$ 1 : 16
For every $1 of value invested, One Young World Ambassadors deliver $16 of social value, based on a Social Return on Investment analysis of 42 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2022
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 350 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
ClearBot
ClearBot is a Hong Kong-based company developing technologies that are assisting in building the future of ocean mobility and resolving environmental challenges. Creating AI-powered electric boats, ClearBot is pioneering efficient and sustainable alternatives to automated marine services, replacing manually operated diesel boats with all-electric, zero-emission, self-driving boats. Through this technology, ClearBot monitors the marine environment and conducts water quality testing and maritime surveillance.
As well as this, ClearBot boats automate surface waste collection, aquatic weed and foam removal, marine patrolling, shallow water dredging, and bathymetric surveys and can move up to 200 kg of cargo autonomously at the press of a button. As waste is being collected, cameras onboard collect and process data using an AI model, tracking the sources of trash every step of the way. As a result, Clearbot can maintain 100% trackability and showcase on a global stage how innovation can solve social issues.
Greenfluidics
Greenfluidics is a Mexican biotechnology startup founded in 2018 with a vision of a world with green and sustainable cities, where buildings are more energy efficient and provide the well-being and health that people deserve. Greenfluidics’ innovative technology, the intelligent solar biopanel, is a multi-purpose system that generates energy while cleaning the air.
These biopanels are based on the use of microalgae, providing functional and sustainable aesthetics that help clean the air like trees, combining nature and technology in the same system, through a triangular geometry that provides energy efficiency, design and intelligent environmental monitoring that helps to revalue the area.
Greenfluidics has achieved several alliances and recognitions in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the Middle East, as well as from relevant institutions such as the GGGI, UN, G20, and MIT, in order to accelerate the development of their technology and transform the buildings of the most populated cities into lungs.
Trestle Labs
Co-founded by Bonny Dave, Trestle Labs is an assistive technology company making schools, colleges and workplaces digitally inclusive and empowering the blind and the visually-impaired community towards inclusive education and employment. Trestle Labs builds hardware and software solutions that help visually impaired individuals listen, translate, digitise and audio’tise any kind of printed,handwritten and digital content independently across 60+ global languages.
Their mission is to ensure that no school, college, or workplace denies/discontinues education or employment for a visually-impaired individual, especially when the individual is capable, but the institution is not.
Trestle Labs’ patented AI-powered product, Kibo, is comprised of three products - Kibo mobile app, Kibo XS device, and Kibo Desk- to address the lifestyle, learning, and earning aspects of a visually-impaired user’s life. Launched in July 2019, Kibo has empowered 70,000+ visually-impaired individuals and has made 500+ institutions inclusive across 25 countries.
Zafree Papers
Zafree Papers is an Ethiopian company that manufactures paper and paper products using 100% tree-free pulp and agro-waste. Founded in 2017, and working across Ethiopia and Zambia, Zafree Papers is introducing a clean-tech paper solution using unbleached paper pulp from crop residue. From this solution, they can create eco-friendly, carbon-neutral, and 100% recyclable and non-toxic paper. Zafree Papers is a pioneer in the Ethiopian agro-waste market and intends to pursue a pan-African business model. This would enable them to continue establishing strong and reliable relationships with local suppliers and buyers, as well as maintaining existing relationships, rather than relying on raw materials and investments from overseas.
Using agricultural waste from raw materials and employing modern technology, qualified human resources, efficient management systems, and accredited production processes, Zafree has established itself as an undeniable competitor in the Ethiopian agro-waste market.
LiteHaus International
LiteHaus International - Australia
Jack Growden
Ambassador-led Initiative
LiteHaus International is an Australian-based non-governmental organisation which works towards bridging the digital divide and digitising dreams across four countries. In Papua New Guinea, LiteHaus International’s Digital Infrastructure Program has established the first 144 functional primary school computer labs in the country’s history, providing digital learning opportunities to around 105,000 students, teachers and members of the community, 98% of whom had never seen a computer before. In Australia, their Digital Inclusion Program has provided 2,600 high school students across rural and remote communities with their own personal
digital device.
By 2027, LiteHaus International aims to provide digital learning tools and opportunities to millions of students across the Asia-Pacific region to ensure everyone can enjoy a quality education. LiteHaus International and Deloitte Australia have recently signed a three year partnership to continue their collaboration.
Cancer Education UK
Cancer Education UK - United Kingdom
Mary Oladele
Ambassador-led Initiative
Cancer Education UK is a UK-based non-profit, educating, supporting, and raising cancer awareness within the Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Refugee (BAMER) and low socio-economic communities. They work to support individuals with cancer as they reintegrate into their communities, and are driven by their passion to support such individuals as they battle through stigmas, allowing conversations such as cancer to be a norm rather than a taboo.
Thanks to the funding from Roche as the Lead2030 runner-up, Cancer Education UK was able to host a series of community engagement sessions and health screening events across various parts of London; the focus was to teach about signs and symptoms of cancer whilst encouraging individuals to attend screening programmes with the UK National Health Service, such as cervical screenings and more. The sessions also included patients sharing their experience of their cancer journey to encourage others, allow more questions and promote cancer survivorship.
The support Cancer Education UK provides expands into various forms, from assisting with chemotherapy/radiotherapy appointments to lending a hand with grocery shopping. Cancer Education aims to de-stigmatise cancer, in return, allowing individuals from BAMER communities to confidently talk and ask questions about cancer.
Takachar
Many crops produce residues that cannot be used as mulch or animal feed. These residues can often impede the growth of the next crop, and unfortunately the fastest and cheapest way to address residue removal is simply by setting it on fire in the field. However, the burning of residues has contributed to air pollution that affects the respiratory health not only of the local farming communities, but also of nearby urban areas such as Delhi.
Takachar is developing small-scale, low-cost, portable systems that can latch onto the back of tractors and pick-up trucks to deploy to remote, hard-to-access communities. This system can locally convert biomass residues into higher-value products such as fertiliser blends, biofuels, or chemicals without any external energy input. This is expected to support closed-loop, self-sufficient rural communities, create additional livelihood opportunities in underserved regions, reduce air pollution and carbon footprint associated with open-air biomass burning, and ultimately improve public health outcomes. Through AstraZeneca, Takachar have been piloting with smallholder farmers, demonstrating the ability for the output fertiliser product to improve their yields and income.
Natal Cares
Founded by Uche Udekwe, Natal Cares is a social enterprise that leverages the power of mobile technology, machine learning, and low cost innovation to combat maternal and infant mortality in Nigeria. In order to bridge the healthcare information gap existing in underserved communities, Natal Cares delivers valuable healthcare information using SMS and
voice notes in six local languages. These personalised weekly texts/voice-notes remind expectant mothers of pregnancy follow-ups, clinical-reminders, child-growth and nutrition, symptoms of common childhood-illnesses, antenatal and postnatal care tips. Through this service, Natal Cares ensures that its subscribers have access to the critical health and nutritional information they need to assist with a healthy pregnancy. This year, Natal Cares successfully grew its subscriber base to 5,000 mothers and scaled into 26 states of Nigeria.
Leading Environmental Sustainability, Pfizer UK
Leading Environmental Sustainability, Pfizer UK - United Kingdom
Katie Cadge, Steph Barnes, Owen White
Business for Social Good
Pfizer One Young World Ambassadors continued to make an impact in the Sustainability Steering Committee in 2022, increasing the calibre and scale of the work under its three pillars of internal activation, governance, and external engagement. The initiative also welcomed two new Ambassadors into its ranks, Katie and Owen, following the Manchester 2022 Summit.
Following the success of its carbon footprint measurement reporting and the start of their employee engagement strategy in 2021, the team expanded the reach & impact of these efforts throughout 2022. They organised the One Pfizer, One Planet webinar for their colleagues, inviting Will Day, Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), to speak about the climate crisis. Steph connected with Will Day through a One Young World event in London. Off the back of that webinar, the team expanded the Today Do This workshop series from two pilots in 2021 to an additional five events in 2022.
The committee also developed a compulsory One Pfizer, One Planet e-learning module following the success of the aforementioned webinar. The module provided information on the climate crisis, and also Pfizer’s Net Zero by 2040 goal and subgoals. They have successfully grown the ‘UK Sustainability Team’ Champions group, doubling its membership and setting the foundations for future activation for sustainability causes within Pfizer. The committee plans to enable the implementation of sustainability initiatives from the Champions group that align with Pfizer’s overarching sustainability strategy.
Pfizer UK hosts an annual National Conference for around 700 employees, and for the first time ever, included Net Zero on the event agenda, led by the Sustainability Steering Committee. Peter Collins, Director of Global Health & Social Impact at Pfizer, gave a speech demystifying Net Zero for Pfizer and the broader healthcare system. Steph then spoke about five actions that her Pfizer colleagues can take to positively impact sustainability within the company.
The steering committee has expanded their educational engagement to senior leadership, building two bespoke workshops, one for commercial leaders and the other for Pfizer UK’s medical directors. The team continues to quantify the company’s carbon footprint annually, in line with government regulations. Katie was selected as one of four UN SDG Young Innovators, a programme that involved equipping participants with the tools to create change and prioritising solutions to sustainability challenges. This has led to Pfizer UK joining the Sustainable Medicines Partnership as a Founding Collaborator.
In 2023 the team is seeking to apply a sustainability lens to some of Pfizer’s core business activities in the UK to really integrate the knowledge built up with colleagues over the last two years with their everyday business responsibilities.
“I was blown away by my first One Young World Summit experience at Manchester last year. The most impactful part for me was being surrounded by so many young leaders, all with diverse experiences but united by their drive to create change for the better. It was inspiring to hear first-hand how Ambassadors are delivering meaningful innovation across the SDGs, industries, and the globe - just the motivation we needed as a team to push our ambitions for 2023 and beyond!” - Katie Cadge
Fotolampara - Eviuz
Fotolampara - Eviuz - Colombia
German A. Mueses Rodriguez
Ambassador-led Initiative
8
SROI
Germán co-founded Eviuz in 2018 with Carlos Patiño and Jaqueline Rosero, and the company was born out of innovative projects from different university campuses in Pasto, Colombia. Its landmark initiative is the Fotolampara, which was developed to provide light to homes in vulnerable and hard to reach communities in the country. Colombia has 1,710 rural areas where more than 128,500 people only have access to electricity for four to twelve hours a day. Eviuz created a technology that uses photosynthetic activity and other vital processes in plants to obtain clean, sustainable, and sufficient power to address the challenges of energy access in Latin America and the Caribbean. Germán is a recipient of the Government of Colombia’s Premio Nacional al Talento Joven Award, through which he attended One Young World.
Germán attended the One Young World Summit in London, 2019. He credits this experience with introducing him to other One Young World Ambassadors and corporate partners engaged in the issue of clean, accessible energy and climate change. Through these connections, Germán has been able to redirect the focus of Eviuz and raise awareness of Latin America’s unique climate and the challenges it faces. Access to the One Young World Community has allowed Germán to develop his leadership skills.
Eviuz’s main product, the Fotolampara, is a flower pot with zinc and copper sheets that can be placed in a house to generate clean electricity. In rural areas, where houses are often covered with vegetation, this technology is more accessible than alternatives and saves households and users $30 of electricity costs monthly. As of 2023, Eviuz has installed 300 Fotolamparas. Each flower pot generates 120 kilowatts of electricity annually, impacting around 1,200 people. In 2022, in partnership with the Trackingmovil consortium, Eviuz created IO MIDO. This project integrates hardware and wireless software that is capable of wireless monitoring of any type of environmental parameter.
“Going to the Summit was a really positive experience for myself and for the development of my company. I was able to engage with global stakeholders in the fight against climate change, it has been a great alliance between continents. It opened my mind to how to lead in the future, and gave me information on leadership development that you don’t find anywhere else. It has also opened up funding opportunities for us.”
Wildlife Conservation Society
Wildlife Conservation Society - Laos
Manoly Sisavanh
Ambassador-led Initiative
29
SROI
Manoly’s role at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Laos PDR Program entails providing strategic policy guidance on protected areas and wildlife management and protection, and supervising cross-cutting programmes on counter wildlife trafficking and One Health. Her dream is to safeguard intact areas of vast natural significance for Laos and the wider world. Laos protected areas support the livelihoods of several million people of multi-ethnic groups, yet they are increasingly threatened by human-induced processes.
Before attending the Summit in London, Manoly visited Nam Et-Phou Louey (NEPL) National Park, home to many critically endangered species. Manoly heard many issues that rangers, who are responsible for protecting the area, face including basic lack of law enforcement mandates, equipment, and personnel to sufficiently and effectively protect over 400,000 hectares. These discussions inspired Manoly to apply for the Mary Robinson Climate Justice Award, for which she was successful and received £3,000 to help increase her conservation efforts. Manoly returned to Laos and continued to drive advocacy work for conservation, including contributing to the drafting of new and revised legislation on protected areas, CITES implementation, wetlands and wildlife and aquatic resources.
WCS, in collaboration with the NEPL National Park Management Office, currently works with 10 teams of rangers, made up of local community members and government-provided military personnel for forest patrolling. Many of the rangers were once farmers and hunters who contributed to the damage they are now employed to prevent. With the grant, Manoly has funded new equipment for the rangers, including technology for the SMART patrolling system, boots and badges. This helps them in their work tackling illegal hunters and loggers. Local communities of over 30,000 inhabitants are becoming better educated and equipped to support the conservation of their environment. The threats from agricultural expansion, free range cattle raising, illegal hunting and logging remain high, but with collaborative management between government, INGOs, and local communities, biodiversity monitoring shows promising trends in the protection of endangered species and ecosystems.
“The Mary Robinson Climate Justice Award helped a lot to lift the conservation issue’s profile in Laos. Seeing a young woman from Laos as one of the speakers at One Young World and as a winner of the award somehow inspires and empowers the youth to think that they too can do this!”
Mission Zero Plastic
Mission Zero Plastic - Nigeria
Gideon Olanrewaju
Ambassador-led Initiative
29
SROI
Mission Zero Plastic is an initiative begun by Gideon Olanrewaju in partnership with The Coca-Cola Foundation to simultaneously reduce plastic waste and build schools. Primary education is officially free in Nigeria but over 10 million children do not attend. Gideon is the founder and Chief Executive Director of Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi), an organisation running multiple programmes including Education in Bottles, where plastic bottles are recovered, processed, and transformed into school infrastructure. Mission Zero Plastic is one project operating within this programme’s overarching framework, which in turn is only one programme within the AREAi umbrella. Gideon’s partnership with The Coca-Cola Foundation is focused on the recovery stage and has already accomplished much, while the transformation stage has not yet begun.
Gideon credits One Young World for helping to spur Mission Zero Plastic to new heights. They began by collecting plastic bottles and building small structures, but it was at the 2019 Summit that Gideon first heard James Quincy, CEO of Coca-Cola, discuss the problem of plastic. After making introductions, Gideon managed to secure a partnership with The Coca-Cola Foundation to scale the project. The Summit also renewed his sense of purpose and solidified his belief in the potential of private-sector partnerships. Since then, Mission Zero Plastic has organised 600 young people, executed 18 different outreaches and gathered 261 tonnes of plastic waste.
By placing 60 bins in strategic locations around the country, Mission Plastic Zero has successfully reached 600,000 people indirectly. It has reached another million through social media channels, radio, and community outreach. The project has also recruited 120 women as plastic waste collectors and provided them with personal protective equipment and guidance on financial literacy. Mission Zero Plastic has also collaborated extensively with state environmental agencies.
"The One Young Would Summit renewed the sense of purpose that I have and always had when it comes to social impact. It also solidified the belief I had in the potential of private partnerships. The Summit taught me that there is magic in numbers as well."
PowerUp
In BMW there is a regular internal accelerator programme, whereby employees participate in a 12-week course to identify new initiatives and solutions for a set topic. Once a year, this topic is “business for purpose”, and this was the beginning of Jacob and Sabrina's sustainability collaboration which also led to their participation in the One Young World Summit. At the Summit, the Ambassadors were given much-needed encouragement that they were on the right path. They exchanged knowledge with like-minded delegates on potential obstacles, gave a presentation at a BMW workshop on circular economy and participated in a workshop on battery second-life hosted by Audi that reiterated the potential for sustainable innovation in the automotive industry.
The two young employees come from different backgrounds within BMW, Sabrina working in financial planning, and Jacob an engineer and doctoral candidate. As a pair, they created and lead the PowerUp battery recycling initiative in BMW. Jacob’s initial idea for a sustainability solution was in the area of desalination, however, upon noticing the waste of highly valuable battery systems during the car development process he adapted his thinking to see how this could be leveraged to tackle the global energy crisis. With their shared expertise, Sabrina and Jacob were perfectly placed to develop this idea.
A team of volunteers within BMW, including engineers and project managers by trade, takes high-voltage batteries that are usually removed from prototypes and recycled, and repurposes them to provide energy access to under-resourced schools in low-income communities. PowerUp creates a powerful energy storage block out of six high-voltage batteries. These store solar power from the photovoltaic system on the roof and supply the school with 42 kWh per day of clean electricity. Not only does this address the issue of power outages and clean energy, but it supports education development due to vast energy savings made by the schools that can be redirected into resources for teaching.
The pilot programme in a school in Rosslyn, South Africa is already under construction. The PowerUp team hopes to expand using access from the MINI brand to new schools in need, to exponentially increase the initiative’s social impact.
“One Young World is a powerful community of change-makers. Each person we met at the Munich conference made it clear that we are the change, we have to be the change.”
“One Young World and their participants provide powerful insights and gave us ideas and hands-on solutions on how to scale our project.”
Pink Parliament
Pink Parliament is an initiative by ‘Life in Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender-based Violence’, an organisation founded by Ronelle King to challenge the pervasive discrimination and abuse faced by women in the region. Around 46% of women in the Caribbean have experienced at least one form of violence [1]. Life in Leggings was founded as an online campaign in 2016 to bring attention to the prevalence of this issue, before it transformed into an advocacy organisation. Pink Parliament developed as an offshoot aimed at inspiring young women to pursue careers in politics and develop their leadership skills in order to advocate for the rights of women and girls in decision-making spaces.
Ronelle travelled to the 2019 One Young World Summit in London. She found working alongside other One Young World Ambassadors extremely useful for providing her with drive and much-needed support. The assistance she received on the more technical aspects of her projects helped build her capacity in those areas, and her membership of the One Young World Community opened the door to collaboration with other young leaders from across the globe. Pink Parliament also provides participants with a network of young female leaders, educating them on the necessity of female political representation.
The project’s goal is to equip young women with the knowledge and capacity to one day succeed in political office so as to institutionalise more robust and inclusive decision-making processes in Barbados. Pink Parliament has partnered with the Women and Development Unit of the University of the West Indies, as well as Open Campus, on scholarships, internship opportunities, and content creation. The programme has so far trained 80 girls in Barbados, engaging with the High Commission of Canada for mentorship. Participants have been invited to both houses of parliament, witnessing political procedures and meeting with senior politicians including the Prime Minister.
“Working along with other One Young World Ambassadors has given me drive and much-needed support which is necessary for any young leader. They've provided capacity-building skill development by assisting me with the technical aspects of my projects and advocacies.”
PakVitae
Pakistan is predicted to experience acute water shortages in the coming decades, a consequence of both climate change and poor governance. Yet 21.7 million Pakistanis already lack access to clean water, and the situation is exacerbated by the presence of millions of Afghan refugees. While studying in Florida, Usama Tanveer was introduced to polymeric hollow fibre membranes and their revolutionary potential in water treatment processes. After sharing a prototype he built with some friends in Pakistan, the group set out to tackle this problem.
Usama attended the One Young World Summit in 2019 in London. The Summit was an important networking opportunity for him, and he was able to attend sessions he was interested in and engage with like-minded young people operating in the same space as himself. A number of these people were able to contribute to PakVitae remotely, thereby building its capacity to reach vulnerable communities and assist in their water needs. Usama has also received training from implementation specialists from the UN, The Gates Foundation, and others, which helped the project get traction. PakVitae operates a research and development lab in Singapore for one of its emerging subsidiaries, Everywater, through which the team hopes to generate global impact.
Since beginning operations in 2017, PakVitae has managed to impact upwards of 15,000 people. Its water filters are usable for up to eighteen months with proper care, and local communities are trained extensively on how to get the most out of them. After three months, PakVitae carries out periodic screenings of random sampling tests to ensure the filters are working properly. The patent of the technology used in these water filters was recently accepted in the United States and PakVitae is well on its way to scaling the impact of its work.
“The most important and pivotal thing I got out of the One Young World opportunity was making connections. I was able to attend a lot of the sessions I was interested in, experts who were talking about development and who had 20 plus years of experience. I also met people who were able to add value to PakVitae remotely.”
How to use to the SDG Tracker
Search for projects by the following case study categories:
- Ambassador-led Initiatives: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the social impact of projects which are led by young leaders in the Community.
- Business for Social Good: written case studies for initiatives ran by corporate partner organisations, led by young Ambassadors/employees.
- Leadership Stories: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies.
- Covid Young Leaders Fund: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's 2020 funding opportunity for projects tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Lead2030: detailed case studies of the Lead2030 award winners and how their projects have generated impact from participating in the programme.