Youth x Innovation: Inside IFRC Limitless
- Marine Ronzi
- Sep 10, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Humanitarian innovation only works when it is rooted in real problems, real people, and real trust. Working on the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societie's Limitless Youth Innovation Academy showed me how youth-led, community-driven innovation can move beyond pilots and become a force for systemic change. This article looks behind the scenes of that journey, and at what it taught me about learning, power, and impact. Read it to the end: there’s a lovely surprise waiting for you.
About Innovation in Humanitarian Action
Innovation in the humanitarian sector is often misunderstood as technology-driven novelty. In reality, it is far more fundamental, and far more human. At its core, humanitarian innovation is about finding better ways to prevent harm, respond to crises, and support dignity, under conditions of uncertainty, constraint, and urgency. It combines human-centred design, experimentation, mentoring, learning from failure, and continuous adaptation, to save lives, protect communities, and improve outcomes at scale.
Evidence consistently shows that rigid, top-down approaches struggle to keep pace with today’s complex crises: climate shocks, protracted conflicts, misinformation, and widening inequalities. Innovation offers a different pathway. By testing ideas early, iterating with communities, and grounding solutions in lived realities, organisations become more responsive, effective, and trusted. In humanitarian contexts, innovation is not optional. It allows organisations to shift from delivering predefined solutions to co-creating responses with the people most affected, turning community members into agents of change and learning organisations into adaptive systems.
What I witnessed through IFRC Limitless confirmed something I deeply believe: innovation starts where problems are felt most sharply. When organisations create the conditions for safe experimentation, shared learning, and ethical risk-taking, innovation becomes a force for transformation.
Youth-Led Innovation: Changing Systems
Investing in youth innovation is a strategic choice grounded in evidence. Young people are often closest to emerging risks, fastest to adopt new practices, and most attuned to the social, environmental, and digital realities shaping their communities. Research across development and humanitarian fields shows that youth-led initiatives are more likely to be locally relevant, socially inclusive, and sustainable over time, particularly when young leaders are trusted with real responsibility, resources, and decision-making power (cf. youth participatory action research / YPAR).
Training and funding youth innovation fundamentally changes how organisations work. It decentralises problem-solving, unlocks collective intelligence, and shifts power closer to communities. When young innovators are equipped with skills in design, leadership, safeguarding, and backed with easily accessible funding, they prototype solutions, mobilise peers, influence behaviours, and challenge assumptions, including within the institutions that support them.
This is where innovation becomes transformational. Youth-led innovation changes mindsets within communities and within organisations themselves. It strengthens trust, builds long-term leadership pipelines, and embeds a culture of learning and accountability. In fragile and climate-affected contexts, this approach has tangible life-saving implications: faster responses, better risk prevention, stronger social cohesion, and solutions that endure because communities own them.
The IFRC Limitless Youth Innovation Academy, an IFRC Solferino Academy programme, offered living proof of this model at scale. What follows is the story of how youth, when trusted and supported, become one of the most powerful innovation engines in humanitarian action.
In this article, I will explore the following aspects:
Engagement of National Societies
Architecture and global reach
YouTube as a game-changer
Communities, mentorship and multilingual translation
Team cohesion
Engagement as a Practice of Trust
I joined IFRC Limitless at the end of its first edition, the COVID-19 Response programme, which was later recognised with Silver at the 2022 Global Good Awards. Shortly thereafter, I became fully involved in shaping and delivering the second edition, one of the most ambitious youth-led innovation programmes in the humanitarian sector.
Engagement in Limitless went far beyond official announcements to Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies. Before writing about the programme, let me answer this question: how to bring National Societies in as partners and co-owners, and make room for youth-led innovation within very different operational realities?
What we experienced across the network was diversity: different levels of innovation maturity, different governance and funding constraints, different pressures on staff time, and very different degrees of institutional risk appetite. Many National Societies are navigating heavy operational demands and strict accountability requirements, particularly around funding and reputational risk. In that context, asking them to trust young volunteers to design and manage innovation projects, sometimes outside existing priorities, is a meaningful step. And many chose to take it.
Some National Societies were already further along this journey. Through the Innovation Support Systems (ISS) led by the IFRC Solferino Academy and coordinated by Henry, several National Societies had been embedding innovation into their organisational structures — not as a project, but as a way of operating. By 2025, National Societies such as the Red Cross Societies of Uganda, Portugal, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica had moved from intent to practice through ISS, with others progressing through the journey.
Having this ecosystem in place made a real difference. These National Societies were not only enthusiastic participants in Limitless, they became strong allies, advocates, and early adopters of youth-led approaches. More broadly, the appetite for innovation across the network was striking: many National Societies showed real flexibility, opened doors internally, and actively supported youth teams with guidance, legitimacy, and communications reach.
What also made the difference was sustained engagement: working closely with Limitless focal points, staff, and leaders; adapting to languages and communication channels; recognising local realities; and showing, over time, that youth-led innovation could strengthen National Society action. As trust grew, National Societies supported participants, amplified the programme through their own networks, and encouraged youth volunteers to step forward without fear.
Between 2021 and 2024, the programme empowered 10,000 young leaders from 150 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, funding 2 200 innovations across 82 countries, and reaching 2.7 million community members.
From an engagement perspective, this was one of the strongest lessons of Limitless: trust is built through process, not persuasion. When institutions see outcomes emerge from a well-designed, well-supported journey, mindsets shift. Control gives way to confidence. And innovation becomes human.
The Architecture Behind Limitless
The Climate & Environment edition of the Limitless Academy was built on a unique model of participatory innovation, delivered in 17 languages and supported by more than 120 Innovation Leads: regional mentors and facilitators specially trained to accompany participants throughout the programme. The process unfolded across four progressive phases, each requiring participants or teams to submit a short video answering three selection questions, reviewed by a panel of independent innovation judges using defined criteria and a cross-judging process to ensure fairness and diversity of perspectives.
Phase One brought together more than 6,700 young people from over 142 countries, who participated in a two-week immersive training delivered through accessible messaging platforms (WhatsApp® and WeChat®) and an automated video platform built around YouTube, custom-designed in collaboration with Monash University and Northumbria University. This approach ensured participation even in low-bandwidth contexts.
The learning journey combined masterclasses, case studies, interactive activities, peer exchanges, expert discussions, and modules on innovation, climate, environment, leadership and iterative design.
The 905 strongest innovations progressed to Phase 2, receiving an initial CHF 500 seed grant and a second advanced two-week online training completed as teams, enriched with personalised mentorship. Teams submitted a new three-question video demonstrating iteration, sustainability and community impact, which was again assessed by innovation judges.
Selected projects then advanced to Phase 3, received CHF 2,000, and followed webinars on advanced prototyping, validation, pitching, and team motivation, before submitting a final video pitch for the last round of judging.
Finally, the 10 winning initiatives entered Phase 4 (still ongoing), received CHF 8,000 to scale their solutions, and benefited from tailored support for partnership development and long-term impact. This progressive, inclusive and locally grounded model enabled thousands of young people to turn ideas into concrete climate solutions while building a global community rooted in trust, shared learning, and a shared commitment to the planet.
YouTube as a game-changing platform
This is where I can share what was perhaps the most interesting (and least well-kept) secret of this journey.
This edition of IFRC Limitless, like the previous one, was built on a strong and sustained partnership with Monash University’s Action Lab, and in particular with Dr Tom Bartindale, whose team helped us design the content, the learning experience, and the digital conditions that enabled the programme to achieve remarkable scale and impact.
Tom and his team developed a series of digital innovations that:
enabled selected participants at each stage to submit three short, low-bandwidth video responses (around one minute each), answering three precise questions;
allowed each video to be presented to an independent international jury of innovation experts, who assessed them using a carefully designed scoring framework;
and, perhaps most impressively, seamlessly stitched these videos together through elegant transitions and thoughtful design, publishing them on YouTube as a single, ready-to-share video already optimised to reach its audience.
All that remained for us was to regularly encourage participants to share their videos within their communities and networks.
Solferino Voices is a YouTube channel created to showcase innovation across the Red Cross and Red Crescent network, and it now hosts thousands of project videos. During the IFRC Limitless journey, we launched new playlists and creative challenges, and navigating them became an endless source of learning, and honestly, so much joy. The 10 final awardees’ videos are here.
With Solferino Voices, IFRC Limitless amplified youth voices globally: project videos gained hundreds of thousands views on YouTube, and five high-potential initiatives were even showcased to senior leadership at the IFRC General Assembly and two more at the Biodiversity COP, highlighting the power of grassroots innovation for sustainable futures.
Learning, Holding, and Showing Up
My work for the Climate & Environment edition spanned global programme communications, multilingual community management, embedding safeguarding principles, and contributing actively to risk assessment and knowledge building. I also played a role in engaging dozens of National Societies and strengthening partnerships with Red Cross and Red Crescent actors. But when I think about Limitless, my first memories are not dashboards or milestones. They are people.
They are long days and late nights shared with Hamza, Yeon, Justin, Sara and Henry, a close-knit group of innovation leads learning to hold something much bigger than any of us. Together, we trained and accompanied over 120 Innovation Leads from across the world, organised into language-based communities. That work didn’t stop at training sessions. It unfolded over nearly a year of shared responsibility, constant adjustment, and deep professional trust.
I led the French-speaking mentors’ community, while also supporting smaller language groups: Portuguese, Italian, and even a bold and brilliant Polish mentor. Over time, these communities became spaces of genuine connection. We learned each other’s contexts, constraints, and strengths. We grew together.
In the French-speaking mentors community especially, I think of Elodie, Daniel, Raitra, Elisa, Gilbert, Catherine, Alix, Kambou, Kevin, Nasser, Sandra, Francky, Dr Charlotte, and Richard; colleagues from National Societies across Africa, the Caribbean, and MENA. From their initial training to their daily mentoring of youth innovators, working alongside them was one of the most rewarding professional experiences I’ve had. These committed leads just took ownership of a shared mission with passion and trust.
Throughout the training and implementation phases, we were in constant contact across time zones, languages, and levels of experience. Hundreds of participants and teams engaged daily: asking questions, sharing doubts, celebrating progress, and offering help to one another.
What struck me most was the quality of those interactions. Participants didn’t just compete, they supported each other. They explained concepts, shared tools, reassured those who didn’t make it to the next phase, and celebrated successes collectively. Waiting for announcements became an emotional rollercoaster: hope, disappointment, joy, pride... often all at once. And yet, across communities, the dominant tone remained respect, encouragement, and solidarity.
This kind of engagement doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentional facilitation, psychological safety, and clear shared rules. Through Action Translate from Action Lab, we saw the power of engineered online volunteering: a combination of machine learning and a volunteer translation community that helped content travel across 17 languages, at scale.
It wasn’t perfect, and that’s part of the lesson. As demand grew, we brought in trusted Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers to strengthen the translation effort. We navigated the reality of regional language differences (Latin American vs Spain Spanish), tone choices (French tutoiement vs vouvoiement), and the craft of consistency across cultures. But the collective effort was extraordinary: translators supported one another, improved drafts, and turned multilingual access into a shared craft. Watching communities take on a life of their own reshaped my understanding of what large-scale engagement can look like when it is designed with care.
The Work Behind The Programme
Limitless was exhilarating... and exhausting. We were flooded with work, energy, and responsibility. Beyond communications and engagement, we also managed safeguarding concerns and direct participant support in 17 languages, often in real time. This invisible layer of work, emotional, ethical, operational, is rarely visible from the outside, yet it is what keeps innovation safe and credible.
The most critical contributions happened behind the scenes. Sara P and Laurent mastering the complexity of individual bank transfers in fragile contexts and leading financial procedures. Henry and Laurent leading our team through risk analysis. Yann through exceptional design and marketing with support from Action Lab team and from Justin, Yeon, Hamza and I. Sara managing safeguarding processes. Shaun, a steady guide and partnership-builder. And my other Solferino Academy colleagues, whose understanding of the sheer scale and intensity of Limitless made it possible for us to sustain the effort, and were often involved in diverse parts of the programme.
What held everything together was an exceptional level of care within the team. That trust, internal first, is what allowed us to navigate obstacles and keep going when pressure peaked. It was massive. And it worked.
Key Takeaways
Learning innovation builds multiple skills, individually and collectively.
When young people are trusted and supported, they become essential drivers of impact.
Inclusion must be structural: built into the programme’s architecture (mobile-first, low bandwidth, multilingual).
Facilitation and protection (including safeguarding) should be treated as foundations, not optional add-ons.
Trust is built more sustainably with organisations through a consistent process, not persuasion alone.
To go far, protect the team: care, wellbeing, internal communication, and coordination make large-scale results possible.
IFRC Limitless Peace Has Launched!
On 12 February 2026, the IFRC Solferino Academy officially launched Limitless Peace, the third edition of the IFRC Limitless Youth Innovation Academy.
After COVID-19 Response and Climate & Environment, this new edition turns its focus to something both urgent and foundational: peace. Not peace as an abstract ideal, but peace as daily practice: social cohesion, dignity, dialogue, mental wellbeing, inclusion, food security, protection, and opportunity.
This edition invites young volunteers and National Societies to explore how innovation can strengthen communities before tensions escalate and help repair trust where it has been fractured.
The structure remains bold and accessible: four progressive phases, seed funding, personalised mentorship, microlearning delivered via messaging platforms, peer-to-peer global networks, and acceleration support for selected initiatives.
Although I am no longer part of the core team delivering this edition, I remain strongly supportive of the Academy’s vision and impact, and I look forward to seeing what this new generation of innovators will create.
👉 Apply and learn more: limitless.solferinoacademy.com
For updates, details, and more exciting news, visit the
Comments