Consultancy - Developer (GIGA), Home-based, Office of Innovation, 11.5 months

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, Connectivity

Giga = UNICEF X ITU

We are a part of the United Nations and a joint venture between two of its agencies: UNICEF and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), with a specific goal to connect every school to the internet, and every young person to information, opportunity and choice. This means we have access to various resources, but also a great commitment to the children of the world. Blockchain is part of many things we do, but in order to get an idea about real-life impact and progress of our mission, look at https://giga.global/connect/.

How can you make a difference?

We seek a blockchain developer who can work with a diverse, global and interdisciplinary team to help us build and then scale tools and products that support the successful, on-the-ground implementation of the Giga project. Giga team is scattered across the world, but our blockchain team is mainly working from different locations in Europe.

You will:

• Work closely with the Product Manager and the Mapping & Tech Lead, to work on the development of Giga blockchain products (Connectivity credits platform, contract management platform, NFT collections)
• Engage with vendors and other software partners that are supporting us to build new products, API’s and distributed infrastructures worldwide
• Build new prototypes and tools that support the current Giga project, as well as scale features in existing ones
• Support and maintain, including documentation, software and products related to Giga
• Work closely with other parts of the team to explore collaboration and integration

Current Giga blockchain products:

Connectivity credits platform The pandemic has demonstrated just how important internet access now is for education and work; people who can’t get online are at significant disadvantage. Currently, 3.7 billion people in the world do not have internet access – almost half the world’s population. Connectivity credits are one possible solution. These would function like carbon credits, creating incentives for service providers and other technology companies to extend their networks to the poorest regions. Under this system, institutions such as schools would be granted credits, based on the difficulty and cost of connecting them. Network operators, internet service providers, and other partners would then collect credits as they provide connectivity. Further reading: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/how-connectivity-credits-could-help-billions-get-online/

Contracts management platform In most cases, the school connectivity is paid for by either governments or by Giga directly. Doing this at scale (with >1M schools so far) means that it’s not always practicable to validate whether the quality of service we pay for is actually delivered. Our decentralized global platform aims to change that by making the delivered quality of service public and visible, at scale. Going forward, we want to enable automated payments directly to ISPs, making it feasible to drastically scale-up the roll-out of internet globally.

Patchwork Kingdoms NFT collection We’ve partnered with data visualization scientist, designer and artist Nadieh Bremer. Bremer effectively ‘paints’ with data that Giga has collected from schools themselves, creating a unique and visually striking collection of 1,000 NFTs called the Patchwork Kingdoms. These works are inspired by real information about school connectivity, which you can see on Giga's Project Connect site.

This NFT collection was launched in January 2022, and sold out in a matter of minutes, so far generating 200 ETH for connecting schools to the Internet. More details at https://www.patchwork-kingdoms.com/.

Undisclosed NFT collection We are currently working on defining and designing the next NFT collection, which we will launch in the next 12 months. We aim to enable a closer connection between schools and individuals who care about getting schools connected.

Description of assignment:

# Tasks End Product / Deliverables Time Frame****1

Support the development of the following products:

• Connectivity Credits platform
• Contracts management platform
• Undisclosed NFT collection

Assessment of existing technology stack Month 1Test current platform & fix bugsOngoingEnhance platform and incorporate new features based on Giga/Project Connect roadmapMonth 2 - OngoingMaintain codebase and documentationMonth 2 - OngoingMake recommendations on technology stack moving forwardMonth 42

Coordinate work of vendors and SW partnersWrite technical requirements and other documentsMonth 3 - OngoingCoordination with vendors and SW partnersOngoingReview code created by vendors and SW partnersOngoing3

Build new prototypes and tools that support Giga, and expand features to existing onesIterate on existing tools and add new features to them (i.e. crowdsourcing tools, internet measurement tools)OngoingBuild new prototypesMonth 6, Ongoing4

Support and maintain, including documentation, SW products related to GigaMaintain codebase and documentationOngoingTesting and bug fixingOngoingWrite blogposts and experiences to promote the work within the open source communityMonth 5, 115Completion of contractFinal handover reportMonth 11.5To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• University degree in Computer Science or related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of relevant professional experience in software development, with at least two (2) years of experience in blockchain development
• Experience working as part of a fully staffed scrum team.
• Experience in building software prototypes and extensible APIs.
• Strong knowledge of ethereum-like blockchains and ability to design and implement smart contracts.
• Understanding of both fungible and non-fungible tokens.
• Having built public smart contracts or web3 apps is a great advantage.
• Good knowledge of a scripting language such as JavaScript will be highly useful.
• Experience with one or more language for backend development.
• Experience with relational databases.
• Experience with cloud services, like AWS, Azure.
• Knowledge of computer networks and understanding how ISP (Internet Service Providers) work is an asset.
• Experienced and comfortable with remote team dynamics, process, and tools (Slack, Zoom, etc.).
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency conditions is considered an asset..
• 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 details and further considerations

• Monthly payment, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

The competencies required for this consultancy are:

• Innovates and embraces change – L2
• Drive to achieve results for impact – L2
• Works collaboratively with others – L2

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.