Smart Health Infrastructure Intern

Contract

This is a Internship contract. It usually requires 0 years of experience, depending on education. More about Internship contracts.

Background

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP's policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.

UNDP is a founding co-sponsor of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and a co-sponsor of several other international health partnerships. UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development, as described in the HIV, Health and Development Strategy 2016-2021: Connecting the Dots, leverages UNDP’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.

First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Sustainable Development Goals. Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of the law and legal environments in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in intellectual property law to lower the cost of medicines and diagnostics. UNDP also works to empower and include marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV, such as sex workers, men who have sex with men and people living with HIV. Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to municipal action on SDGs, sustainable responses for Health and HIV such as improving sustainability of AIDS financing, sustainable health procurement, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for key populations.

Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in the effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multi-sectoral health and development projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time.

UNDP’s Partnership with the Global Fund

UNDP’s partnership with the Global Fund is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on SDG 3 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding. UNDP partners with countries in crisis/post-crisis situations, those with weak institutional capacity or governance challenges, and countries under sanctions. When requested, UNDP acts as interim Principal Recipient in these settings, working with national partners and the Global Fund to improve management, implementation and oversight of Global Fund grants, while simultaneously developing national capacity to be able to assume the Principal Recipient role over time. UNDP’s partnership with the Global Fund and other health partners (eg GAVI) is overseen by the Global Fund Health Implementation Support Team (Global Fund Team)., HIV, Health and Development Group, Bureau of Policy and Programme Support.

UNDP’s Support to Health Systems

UNDP has a long track record of supporting health systems in countries around the world, from sustainable procurement, to logistics management information systems, to green energy solutions in its Solar for Health portfolio. Building on this latter body of work which serves over one thousand health units, HHD Group is partnering with our Information and Technology Management (ITM) and Istanbul International Center for Private Sector and Development (IICPSD) units to bring UNDP’s own Smart Facilities models to serve health systems at this critical time of unprecedented burden.

The Smart Facilities for Health (SFH) solution is based on the integration of four elements into physical infrastructure: (1) Energy & Mobility for fully-green energy independence (2) ICT, Business intelligence & Artificial Intelligence for a built-in connectivity solution (3) Big data & Internet of Things (IoT) to enable data collection and remote or centralized monitoring and (4) Security for comprehensive cyber and physical security solutions. These four elements provide critical enabling infrastructure for health systems with immediate relevance to support COVID-19 vaccination that can be integrated across a variety of critical health system points, with a priority for large health facilities such as hospitals, medical warehouses, and laboratories.

While the relevance of SFH solutions to address chronic health systems challenges has been established, there remain some barriers to their broader application. Upgrading health infrastructure has focused on energy-only solutions (e.g., HOMER Powering Health), and where digital solutions are offered, they neglect underlying connectivity considerations (e.g., OpenLMIS, DHIS2). This has left a critical gap in the ability to assess connectivity needs to both optimize energy solutions as well as enable digital ones. Because SFHs take an integrated approach to these technologies, they play a critical role in closing this gap. Establishing a robust analytical framework to assess the impact of ICT in various healthcare settings would create the basis for a standardized SFH tool to size and scope appropriate connectivity and IoT solutions for a given context. The availability of such tools will also support broader propagation of connectivity in healthcare infrastructure beyond SFH projects and enable users to compare among various connectivity solutions to meet their health system’s needs, just as the Powering Health tool has supported the configuration of green energy solutions.

Duties and Responsibilities

The UNDP Smart Facilities for Health team is looking for a Smart health infrastructure intern. The intern will support the development of a robust assessment framework that will enable the scoping of appropriate connectivity and Smart solutions in various healthcare facility contexts. The approval of all deliverables and instructions for all activities shall be developed in coordination with the Smart Technologies for Health Systems Consultants and Senior Advisor on Smart Facilities for Health.

Under the supervision of the Senior Advisor on Smart Facilities for Health, the intern will:

• Support the development of a comprehensive analytical framework (e.g., Microsoft Excel-based questionnaire) outlining all the contexts for connectivity and IoT demand in health facilities (accounting for best practices for life sciences storage, healthcare operational excellence and digital health information systems):
  • Support desk-based research inputs and expert interviews (e.g., note-taking and synthesis), offering input based on personal expertise where appropriate
  • Support coordination of framework validation workshop with internal stakeholders
  • Support consulting team in gathering additional expert feedback on draft framework

In addition, the intern may be responsible for the following financial and administrative tasks:

• To support meeting coordination (e.g., with consultants, experts, and leadership) and note-taking
• To follow the reception of deliverables;
• To ensure the shaping of reports and documents;
• To ensure translations and synthesis.

Competencies

Competencies:

• Excellent written and spoken English skills
• Facility for technical domains relevant to Smart infrastructure such as ICT, digital solutions, Big Data or AI
• Ability to work independently and in cross-cultural environments
• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint);
• Ability to manage workload with minimum supervision and collaborate with a wide range of colleagues, while meeting deadlines
• Ability to multi-task and address competing priorities;
• Strong analytical, research, reporting and writing abilities
• Excellent interpersonal skills: being able to listen and collaborate with wide range of players, working in an international environment, being pro-active and taking initiative and responsibility

Experience

• Background in ICT, electrical engineering, AI, machine learning or related field
• Experience with international standardization (e.g., ISO) desirable
• Practical familiarity with challenging operating (e.g., low connectivity) environments is an asset
• Experience in global health or health systems preferred
• Experience in problem structuring and synthesis is desirable

Language:

• Strong spoken and written English is required;
• Knowledge of another UN language is an asset;

Required Skills and Experience

Eligibility:

Applicants to the UNDP internship programme must at the time of application meet one of the following requirements:

(a) Be enrolled in a postgraduate degree programme (such as a master’s programme, or higher);

(b) Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (such as bachelor’s degree or equivalent);

(c) Have recently graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one-year of graduation;.

The intern must submit a document of graduation if graduated.

Education:

Enrolled in or graduated from journalism, marketing, communication or other related fields

Conditions:

• UNDP interns receive a monthly stipend during the assignment based on Istanbul duty station;
• The intern can work from home;
• The intern is expected to be reasonably flexible in terms of working schedule as needed;
• The intern must provide proof of enrolment in a health insurance plan;
• The intern must provide proof of university enrolment and if graduated must submit document of graduation;
• UNDP accepts no responsibility for costs arising from accidents and/or illness or death incurred during the internship;
• Interns are not eligible to apply for, or be appointed to, any post in UNDP during the period of the internship;
• Interns are not staff members and may not represent UNDP in any official capacity;

Application Procedure

The application should contain:

• Brief Cover Letter (in English) stating interest in and qualifications for the post;

• Current and complete CV in English;

• Samples showcasing your work on 1) content creation 2) writing and/or editing, 3) design if applicable (powerpoint, graphics, reports, videos).

Please group all your documents into one single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Candidates who are selected must submit prior to the interview the following documents:

• Official document(s) confirming your education status stated in Section 4;
• Proof of medical and life/accident insurance valid for the location in which the internship will be carried out. Selected intern must have medical and life insurance.

UNDP accepts no responsibility for costs arising from accidents and/or illness or death incurred during the internship.

Interns are not staff members and may not represent UNDP in any official capacity.

Subsequent Employment

The purpose of the Internship Programme is not to lead to further employment with UNDP but to complement an intern’s studies.

Therefore, there should be no expectation of employment at the end of an internship. More information available at: http://www.undp.org/internships/

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.