BEIJING, 22 March 2016 –, In the antique GONGZITING, Tsinghua University and UNICEF announced a new long-term partnership to leverage innovation, education, design and technology, to help the poorest and most disadvantaged children and women across the world.

The partnership, launched by an official signing event at Tsinghua by UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Yoka Brandt and Chancellor of Tsinghua University Dr Chen Xu, will bring together creative problem solvers from China and the Global South to develop innovative solutions towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by United Nations Member States in September 2015.

The partnership includes the establishment of a Global Innovation Centre for Children, which will create products and services to improve the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children and women in China and beyond. The partnership aims to use innovation to leverage cross-sectorial collaboration from academia, young people, and the private sector as well as South-South cooperation.

The high-level and strategic partnership was signed after two years of cooperation that has included a youth-focused “Design for UNICEF” class, which exposed young people to some of the real challenges children face, and potential solutions, as well as a Youth Innovation Forum which brought together young innovators from the Global South last October.

The partnership will:

·Jointly create human-centred, open source products and services to support the most vulnerable children and women, especially in developing countries, leveraging private and public sector advancements in areas including real-time information, big data, wearable and mobile technologies;

·Identify exemplary projects, products and services developed in China that can improve welfare, public services and governance, and evaluate their potential to be adapted, localized and scaled-up in other contexts, and contribute to international development and South-South cooperation;

·Enhance the leadership, global citizenship and innovation capacity of young people, and inspire them to create public goods and generate positive social and global value;

·Improve the understanding of children’s welfare and sustainable development, and encourage public dialogues and participation in initiatives aimed at improving children’s lives.

After the signing ceremony, together with Dean LU Xiaobo, the delegation visited the campus of Tsinghua, then moved to Academy of Arts & Design, and had a serious discussion and listened two groups of innovative project reports. Both sides had full expectations of the establishment of innovation centers and follow-up cooperation.