Consultancy - Business Strategy Mentor (UNICEF Venture Fund), Remote, Office of Innovation, 130 days over a period of 11.5 months

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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 75-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 startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF's Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world's children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly -- anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach -- in a traditionally risk-averse field -- to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.
• Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors to deliver fast, and lasting results for children

The Office of Innovation specifically looks to form partnerships around frontier technologies (like drones and UAVs, blockchain, 21st-century skills, urban technologies, new banking tools, wearables, and sensors, or 3D-Printing) that exist at the intersection of $100 billion business markets and 1 billion person needs – and to identify how they can grow and scale profitably and inclusively

OUR TEAM We're an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech, by:

• Looking at the 2–5-year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and to see how UNICEF can work with the private sector on doing better business while improving essential services for children.
• Investing in early-stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 0–2-year future including the Venture Fund that invests in open-source technology solutions from start-ups based in UNICEF’s programmed countries.
• Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at a national scale in multiple countries – taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.”

How can you make a difference?

The UNICEF Innovation Fund has been specifically designed to finance early-stage, open-source technology that can benefit children. The core motivation of the Innovation Fund is to identify "clusters" or portfolios of initiatives around emerging technology - so that UNICEF can both shape markets and learn about and guide these technologies to benefit children. We invest in solutions that can impact the lives of the most vulnerable children. We find these solutions clustered around $100 billion industries in frontier technology spaces, such as UAVs, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, nanosatellites, and human dynamics.

With $35m+ raised to date, the Innovation Fund is scaling its investment portfolio to invest in 20 start-ups every year. The current portfolio of 69 companies consists of several cohorts of companies developing and piloting solutions in virtual and augmented reality, data science and artificial intelligence, blockchain, IoT, and assistive technology. The Innovation Fund is looking for one part-time, remotely based mentor to focus on supporting portfolio companies in developing in the open, building communities around their solutions, and engaging strategically with relevant networks.

The Office of Innovation is looking to identify one consultant to:

1. Onboard Innovation Fund portfolio companies to a business strategy platform and monitor progress
2. Provide tailored technical assistance to portfolio companies to design and validate a scalable business model, as well as identify and test revenue generation strategies through weekly mentoring sessions
3. Develop workplans with each portfolio company for the remaining investment period to ensure meeting the key milestones; business model validation, financial model validation (pricing, cost etc.).
4. Recommendations for mentorship systems on business models across the Fund

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in entrepreneurship, business administration, external relations, or other *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 8 years of relevant professional experience in starting and growing technology companies
• A track record of providing mentorship and assistance to start-ups
• Experience in identifying and developing technical assistance tools for companies
• Experience with open-source technologies, open-source business models, and cultivating open-source communities
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, excellent technical communication with peers and non-technical stakeholders
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• A track record of providing mentorship and assistance to start-ups
• Experience in identifying and developing technical assistance tools for companies
• Experience with open-source technologies, open-source business models, and cultivating open-source communities
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, excellent technical communication with peers and non-technical stakeholders
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Payment and further considerations:

• Payment on a monthly basis, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• A consultant is responsible for her/his own health and travel insurance
• The consultant is eligible for DSA for all work-related travel.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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.