The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015 as a call to action to tackle the world’s greatest challenges such as poverty and climate change. With its 17 goals, 169 targets, and 231 indicators, the SDGs reflect a data-driven and society-oriented framework that requires a collaborative effort from all levels of society to achieve the future we want and to leave no one behind. Crucial to their success is timely, reliable and comprehensive data that are difficult to gather using traditional sources of data alone, such as censuses and household surveys. Coupled with these traditional methods and other new sources of data such as Earth Observation (EO), and mobile phone data, citizen science has an immense potential to address these data gaps.