Consultancy 12 months: Product Lead, Connectivity Credits (Giga), Barcelona, Spain

Consultant Programme & Policy Innovation

Contract

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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?

We seek a strong, self-motivated Product Lead to help establish and grow one of Giga’s ambitious products; the Connectivity Credit Marketplace, a global system designed to incentivize companies to provide internet access to underserved communities.

Key responsibilities include:

1. Define and communicate the product vision, strategy and roadmap for Connectivity Credits, aligned with Giga’s goals.
2. Collaborate with internal stakeholders across Technology, Partnerships, Procurement, Finance, Communications and Country Engagement to ensure Connectivity Credits are embedded in the functions of these teams and vice-versa.
3. Lead the end-to-end process from product discovery to product management of the Connectivity Credits Marketplace, implementing an evidence-guided methodology to prioritize new developments.
4. Advocate for a user-centric approach across the Connectivity Credits team, creating a team culture focused on adding value to our users.
5. Provide leadership, mentorship and guidance to product managers and team members, ensuring that pilots and products ladder up to a coherent strategy.
6. Collaborate with the Tech Lead and Giga Co-Lead to ensure resources are in place and timelines are communicated to manage stakeholder expectations.
7. Coordinating work with vendors and other tech partners that are supporting the development of the marketplace.
8. Working with a team of engineers, designers, data scientists and researchers to define, design and build features for the marketplace.
9. Setting up product team processes based on best practices.
10. Coordinating with government stakeholders in various countries to implement the solution according to the local context.
11. Monitor the progress of the marketplace and analyze product metrics and user feedback.

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 Product Lead, Connectivity Credits (TOR).pdf

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

• An advanced University degree (master’s or higher) in a related field (e.g., Computer Science, Business Administration), or equivalent work experience
• At least 8 years of experience in product management, preferably in the technology industry
• Experience with blockchain and/or cryptocurrency products is preferred.
• Experience building products that combine social impact and business value.
• Strong project management skills, with experience coordinating cross-functional teams.
• Experience working with government stakeholders and implementing solutions in different countries.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to use data to make informed decisions.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Fluency in English is required, fluency in Spanish is highly desired. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian) 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 Giga countries two times (2 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.

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Added 23 hours ago - Updated 4 hours ago - Source: unicef.org