Consultancy 12 months: Mapping and Tech Specialist (Giga), Barcelona, Spain

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child…Innovate

UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

About Giga

Launched in 2019 as a joint initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has set the ambitious goal to connect every school in the world to the internet.  Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This has created a digital divide between those who are connected and those who are not, a divide that has become even wider during the Covid-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU have therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet and address this new form of inequality.

Giga focuses on connecting schools so that children and young people have access to information, opportunity, and choice. It also uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities: if you connect the school, you can also connect local businesses and services. This creates opportunities for service providers to generate revenue from paying users, making connectivity more sustainable. A 2021 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.

You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaglobal

How can you make a difference?

UNICEF is seeking a strong self-motivated Mapping and Tech Specialist who can uphold the quality of their work even under tight time constraints and who can work with a diverse interdisciplinary tech team of engineers, designers, data scientists and researchers to support the planning, implementation and monitoring of different activities and tools for Giga Tech Centre.

Key responsibilities include:

1. Provide technical support to the Mapping and Tech Lead in the in the planning and implementation of strategic priorities out of Giga’s Barcelona Tech Center, and in day-to-day operations when needed.
2. Work closely with the cross-functional Giga team and the Mapping and Tech Lead to drive product cohesion and scale-up, including implementing and overseeing progress against the team’s yearly priorities.
3. Coordinate cross-functional support for Giga’s technology team, including open-source community management, country deployment of products and other key initiatives and efforts.
4. Co-design and ensure adoption of best practices and guidelines for product ideation, development and scale-up, including open-source principles across the tech stack and documentation efforts.
5. Coordinate and manage joint work with internal and external stakeholders, including vendors and tech partners, ensuring alignment with Giga’s goals and timelines.
6. Conduct data analysis and progress reporting in pro of the technology team’s strategic plan, providing actionable insights to inform decisions and enhance effectiveness.
7. Steward Giga’s real-time monitoring efforts, including the continuous improvement of Giga’s approach to collect and analyse school connectivity data.
8. Represent, promote, and advocate Giga in discussions with external stakeholders, including donors, partners, and government representatives, enhancing Giga’s visibility and cultivating strategic partnerships.

Please access the full Term of Reference (ToRs) and read a more detailed description of the assignment in this file in order to prepare your financial proposal and know more about the role:  Giga Mapping Tech Specialist ToR.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An Advanced degree in computer science, information technology and information systems, systems and network administration, or a related technical discipline.
  * A first University Degree coupled with 2 years of relevant experience could be considered in lieu of an advanced degree.
• A minimum of five (5) years of work experience working with technical management teams to develop and deploy systems and solutions, or network/systems engineering, or technical product/program management experience.
• Experience in facilitating engagements with an array of partners at the national/regional level, i.e., government entities, telecommunication regulators, international development organizations, or civil society, etc.
• Experience providing hands-on program management support.
• Organizational, coordination, and multi-tasking experience. Capacity to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Analytical and problem-solving experience.
• Experience establishing work relationships across multi-disciplinary teams with different technical skills and multiple partners in different time zones.
• Proven experience in translating complex ideas from various fields into unified, clear guidance.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to Geneva two times (2 trips), for a stay of 4-5 nights.
• The consultant is expected to travel to four Giga countries (4 trips), for a stay of 4-5 nights.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations:

• Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• Consultant is responsible to arrange his/her own travel, including visa.

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with an all-inclusive fee.  Please see the financial proposal template here: Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks: 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.