Since 2015, UNICEF’s Office of Innovation has been exploring the application of drones across three main application areas: imagery, delivery, and connectivity. Our work has led to the establishment of three permanent humanitarian drone corridors; provided through the UNICEF Venture Fund seed funding to seven drone companies creating open source digital solutions for humanitarian use; and supporting UNICEF Country Offices in using drones for medicine and vaccine delivery.

All of UNICEF’s investments in drones are open source, and under an open license for non-commercial use; the Office of Innovation supports these solutions including by growing their reach through the UNICEF Global Drones Technical Working Group and by making promising solutions available to the UN system through Long Term Agreements (LTAs).

The UNICEF Drones for Sustainable Develop Goals Toolkit is a collection of tools curated by the Office of Innovation. The primary objective of the toolkit is to provide an easily accessible repository of drone-related open-source software, data, AI models, standards, courseware, and guides that address the SDGs.

All the products in the toolkit must be open source and eligible for nomination as a Digital Public Good.

The Drones for SDG toolkit target audience: 🔗

1. Users of solutions, content such as the UN, other humanitarian agencies, Governments, policymakers, program directors, and private sector drone practitioners or startups.

2. Developers of relevant drone solutions that are looking to increase visibility and use of their solutions; or are looking to build on existing open-source code for development of new applications. 

How to make a contribution to the Drones for SDGs Toolkit 🔗

All submissions to the Drones for SDG Toolkit must meet the following criteria; 🔗

1. Must be a project that uses Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source, and Open Innovation in its development, hosting, publishing, and support.
2. Must be contribute to the achievement of at least one (1) of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
3. The project must have clear ownership.
4. The project must use approved open source licenses.

The criteria are aligned with the Digital Public Goods Standard.

Projects can be submitted for consideration through The Drone for SDG Toolkit Project Submission Form.

Project submissions will be reviewed over a 90 day period, afterwhich feedback will be provided.

What are Digital Public Goods? 🔗

The Digital Public Goods Standard is a set of specifications and guidelines designed to maximise consensus about whether a digital solution conforms to the definition of a digital public good: open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable best practices, do no harm by design and are of high relevance for attainment of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This definition stems from the UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.

The DPG Standard establishes the baseline requirements that must be met in order to earn recognition as a digital public good (DPG). This standard is designed to complement other relevant principles such as the Principles for Digital Development and is applicable to DPGs in all sectors across the SDGs. The DPG Standard is itself an open project, open to contribution on GitHub, and developed in collaboration with organisations and experts.

Who makes up the Digital Public Goods Alliance? 🔗

The Digital Public Goods Alliance is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the sustainable development goals in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods.

Incubated by The Government of Norway and The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the DPGA relies on engagement and leadership from pathfinder countries, private sector technology experts, think tanks, governments, philanthropic donors, international implementing organizations, and the UN.

The DPGA is governed by an Interim Strategy Group consisting of: The Government of Sierra Leone; The Government of Norway; iSPIRT; and UNICEF. Day to day functions are steered by the Secretariat of the Digital Public Goods Alliance, which is co-hosted by UNICEF and Norad.

The DPGA also uses a Roadmap as a coordination, alignment, engagement and communication tool to capture the activities of DPGA members working to significantly advance the four DPGA strategic objectives described in the our 5 year strategy. Members include: members of the ISG; BMZ; GitHub; The Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology; UNDP; and UN Global Pulse.

For more information, visit the Digital Public Goods Alliance.