UNLEASH mobilizes youth around the world to co-create a sustainable future.

Chemonics’ Partnership with UNLEASH

At Chemonics, we believe that positive change is most impactful and sustainable when people are empowered to make decisions for themselves and create impact within their own communities. To that aim, Chemonics serves as a Lead Scale partner to UNLEASH, which aspires to be the world’s most inclusive platform mobilizing youth to co-create innovative solutions and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We believe forging partnerships in the global development community and beyond is critical to solving the world’s toughest problems. We are therefore committed to sharing our nearly 50 years of experience in development and sustainability with the UNLEASH community to build a better future.  

UNLEASH Innovation Labs

Each year, UNLEASH’s flagship program, the Innovation Lab, brings up to 1,000 young changemakers to an in-person, week-long experience where they are immersed in a user-centered design process for sustainability challenges. This facilitated program results in hundreds of innovative ideas generated yearly to address the SDGs. Since 2017, Innovation Labs have been held in Denmark, Singapore, China, Greenland, and India that have empowered more than 7,000 changemakers from 172 countries in the development of 1,000 solutions.  

UNLEASH Plus

Since 2019, Chemonics has co-designed and co-run UNLEASH Plus, an early–stage incubator for social impact ventures. UNLEASH Plus furthers the reach of the week-long Innovation Labs by providing six months of support to social entrepreneurs who have already built an early-stage solution and need access to mentorship, tools, networks, approaches, and resources that will support their solution’s long-term viability and impact. Teams receive 1-1 mentorship support, conduct rapid sprints to progress towards product-market fit using design thinking and agile principles, and engage in dynamic workshops on key topics with world-class experts. Top teams are invited to join the annual Innovation Lab for an intensive, in-person experience culminating in a pitching competition and the possibility of financial and in-kind support. Since its launch, UNLEASH Plus has supported the growth of 320+ organizations from 80+ countries across all 17 SDGs.