If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

UNICEF, is strategically advancing in the use and generation of new sources of real-time information, forecasting intelligence and transformative data technologies to better inform decision makers in the development and humanitarian ecosystem. It is working as well on ensuring data technologies are fit to create a fairer and more equitable world, with the best interest of children at their core.

UNICEF's Frontier Data Tech Unit (FDTU) is a hands-on team of researchers, engineers and data practitioners within the Chief Data Officer (CDO) office to strategically help advance this vision. With a strong focus on actionable and sustainable data science innovation, FDTU relies on and promotes actionable communities of practice, within UNICEF and externally, for a new generation of talent and technologies able to support data-driven and science-based decision making and a more equitable, fair and fulfilling future for children and humanity.

FDTU is also a core part of UNICEF´s Frontier Data Tech Network (FDN), UNICEF’s new initiative to create a global community of practice able to advance and use frontier data technologies for the most vulnerable. FDN, pioneered with the seeding support from the Spanish Government, is already building 3 regional nodes, has close to 200 practitioners worldwide at UNICEF and collaborations with multiple academia and research institutions. FDN works to connect resources and talent down to where they are needed on the ground and to curate the most critical challenges of humanitarian and development work up to the frontiers of scientific advance.

UNICEF´s Frontier Data Tech Team is seeking to hire an exceptional researcher identify key areas of work, drive analysis and research on key portfolio areas such as AI for climate change, humanitarian action, generative AI, algorithmic equity or public health emergencies and support key scientific engagements, mobilization and collaborations. An impact driven, creative and team player person with initiative, technical expertise and writing skills that can help us identify and achieve impact, relevance, opportunity and potential partners through research and applied science.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

Scope of Work

Specific tasks

Task 1

With internal and external experts (and listening to and taking advantage of UNICEF’s frontier data network) identify, curate, develop and structure the most impactful scientific and applied science questions on frontier data technologies to develop key portfolio areas for children such as climate change, humanitarian action, generative AI, algorithmic equity or public health emergencies and for key scientific engagements and mobilization... analyzing impact, relevance, opportunity moment, potential partners and stakeholders.

*Deliverable*****: Portfolio report and Analysis. Concept notes.

Task 2

With internal and external experts and based on identified key portfolio questions develop specific scientific proposals, challenges and project plans to work with key scientific partners and for mobilizing key scientific partners and communities towards specific impact areas. e.g. of Spanish/European with Latin America talent mobilization and collaboration.

*Deliverable*****: Scientific proposals, project plans (including plans for scientific mobilization and frontier data challenges.

Task 3

Develop materials for communication and dissemination of scientific areas, efforts and priorities: blogposts, presentations.

*Deliverable*****: Blogposts, presentations, 1-pagers/concept notes.

Task 4

With internal and external collaborators, and in coordination with the science team: Develop impact science. Understanding impact as both, 1) on the ground impact: applied science that has a direct and important impact on the ground and the way UNICEF works and 2) scientific impact: scientific findings and studies that provide a transformative view to a frontier data tech area. Scientific efforts are expected to be collaborative, peer-reviewed and submitted to high impact journals.

Deliverable: Data analysis. Data sets. Code. Data system. Camera ready draft. Published peer-reviewed paper.

Task 5

Develop events for positioning UNICEF frontier data tech and engaging scientific talent and frontier data tech communities on UNICEF’s relevant aspects: workshops on key scientific conferences (Complex Systems Scoiety, NeurIPS, NetSci, SIGCHI…), video/podcast/talk series with key speakers.

Deliverable: Technical organization of workshops/conferences and of scientific videos/podcasts/talks.

Qualifications

(1) Education

PhD degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, or equivalent degree.

(2) Work experience

8 years of relevant experience in Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence/LLM, Network Science, Computational optimization, Complex Systems, Data Science or Natural Language processing.

(3) Competencies

Fluency in English. Advanced skills in Spanish will be desirable.
Ability to work with a diverse team in a rapidly changing work environment.
Strong writing and data visualization skills are needed.

Requirements****:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system
Upload copy of academic credentials
Financial proposal that will include:
- the costs per each deliverable and the total all-inclusive (lump-sum) fees for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
- travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
- Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, as applicable.
- Indicate your availability
Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory 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.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

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:

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 11 months ago - Updated 10 months ago - Source: unicef.org