Job Summary: Innovation Project Manager
Organisation: UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
Reports to: Chief Innovation, UNICEF Supply Division, Copenhagen.
About Us:
UNICEF Supply Division is seeking a consultant as “Innovation Project Manager” to develop and manage a number of UNICEF innovation initiatives. UNICEF’s Uganda Country office (CO) is responsible for running a number of “Technology for Development” (T4D) innovation projects and have successfully developed projects such as Ureport, Digital Drum, mTrac, as well as new projects such as RapidFTR and the Mobi-Station.
All development and roll-out takes place through the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Hub. The Innovation Hub is a physical hardware and software prototyping space. Collaboration with local and international academia, as well as industry, enables the lab to develop prototypes and solutions for rapid field testing together with UNICEF´s implementing partners in Uganda. The innovative workshop allows rapid realization of ideas and reiteration and improvement of existing solutions.
Innovation is at the heart of UNICEF Uganda, and through collaboration with UNICEF Supply Division (SD) and Programme Division (PD), many ‘in the field’ research, scouting and piloting of concepts, initiatives and solutions have occurred, allowing the organization’s innovation projects to gain important insights and discoveries, thus adding value to UNICEF’s innovation projects.
The office requires an experienced project manager to drive development, testing and scaling up of end user driven innovation projects initiated by the Uganda Innovation Hub.
Job Summary: The consultancy will be split into two halves:
Mobi-Station Project Development. Month 1-3. Driven from the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Hub, this new innovation is a solar-powered, rugged box which houses ICT equipment (computer, speakers, projector etc) to teach, train, and educate a number of different users in the field. In these early stages of development, the audience includes community health workers, parents and school children in areas such as health, hygiene and schooling.
The Mobi Station project has been developed through UNICEF´s Uganda Innovation Hub by its team of designers and hardware and software engineers. It will be ready for piloting in different regions of Uganda in January 2014 in areas of Child Protection, Health and Education. The objective of the Innovation Project Manager is to:
Take overall management of this project
Manage in-country pilot.
Plan scale implementation nationally and possibly regionally.
UNICEF Uganda Innovation Hub project assistance and management.
Month 3-6. As new, user driven innovation projects continue to be developed by the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Hub, co-ordination between the in-country work and UNICEF Headquarters will be essential to ensure efficient coordination and scaling of solutions. The role of the Innovation Project Manager will be to:
Coordinate and communicate projects with UNICEF Headquarter networks (SD, PD etc).
Provide project management assistance to the project’s development.
Key Job Deliverables:
1. Overall project management of the Mobi-Station project including:
Manage and document pilot, feedback and evaluation of Mobi-Station project.
Mapping and coordination of key stakeholders (national ministries, education sections, PD, SD etc.) to plan efficient scaling up nationally.
Provide regular project updates to project team and key stakeholders including the SD Innovation Unit.
Document methodology and lessons learned from pilot.
Keep project communicated via UNICEFinnovation.org
2. Further management of Mobi-Station project :
Discover requirements to scale solution regionally and create recommendations to larger scaled implementation in other countries/ regions, i.e. what would be required to successfully implement Mobi-Stations in other countries?
Document and set up clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for the Mobi-Station project’s scale up.
Create product and component specifications for procurement and scale-up of the Mobi-Station project.
Provide on-going and final documentation of maintenance procedures for the Mobi-Station with clearly defined (and implemented) hand-over strategy.
3. New projects and initiatives developed by the UNICEF Innovation Hub:
Provide project management assistance to new projects development.
Document and set up clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for new innovation projects initiated by the Innovation Hub Uganda.
Coordinate and communicate new projects developed by Innovation Hub Uganda with UNICEF PD and SD networks and via UNICEF innovation.org
Qualifications, Skills & Experience:
Five years professional relevant work experience holistic management of product development projects, in particular for developing regions.
A master Degree in Product Design/Engineering/Innovation or relevant discipline.
Experience in planning documenting and conducting end user research in challenging environments.
Knowledge of innovative use of technologies in developing countries.
Experience in monitoring and evaluation (M+E) of implemented solutions.
Knowledge of the environment UNICEF operates, and understanding of the constraints of working in difficult geographical locations.
Personal Competencies:
Demonstrated communication and relationship building skills.
Excellent oral and written presentation skills.
Proven capacity to work with and lead collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills.
Experience in budgeting and coordinating large scale projects.
How to Apply:
All qualified candidates are requested to submit:
Cover letter/application.
Financial quote for consultancy at a monthly rate in US Dollars excluding all taxes.
Updated CV.
Examples of previous, relevant work.
Proposed methodology/approach to managing Mobi Station project pilot and scale-up.
References
P 11 form (which can be downloaded from our website at http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/index_53129.html ).
All candidates should send their applications to: innovateforchildren@unicef.org / ugderecruit@unicef.org with subject line “Innovation Project Manager: Uganda.” Please indicate your availability to undertake the terms of reference above.
Deadline: 25th November 2013 by 5:00p.m CET.
