Consultancy 12 months: Giga Pilot Project Coordinator (Connectivity Credits), Geneva, Switzerland

UNICEF is seeking for a Pilot Project Coordinator (Connectivity Credits) to join Giga, a UNICEF-ITU initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in the establishment of the Connectivity Credits system. Tasked with being a bridge between on-the-ground implementation in specific pilot countries, and a digital product team that is building a scalable global marketplace, this role is key to ensuring that what the Connectivity Credits becomes is based on learnings from real users and stakeholders in countries.
Success in this role will mean that Connectivity Credits is proven as a viable and attractive method for financing local, small ISPs that can connect the second half of the world, enabling enhanced educational and socioeconomic opportunities in underserved communities worldwide.

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, Connectivity 

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 start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

About Giga

Launched in 2019 as a joint initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has set the ambitious goal to connect every school in the world to the internet. Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This has created a digital divide between those who are connected and those who are not, a divide that has become even wider during the Covid-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU have therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet and address this new form of inequality.

Giga focuses on connecting schools so that children and young people have access to information, opportunity, and choice. It also uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities: if you connect the school, you can also connect local businesses and services. This creates opportunities for service providers to generate revenue from paying users, making connectivity more sustainable. A 2021 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.

Based in Switzerland with an open-source technology centre in Barcelona, Giga not only aims to provide children and young people with access to information but also envisions schools as anchor points to uplift entire communities.

Giga is building a Connectivity Credits system. Connectivity Credits are envisioned as a fast and efficient mechanism to enable (small) internet service providers to connect schools in underserved areas. ISPs automatically earn Credits every time they connect a school and can redeem these Credits for a variety of incentives, including subsidies, tax reliefs, or infrastructure access – through respective Ministry of Finance or regulatory bodies, subject to individual country determinants.

The Connectivity Credits system includes many innovative elements which reinvent traditional financing and procurement in order to be ‘fit to size’ for small, local ISPs. These elements are being tested in a number of in-country pilot projects. The learnings from these pilots are integrated into the Connectivity Credits system.

You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaglobal

How can you make a difference? 

The Pilot Project Coordinator plays a crucial role in making the Connectivity Credits pilots successful in-country, and connecting the learnings of what works into iterations of the Connectivity Credits product. This role demands enthusiasm for implementing innovative projects on the ground and translating those learnings into implications for a global system.

This role will be an important bridge between the Connectivity Credits product team, government stakeholders (such as Ministries of Finance, Ministries of Education, Universal Service Funds and regulators), and internet service providers. It is expected that the Pilot Project Coordinator will be frequently travelling to countries piloting Connectivity Credits (primarily in Africa).

Key responsibilities include:

Project planning and implementation

• Establish a coherent project plan for each pilot in coordination with in-country stakeholders, setting clear milestones, and ensuring timely execution across different teams and stakeholders.
• Proactive and resourceful problem-solving to overcome challenges in pilots when they come up.
• Coordinate closely with the product team and other team members, aligning on rollout and adoption of the digital product.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication

• Foster productive relationships with Universal Service Funds, governmental bodies, and other relevant stakeholders that are piloting Connectivity Credits
• Ensure close dialogue and foster a collaborative environment of co-creation, whereby local stakeholders continuously are shaping what the Connectivity Credits team are building.

User engagement and feedback collection

• Engage with users of the Connectivity Credits (on the one hand, government administrators, and on the other hand, small local ISPs) to understand their needs and pain points.
• Approach the experience of Connectivity Credits users with genuine curiosity and interest, and champion your observations inside the Connectivity Credits team to ensure we are building a system that fits users’ needs.

Results-Oriented Execution

• Drive a results-oriented culture, working backwards from the story we want to tell with Connectivity Credits and designing pilots to demonstrate metrics that support that story.
• Monitor and evaluate project progress towards objectives, ensuring that the Connectivity Credits team is constantly adjusting achieve pilot results.

Continuous Improvement and Innovation

• Bring innovative thinking to come up with and test new ideas in lean ways that can be replicated later with technology systems.
• Constantly scan the local ecosystems for new innovations or ways of connecting the unconnected that Connectivity Credits could learn from and enable better.

Risk management and problem solving

• Employ proactive and resourceful problem-solving strategies to effectively address challenges encountered during pilot projects.
• Develop and maintain a robust network of relationships with industry and government partners to facilitate local knowledge and resources.

Please access the full Term of Reference (ToRs) and read a more detailed description of the assignment in this file in order to prepare your financial proposal and know more about the role:  Pilot Project Coordinator (Connectivity Credits) TOR.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in  Project Management, Business Administration or related degree is required
  *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 5 years of relevant professional experience in implementing innovation or technology projects, ideally in the connectivity sector
• Experience in the Telecom, Media, and Technology (TMT) sectors, with a particular focus on internet connectivity
• Experience working in emerging markets and understanding their unique challenges and opportunities.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to engage with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently, think creatively and embrace innovation in a fast-paced environment.
• High degree of professionalism, with a focus on delivering quality outcomes while nurturing a positive team dynamic
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to Geneva one time (1 trip), for a stay of 5 nights.
• The consultant is expected to travel to six Giga countries (6 trips), for a stay of 5 nights

Payment details and further considerations:

• Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed 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.
• The consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa.
• This consultancy is based in Geneva.
• UNICEF will facilitate the process for obtaining local permits exclusively for the consultant, excluding any dependents.
• For more information on Non-staff members IO based in Geneva, you can visit this link

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with an all-inclusive fee.  Please see the financial proposal template here: Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

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:  

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. 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.