Consultancy - Product Manager (Frontier Tech), Remote, Office of Innovation, Part-Time (3 days/week for 6 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, 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 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 in order 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.

UNICEF's Innovation (Venture) Fund is a pooled funding vehicle 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 also learn about and guide these technologies to benefit children. We invest in solutions that can impact the lives of the most vulnerable children. The Innovation Fund’s Data Science and Artificial Intelligence portfolio is composed of a set of companies that develop solutions that bridge learning or connectivity gaps towards employability.

The Office of Innovation currently co-hosts the Secretariat for the Digital Public Goods Alliance, established in follow-up to the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. In its report, the Panel recommends as 1B “that a broad, multi-stakeholder alliance, involving the UN, create a platform for sharing digital public goods, engaging talent and pooling data sets, in a manner that respects privacy, in areas related to attaining the SDGs”. Norway, Sierra Leone, UNICEF and iSPIRT, the four initial champions are working to implement this recommendation.

How can you make a difference?

UNICEF Ventures is looking for a consultant to provide product and project management support to various technical products on the team.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Product Manager for an open toolkit of AI-based solutions to accelerate learning outcomes
• Product management support for toolkits and products produced under various frontier technology areas
• Provide technical guidance to the Venture Fund team on select application stages for start-ups

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields: Education, Technology, International Development, Business Administration and/or another relevant field. *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 eight (8) years of relevant professional experience in education, innovation in learning or innovation in international development and/or other related fields.
• Proven experience of developing and scaling EdTech solutions, ideally within lower resource contexts and ideally with an understanding of open source licensing.
• Demonstrable understanding (and ideally experience) of how frontier technology (particularly AI and Machine Learning) can be applied to EdTech solutions.
• Work experience working (and ideally innovating) with and for children in resource poor environments.
• A strong understanding of UNICEF programmes, policy, and principles.
• Ability to manage relationships with UNICEF Country and Regional Offices, programmes and partners, including government, universities, UN organizations, NGOs and the private sector.
• Demonstrated experience in developing and negotiating partnerships.
• Proven capacity to communicate effectively across different mediums to engage and influence complex stakeholders (including senior stakeholders) in order to deliver against challenging targets.
• Proven capacity to work with collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills
• Experience of innovation portfolio management or innovation governance is desirable.
• Experience in knowledge sharing, capacity building or training for innovation is desirable.
• Fluency (written and oral) in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is considered 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 Daily Subsistence Allowance (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 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. The candidate may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid).