."

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"Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, including 70 million indigenous people."

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"Among the institutions most affected by corruption are the judiciary and police."

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"Net Official Development Assistance flows by member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development totaled $147.4 billion in 2019."

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LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SEVENTEEN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

We believe young people are the best positioned to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, SDSN Youth was started to mobilize youth to the forefront of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals  by connecting young people to pathways of understanding, collaboration and action. Today, SDSN Youth has grown into one of the world's largest and most impactful networks of young leaders coordinating action at an unprecedented scale to accelerate solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals. We have forged a global alliance and community where we support more than 3,000 youth in more than 127 Countries around the world with the ideas and energy to create sustainable solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems as they embark upon their quest to accelerate solutions towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Our work is rooted in the belief of increasingly recognizing young people as transformative agents of change, to scale a diverse generation of resilient leaders to shape the future. Increasingly, young people are continuing to become an integral role in every aspect of society from the general population, to education to entrepreneurship, and are at the forefront of global-decision making.

Interested in Supporting the Fund?

Support the fund to join our worldwide community of learning, practice and action between youth, industry and the public sector to achieve the SDGS by 2030

Support the Fund

Interesting in support the fund?

By supporting the fund and SDSN Youth, you can help position youth and industry civil society at the forefront of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Support the fund