June 2023 – Wonderly finalist in the 2023 UNICEF Lab Social Accelerator
The collaboration between UNICEF Spain and ISDI Accelerator seeks Unicorns with social impact in Spanish-speaking countries
UNICEF Lab is conducted by the Spaniard HQ of the organization and ISDI Accelerator. With this initiative, they are “multiplying the impact” of future and current unicorns, startups with scalable projects that are already generating a real social impact focused on Mental Health, Digital Rights, and Workforce & Entrepreneurship Development of youth under 21 years old.
Historically, UNICEF Lab accelerates only 5 companies per cohort, which makes a rather prestigious and tight selection process. This year was no different, with hundreds of applicants submitting proposals and not matching all the selection criteria. Only 20 were selected as finalists to be assessed by a panel of judges in the “Jury Day” held in Madrid in May 2023.
Among those finalists, Wonderly, a computer science and AI education platform focused on serving teachers and students from underrepresented minorities in Spain and Latin America presented a proposal to fulfill the Workforce & Entrepreneurship Development goal of UNICEF Lab, mainly to bring their innovative technology courses to students 8-18 years old in the region.
Wonderly’s value proposition to the competition sat upon four pillars:
- Reducing social inequality and providing access to quality education to Spanish-speaking children and adolescents.
- Bringing children and teens closer to emerging technologies.
- Provide teachers with the necessary tools to improve the academic performance of their students.
- Empower girls and young women and teachers with training in digital skills.
Although not directly selected to participate in the accelerator program, UNICEF Spain and Wonderly are set to collaborate to conduct pilot projects in different schools in the country. This is a very exciting opportunity not only for the company but also for teachers and students with little access to technology courses to get certified in digital skills such as Introduction to Artificial Intelligence or Computer Science Principles, which ultimately will help them get a job in the highly valued tech industry.
“Collaborating with UNICEF Spain is a very exciting opportunity to bring quality education, reduce inequalities and enhance decent work and economic growth to underrepresented Spanish-speaking minorities”, stated Wonderly’s CEO, Leandro Finol.
We will follow up on the news coming from this interesting collaboration between Wonderly and UNICEF Spain. If you want to learn more about Wonderly, feel free to visit their website www.learnwonderly.com