Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and young people are eager to act. Through the Global Data Science Challenge (GDSC) 2025 – Green Agents of Change, Capgemini supported UNICEF and proved that technology can turn ambition into action. The winning solution, powered by agentic AI, provides a blueprint for guiding young people toward green learning and career pathways, which will help them build brighter futures.

“Young people are going to be creating the solutions of the future. If we’re going to solve this climate challenge, it’s going to be young people in the driver’s seat,” said Kevin Frey, CEO of Generation Unlimited, Public-Private-Youth Partnership at UNICEF. “They have the most to gain and the most to lose because of the climate crisis. We have to empower these young people with green skills and opportunities, both for jobs and entrepreneurship.”

Turning sustainability interest into action

Young people want to act on climate, but many lack the tools to do so. According to the Youth perspectives on climate: Preparing for a sustainable future report by the Capgemini Research Institute and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited, 67% of youth are concerned about climate change, but only 44% feel equipped with the skills to make an impact.

UNICEF’s Green Rising initiative, supported by Capgemini since its launch in 2023, addresses this gap by aiming to mobilize millions of young people between the ages of 16 and 24, providing them with opportunities to lead climate action and build sustainable futures. The research also highlights regional and socio-economic divides in access to green skills, reinforcing the need for inclusive solutions that empower youth everywhere.

“Young people have the ideas, the drive, and the urgency. What they need are the tools,” said Nadi Albino, Deputy Director of Partnerships at UNICEF. “Through this challenge, we’re co-creating with youth, giving them agentic AI as a lever to act, innovate, and lead the green transition.”

Agentic AI emerged as the most effective approach to fulfill this ambition. The GDSC, an annual hackathon dedicated to building solutions for a sustainable future, provided the perfect platform to turn this vision into reality.

“Our commitment to sustainability has to extend beyond our own operations if we are going to make a real impact,” said Sarika Naik, Group Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer, Capgemini. “With the GDSC, we’ve repeatedly brought people together from around the world to develop unique solutions that support sustainable efforts.The 2025 version continued that legacy by applying agentic AI to expand the availability of green learning and work to young people. This forms a critical part of our partnership with UNICEF on this topic”

Crowdsourcing AI innovation

The GDSC 2025 brought together Capgemini talent worldwide to design solutions that empower youth to take climate action. Participants worked with curated datasets of green job listings and training programs, supported by AWS cloud infrastructure and Mistral AI’s advanced language models, which provided the technical backbone for innovation.

AWS powered the challenge with secure, scalable cloud services and AI tools, including Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, the Strands Agents SDK, and Amazon SageMaker AI, enabling participants to develop and test solutions with speed and reliability. Meanwhile, Mistral AI contributed cutting-edge language models that allowed teams to build assistants capable of natural, context-rich dialogue and adaptive reasoning, which was critical for creating a solution that connected authentically with users. Together, these contributions accelerated innovation during the hackathon and laid the groundwork for future advancements in sustainable AI.

After a six-week development and judging period, Green Career Assistant created by Team oCaptainMyCaptainPlanet from Germany was selected as the winning solution. It draws upon large language models to enable transparent decision-making while maintaining natural, adaptive dialogue with users and performing flexible information extraction. The resulting Gen AI solution provides users with guided, explainable recommendations based on available learnings and professional opportunities.

The solution integrates four key components:

  1. Data wrangling and analysis: the solution cleans and organizes raw data from diverse sources to map skills, jobs, and learning paths.
  2. User understanding and interaction: multiple AWS AI services alongside Mistral AI’s LLMs and agentic workflows interpret user intent through empathetic dialogue and adapt recommendations to each user’s context.
  3. Knowledge graph construction: links skills, jobs, and training opportunities are provided in a structured, verifiable way to avoid hallucinations.
  4. Human-in-the-loop: human review ensures transparency, fairness, and continuous expert oversight aligned with UNICEF’s ethical AI principles.

One of Green Career Assistant’s key differentiators is an eco-friendly design that helps monitor token consumption and carbon emissions to minimize environmental impact. The result is an AI assistant that provides guided, explainable recommendations for education and career opportunities, helping young people turn climate ambition into action.

“As impactful as the hackathon is, we’ve always viewed the GDSC as more than that,” Niraj Parihar, CEO of Insights and Data Global Business Line at Capgemini explained. “It’s a global platform for sustainability innovation powered by tech collaboration. AWS and Mistral AI were essential in enabling this breakthrough. Thanks to their support and the creativity of our participants, the Green Career Assistant shows how agentic AI can bridge the gap between youth ambition and the resources they need to act on climate change.”

Enabling the future of green efforts

Following the winning solution’s selection, UNICEF now has access to the blueprint and source code for an AI assistant designed to support its vision. By leveraging global sustainability data, the Green Career Assistant can guide young people toward education and job opportunities that align with climate action goals.

As UNICEF’s Green Rising initiative continues, this solution will offer a practical way to connect growing youth interest in climate change with the resources and pathways needed to make an impact. In addition, the Green Career Assistant can be scaled further to support a broader range of youth with an interest in sustainability.

“Agentic AI is an incredible tool. It helps young people understand career pathways, analyze information, create solutions, and build online communities,” explained Nadi Albino. “It links youth to education, jobs, upskilling, and social impact opportunities. Especially in the digital and green sectors, agentic AI is exceptionally useful.”

The Green Career Assistant will first be implemented in Brazil, providing scalable foundations for youth empowerment through technologyaligning education, skills, and opportunities for a sustainable future. Going forward, UNICEF will collaborate with both governments and private sector partners to evaluate the possibility of funding and expanding a youth-driven movement to combat climate change. In an era that demands agility and innovation, Capgemini’s support of UNICEF is providing one more tool to help young people turn ambition into action and shape a better world.

UNICEF does not endorse any company, brand, product, or service.