The Youth Cafe (TYC) Innovation Accelerator, Youth-to-Youth Fund 

Delivering On Sustainable Development Goals

Do you have a startup or idea that helps eliminate the challenges posed by youth unemployment? Apply for our Innovation Challenge, Youth-to-Youth-Fund, to receive up to $5,000 in equity-free funding, mentorship, and access to The Youth Cafe’s network.
Over the past ten years, sub-Saharan Africa has recorded the highest increase in the young working-age population (34 per cent). Today, 200 million people are aged 15- 24 in this region. Additionally, youth unemployment rates (which are, on average, 12 per cent) do not adequately describe the depth of the employment challenges for young women and men in Africa. According to ILO estimates, 72 per cent of the youth population in sub-Saharan Africa earns less than USD 2 per day. As it stands,  there are not enough jobs created to absorb the hundreds of thousands of young people who join the labour force every year.  With every increase in the number of unemployed young people, there is a higher likelihood of conflict in a country, putting political stability at risk. 

Furthermore, according to the Youth Employment Inventory (YEI), 21 per cent of evaluated youth employment programs report no impact on labour markets outcomes of youth: training does not necessarily lead to jobs. Young people often do one training course after another, gaining various skills but not necessarily work. At the same time, many young people may have the ideas and motivation to become entrepreneurs, but they lack the financial, physical, and social capital to turn their business ideas into reality.

The Response


The Youth Cafe (TYC) Innovation Accelerator sources, supports, and scales high-impact innovations to achieve youth empowerment. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, we provide TYC employees, entrepreneurs, and startups with funding, hands-on support and access to TYC's regional operations. Through the Accelerator, TYC is leveraging unprecedented advances in digital innovation—such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain—and new business models to transform how we serve vulnerable communities across Africa.

Building on TYC's legacy of innovation, the TYC Innovation Accelerator was launched in 2022 to pilot new solutions and scale promising innovations to disrupt hunger. We supported 12 innovation projects at various maturity levels (i.e., sprint, scale-up) and positively impacted the lives of 1.5 million people across 12 countries in 2022. We received over 5,350 applications from 15 countries worldwide, showing the reach and value our innovation programmes offer.

The TYC Innovation Accelerator was named in Fast Company’s list of 2021's Most Innovative Companies (Non-Profit), 2021's Best Workplaces for Innovators, and 2020’s Innovation Team of the Year. Globally, TYC was awarded the 2023 Positive Youth Development in Africa  Prize by Acquisition International  "for its efforts to empower youth for its contribution to improved youth development outcomes through a new model that looks at today's youth bulge as an opportunity for development and economic growth.

We explore game-changing frontier innovations. New technologies, including humanitarian aid, rapidly develop and profoundly transform our lives and the world. Our Frontier Innovations Programme explores game-changing innovations and new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, edge computing and robotics to help youth empowerment practitioners deliver on their mandate more effectively.

We provide a platform for innovation to achieve Sustainable Development Goals TYC  is committed to strengthening global partnerships that deliver on Sustainable Development Goals. Our Innovation Services Programme creates custom acceleration programmes, innovation journeys and ecosystem-building activities with other United Nations agencies, non-governmental organisations, foundations and private sector organisations. Our goal is to drive systemic change by working together.

This hackathon aims to use data science techniques and any programming language of your choice to uncover insights and design solutions related to youth employment/unemployment.

Participants have access to a variety of employment datasets. They will be challenged to use these datasets to build data visualisations, models, or other tools that can help policymakers, educators, and other stakeholders better understand and address youth employment issues, such as barriers related to education, financial constraints, skills and education mismatch, undignified unemployment and a lack of job opportunities in specific sectors.

What we offer

Do you have a bold idea to disrupt youth empowerment? Apply to the TYC Innovation Accelerator to receive up to US $5,000 in equity-free funding, mentorship from industry experts, and access to the world’s largest humanitarian organization.

  1. Equity-Free Funding

  2. Hands-On Support

  3. Access to Field Operations

*Call for Applications

Over the past ten years, sub-Saharan Africa has recorded the highest increase in the young working-age population (34 per cent). Today, 200 million people are aged 15- 24 in this region. Additionally, youth unemployment rates (which are, on average, 12 per cent) do not adequately describe the depth of the employment challenges for young women and men in Africa. A deadly combination of poverty,  conflict, climate change, underemployment and lack of employable skills, poor health, insufficient socio-economic support, drug use, and substance abuse; involvement in crime; lack of access to essential services, limited access to ICT is at the root of soaring hunger numbers.

They are especially dire for those in difficult-to-reach areas, such as rural areas and indigenous communities. Moreover,  Education and Housing and radicalisation into violent extremism, weak family structures, the HIV/AIDS burden, harmful cultural practices, gender inequalities, and a patriarchal society et al. are some of the multiple challenges that confront young people from economies that grew but could not create sufficient jobs before the global financial and economic crisis to sluggish growth post the crisis, in part arising from adverse weather conditions and poor commodity prices. The economic fallout of the pandemic, and then the war in Ukraine, has pushed prices up and increased young people's poverty across Africa. 

Every year, we host multiple TYC Innovation Challenge campaigns. We encourage people to apply innovative ideas in line with these challenges. We also have a rolling application process to accept and review applications multiple times throughout the year. Look out for specific challenges or submit your project to be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Open Calls

Apply by 31 December 2023

SDG2 Open Call for applications

Do you have a startup or idea that helps eliminate the challenges posed by the global food crisis? Apply for our Innovation Challenge to receive up to $5,000 in equity-free funding, mentorship, and access to TYC's network. We accept applications on a rolling basis throughout the year, and applications received past our deadlines may still be considered for future programs.