Programme Specialist, P-3, 364 days, Office of Innovation, Stockholm, Sweden

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 74,649 USD and 97,747 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

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

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

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 also 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, nano-satellites, and human dynamics. With $30M raised to date, the Innovation Fund is scaling its investment portfolio with the aim of investing in 20 start-ups every year, and provides funding to CO-led projects. The current portfolio of companies consists of several cohorts developing and piloting solutions in virtual and augmented reality, data science and artificial intelligence, blockchain, UAVs, IoT, and in assistive technology.

How can you make a difference?

Under the leadership of the Programme Funding Manager, the User Experience Specialist (Innovation Fund) will work closely with the UNICEF Innovation Fund team and startups to provide UX/UI, Human Centered Design and product design support for the Innovation Fund portfolio of early stage open source frontier technology solutions, products being supported for acceleration, as well as driving UX/UI for frontier technology products developed in-house by the UNICEF Ventures team.

We seek a strong self-motivated top-level User Experience & Interaction Specialist who can maintain strong design sensibilities even under tight time constraints, who can work with a diverse interdisciplinary team to support product development and go-to-market strategies and to communicate ideas visually and who can maintain clarity in their work while juggling and prioritizing several projects at once.

Overall, this position is responsible for:

• Providing technical guidance to the Innovation Fund portfolio of startup and country office solutions on UX/UI, human centered design principles and practices
• Supporting the startup solutions receiving larger, second stage acceleration funding in developing product development and acceleration strategies
• Providing UX/UI for open source technology products developed in-house by UNICEF Ventures team, including early stage (and acceleration and scale stage
• Managing UX/UI resources

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks

1. Providing technical guidance to the Innovation Fund portfolio on UX/UI, human centered design principles and practices

• Identifying needs within the Innovation Fund portfolio
• Designing and identifying technical assistance options based on needs assessment, including basic support for early stage solutions that are receiving first round of investment from the fund, and more robust support for companies receiving larger, second stage bridge or acceleration funding
• Coordinating provision of technical assistance and ensuring that priority needs are met, including through the development of key resources and interactions

2. Supporting the solutions receiving larger, second stage acceleration funding in developing product development and acceleration strategies

• Assessing needs and prioritising UX/UI support based on opportunities for deployments with country programmes
• Advising the companies on tailoring solutions for different user groups
• Supporting companies on packaging products for growth, and on combining solutions into larger open source platforms
• Ensuring solutions have in place robust prototyping and piloting plans that capture data and insights for product development and acceleration

3. Providing UX/UI for open source technology products developed in-house by UNICEF Ventures team

• For ideas and product at an early stage the support includes identification of needs, development of initial concepts, creating and validating mockups and wireframes, producing user requirements, personas, storyboards, journey maps, scenarios, flow charts etc. to give shape to any preliminary idea
• Developing UX/UI strategies for products
• For products at acceleration and scale stage the support includes adapting design and product development to allow for acceleration and tailoring for different internal and external users

4. Managing UX/UI resources

• managing vendors and other resources to develop the early and later stage products developed in-house, as needed
• Developing and applying standards and quality assurance, based on best practices

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in interaction design, product design, human-computer interaction, information design and information architecture or other 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 five years of progressively responsible relevant professional experience in UX/UI product design experience, some of which should be in an international setting. Seven years of experience in lieu of an advanced degree.
• Strong expertise in user experience and interaction design, research and consultation for web-based designs, apps, and data information systems, information architecture and systems mapping design.
• Strong understanding of design systems and front-end architecture
• Experience in creating interactive prototypes in tools like Sketch, Adobe CC, Invision, etc.
• Preferred knowledge of capabilities and limitations of Web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS
• Experience with complex systems
• Experience in independently managing and following through multiple projects simultaneously
• Experience in coordinating activities within and across teams, including project teams for specific initiatives and use of current project management and tracking platforms and tools
• Demonstrated ability of extrapolating information from team members that can be translated in a simplified and articulate way
• A strong understanding of UNICEF programmes, goals and principles, and experience in a UNICF programme country desired
• Experience working in complex, resource poor contexts is a plus.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

Core competencies skills

• Drive for Results (3)
• Working with People (2)
• Communication (2)

Core competencies skills

• Drive for Results (3)
• Working with People (2)
• Communication (2)

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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