trigger CodePipeline on schedule

Is there a native way in CodePipeline itself, to trigger a pipeline on schedule(cronjob)? I believe we can have a Lambda run on schedule and it triggers pipeline, but was looking for a better way.

Currently your best option is exactly what you described, using lambda or aws client from a cronjob to call https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/latest/APIReference/API_StartPipelineExecution.html or https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/latest/APIReference/API_PutActionRevision.html

Another question is, how can we have CodePipeline launch cloudformation templates in different regions? Is there any reference out there, to fan out using step-functions and launch templates in parallel in different regions?

This article might be helpful: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/building-a-cross-regioncross-account-code-deployment-solution-on-aws/