imaGen Ventures
Supporting young entrepreneurs to create and scale ventures that help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
How it works | Impact | Our unique approach | Partners | Get involved
Young people are growing up in a world shaped by complex challenges, from climate change and inequality to limited access to skills, decent work and economic opportunity.
Many have bold ideas for solving problems in their communities, but too often lack the support needed to turn those ideas into something tangible with real impact.
This is especially true for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have strong entrepreneurial potential but limited access to training, mentorship, networks, funding and spaces where their ideas can be tested and developed.
Entrepreneurship can help young people build skills, generate income and create solutions that respond to social and environmental challenges
imaGen Ventures builds on this potential by supporting young changemakers to develop entrepreneurial skills, create financially viable ventures and advance solutions linked to the SDGs.
How imaGen Ventures
imaGen Ventures is a youth entrepreneurship initiative co-designed, co-created and co-led with young people, with a commitment to leaving no young person behind.
The Programme
- Trains young people to create financially viable and sustainable enterprises
- Creates networks for young people to work collaboratively
- Incubates ventures and supports young people as they scale them up
imaGen Ventures supports young people to move from ideas to viable ventures through a global entrepreneurship pathway delivered locally in participating countries.
- Ideation
Young people globally take part in national human-centred design trainings to identify challenges in their communities and develop solutions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. - Incubation
Promising ideas receive country-level incubation support, including mentorship, business development guidance and access to local networks, helping young entrepreneurs turn early concepts into financially viable ventures. - Acceleration
High-potential ventures receive equity-free seed funding and access to global incubation opportunities to help them grow, connect with wider networks and scale their impact.
What makes imaGen Ventures unique?
imaGen focuses on young people from marginalised communities.
- Youth-led, locally rooted design, with ventures co-designed, co-created and co-led by young people to respond to challenges in their own communities
- Global backing with country-level delivery, combining Generation Unlimited’s global platform with locally implemented entrepreneurship support
- End-to-end venture pathways, supporting young people from ideation and incubation to equity-free seed funding and acceleration
- Inclusive, SDG-aligned entrepreneurship, prioritising young changemakers from disadvantaged backgrounds to build financially viable ventures with social and environmental impact
What youth entrepreneurship looks like
imaGen Ventures stories of change from across the globe.
What youth entrepreneurship looks like
Three bright minds from Bangladesh stood tall among the champions of the 2022 Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge. Designed for highways, coastal areas, and riverside, the BD Highway Turbine initiative introduces a vertical-axis wind turbine, transforming bustling highways and coastal zones into renewable energy hubs.
A group of youth innovators is passionately addressing the livelihood issues of communities on Lake Victoria in Uganda through the production of renewable energy with troublemaking water hyacinths, an invasive weed.
In a township in Cape Town, South Africa, young ‘Recycling Champions’ are educating and incentivising the community to divert waste from landfills, improving the local environment and economy at the same time.
A team of young people from Türkiye wins the international Generation Unlimited imaGen Ventures Youth Challenge with their youth-led water purification innovation.
Benefitting from seed funding and training from Generation Unlimited and UNICEF, this youth-run company has developed a toilet design that uses black soldier fly larvae to break down solid waste and create manure that is suitable for using on farms.
A youth led company in Zimbabwe introduced two innovations: an off-grid solar-powered DC lighting system for schools, and the Chigubhu Lantern, a unique creation made from electronic waste.
Explore stories of past imaGen Ventures winners
Partner with Generation Unlimited
Get involved
Join us on our mission to support the next generation of changemakers. We are looking for partners to:
- Provide content on entrepreneurship skilling
- Support digitisation of interactive experience
- Offer employee mentorship and coaching
- Provide seed funding for youth enterprises
- Grant access to infrastructure and resources
- Support thematic tracks with grants and seed funding for the climate crisis, green entrepreneurship, education, agripreneurship, and mental health.
For more details, contact [email protected].
