UN Global Pulse is thrilled to announce the recipients of the Scale Catalyst Grant for the third cohort of its Accelerator Programme!
The three selected projects are DIGICHILD from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Civic Space Pulse from UN Human Rights (OHCHR) and School Connect from the World Food Programme (WFP). Over the coming months, the teams will be working alongside UN Global Pulse to implement their scale strategies and accelerate the impact of their innovative projects.
The UN Global Pulse Accelerator is a key programme supporting the Secretary-General’s UN80 initiative, advancing a more coherent, efficient and impactful United Nations system. By scaling innovative approaches, the Accelerator’s three grantee teams demonstrate what a more agile, future-ready organization can look like in practice.
In October 2025, eight UN-led innovation teams, chosen from more than 150 applications to the Accelerator, gathered in Helsinki to develop scaling strategies for innovative solutions addressing digital inclusion, job creation and the climate and biodiversity crisis. A panel of external reviewers selected the three most compelling strategies, awarding them financial support, mentoring and technical support to advance their scaling efforts.
You can read about the three grantee teams and their inspiring solution below:
FAO – DIGICHILD: Mapping Risk to End Child Labour
Despite global efforts to end child labour by 2025 (SDG 8.7), 138 million children are still affected, mostly in agriculture (61%). Data on child labour, especially in agriculture, remain limited. Traditional data collection and monitoring systems remain costly, sporadic and low resolution. Digital innovative tools are urgently needed to fill this gap and enable targeted and timely action by governments, companies and development partners
DIGICHILD uses georeferenced data to map child labour risks in rural areas with 1 km granularity and frequent updates. Complementing traditional monitoring systems that rely on direct observation, the index delivers cost-effective, tailored and timely data. This data empowers governments, companies, and communities to prevent and address child labour risk and improve human rights due diligence compliance.
OHCHR – Civic Space Pulse: Monitoring Fundamental Freedoms in Real-Time
In an age of digital surveillance, civic space monitoring remains stuck in analog mode. Fragmented systems miss violations, while manual, reactive processes mean we’re often responding to yesterday’s crisis, leaving us blind to the warning signs of emerging issues. Limited access to human rights monitoring and weak early warning capabilities hinder decision-making, the protection of public freedoms and the development of inclusive, people-centred movements.
Civic Space Pulse is a real-time, AI-enabled data collection and classification system developed by UN Human Rights. It tracks events such as the repression of public demonstrations, internet shutdowns and attacks on human rights defenders or civil society organizations. The system strengthens human rights monitoring, prevention of escalation, the protection of victims and supports accountability – aiming ultimately to integrate aggregate insights with humanitarian, development and peacekeeping early warning platforms.
WFP – School Connect: School Meals As a Lifeline for Children
School meal programmes extend beyond the classroom, offering a lifeline for the most vulnerable children, many of whom have a school meal as their only meal of the day. High-quality data is essential in ensuring that every school child receives the opportunity and nutrition to learn and thrive. Yet today, countries rely on analog systems to operationally manage their programmes. Challenges, therefore, remain regarding data availability, accuracy and timeliness. Strong tracking and monitoring can help ensure that school meal programmes are nutritious, fair, effective and efficient.
School Connect is a digital solution that streamlines and standardizes reporting for school meal programmes. The application, designed by WFP’s school meals and technology teams and supported by the WFP Innovation Accelerator, digitizes the entire data collection and analysis process in schools, from data entry to visualization on a near-real-time dashboard. Real-time access to data enables country-level programme officers to improve programme quality, optimize supply chain planning, and reduce pipeline breaks, ultimately increasing attendance and improving school performance. School Connect currently supports the day-to-day delivery of meals to 3.6 million children across 25 countries.
Congratulations to these innovative UN teams for their groundbreaking work. UN Global Pulse is excited to follow and support their progress as they move toward greater global impact.
If you’re interested in participating in the next cohort, our next call for applications will be announced in January 2026 – you can sign up for UN Global Pulse’s newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn to be the first to hear about it.
You can also learn more about the UN Global Pulse Accelerator Programme and its most recent cohort.
The UN Global Pulse Accelerator Programme is generously funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, reflecting Finland’s long-standing commitment to the United Nations and its leadership in advancing innovation for sustainable development. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs plays a key role in promoting the responsible use of innovation across UN operations, with a strong emphasis on people-centred design, data, digital tools and artificial intelligence.