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,everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias, or favouritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfil their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.
Organizational context:
The Product Innovation Centre (PIC) within Supply Division (SD) works closely with internal and external partners to drive R&D and scale of new innovative products to improve the lives of children. This is done by identifying needs not appropriately met by products currently available and then scanning the market to see if there are products that can meet this need. If yes, we procure and scale the products, if not, we drive R&D utilizing develops product profiles to specify the performance a product has to deliver and incentivize R&D, using our procurement and implementation power. In addition, PIC is mandated to push the envelope of the organization in terms of coming up with new innovative concepts to influence R&D of products beyond UNICEF’s procurement, evolve the global thinking around product innovation for development/humanitarian contexts as well as to develop new ways of driving scale of products. Key to these ambitions is an aim to ensure most impact for disadvantages children for the resources available, always pushing for value for money of products.
The Product Innovation Centre operates within public procurement practices to drive research and development (R&D), validation and implementation of new products to address programmatic and/or emergency needs. In instances where there are no products in a procurable form on the market, a Product Innovation Project (PIP) is initiated with the ultimate goal of enabling procurement of fit-for-purpose and value-for-money supplies across all UNICEF program areas.
Key Tasks:
The purpose of this deliverable based consultancy is to develop a proof of concept (decision supporting system engine) for a UNICEF App Catalogue. UNICEF requires a data scientist or a backend developer with AI expertise (AI Expert) to develop a proof of concept (decision supporting system engine) for a UNICEF App Catalogue. The AI pipeline (proof of concept) needs to deliver an initial solution that enables UNICEF to assess the content and functionality of publicly available apps on Google Playstore and Apple Store to make sure it is high quality. The model must cover the review specified in the screening protocol and deliver a screening reviewing the criteria defined, content and functionality.
This new AI model requires to:
(1) Pre-screen the apps that respond to the sector required (health, nutrition, education, disability, etc.);
(2) Check the app development background (secure the app is based on sound science and scientific evidence;
(3) Check the app functionality (secure the app does what it says it does);
(4) Check the app information content (for it to be correct, complete and consistent);
(5) Continuous monitoring of existing apps for any updates added and also to identify new apps;
(6) Ingest additional data sources and databases.
If relevant, UNICEF will grant access to the necessary infrastructure, regulations, and guidance to support the development and operationalization of the GenAI solution.
Timeline:
This is a 30-day deliverable based consultancy spanning over 2-3 months.
Under the supervision of the Innovation manager (Emerging challenges unit) in the Product Innovation Center and support from the UNICEF AI Taskforce (ICTD), the consultant will perform the following deliverables:
Deliverables:
1.Catalogue Requirements & Architecture Overview 20% High level Architecture model document
Technical roadmap divided into two major milestones for deliverables.
2.Milestone I:
- Development of the model pipeline. (45%) Application Architecture Development
- Data Management
- Model Fine tuning
- User Interface Development
- Security, Environment and Compliance
2. Milestone II: Validation and testing of the model (35%)
- Testing and Deployment
- Documentation and handoff
This position will work either on-site or remotely.
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.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in in computer science, Data Science, Mathematics, AI and/or another quantitative field.
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Certifications in Azure AI, AWS Sage Maker, or Google Vertex AI.
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Certification in data science.
*A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
- A minimum of five of relevant professional experience in building AI solutions.
- Proven experience in Retrieval Augment Generation (RAG) in a cloud computing environment.
- 5-year experience preferably with Microsoft Azure AI infrastructure, or Google Vertex AI, and AWS Sage Maker.
- Proficient in creating data pipelines and managing large datasets.
- Experience in prompt engineering and implementing AI security measures.
- Knowledge of basic UI/UX design principles. Knowledge in accessibility a plus.
- Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
- Excellent problem-solving and communication skills.
- Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
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.