Back Program Lead (with United Nations Technology Innovation Labs)

Background

The UN-OICT UNTILare designed to move humanity forward, faster by focusing on the use of innovative technology to solve some of humanity's most pressing needs.

Recognizing that innovation plays a critical role in moving the United Nations forward and acknowledging that the United Nations’ ability to innovate and engage in partnerships will be a significant factor in the efforts to successfully implement the SDGs (and the broader mandates of the United Nations), the programme is designed to support the journey to review, build, adapt and implement technology solutions to address problems that the Member States are facing.

To engage the gears of innovation proactively, the United Nations Office of information and Communication Technology (OICT) is establishing “United Nations Technology Innovation Labs” . Using cutting-edge frontier technology currently available, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, internet of things, fintech, and the use of drones to answer Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) challenges, UN-OICT aims at using technological innovation to resolve day to day issues. In line with the ICT Strategy (A/69/517) approved by the UN General Assembly at its 69th session, OICT is establishing new Labs locations in Europe, Africa 

and Asia. Labs in other regions are planned for a second implementation phase in response to specific Member State’s host requests.

In 2015, the 193 United Nations (UN) the Member States adopted 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The SDGs cover a broad set of challenges such as economic inclusion, diminishing natural resources, geopolitical instability, environmental degradation, and the multi-faceted impacts of climate change. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years and they define the agenda for inclusive economic growth through to 2030.

The rapid advancement of technology in the past decade has changed the way organizations operate. UN General Assembly in its resolution 68/220[1] recognizes the vital role that science, technology, and innovation, including environmentally sound technologies, can play in the development and in facilitating efforts to address global challenges. To improve on the delivery of UN mandates to create meaningful impact, a programme was designed to leverage on the latest technology and harness global expertise and effort for the development of open source solutions, tools, and services to achieve the SDGs. This unified innovation programme is being by the United Nations Office for Information and Communication and Technologies (UN-OICT).

UN-OICT and UNDP have partnered with MaGIC of the Malaysian government to establish a lab at Cyberjaya, Malaysia. The mission of UNTIL Malaysia is to build solutions to needs related to UN mandates, namely in SDGs, for several thematic areas that are central to Malaysia and the region.. All solutions will be based on open-source standards, will use open data, and will eventually be available to all UN Member States.

This specific assignment of Program Lead is to engage as an expert who will help UN-OICT to build a technology ecosystem in the country and in the region. He/She will provide technical leadership in the UNTIL Malaysian program, the SharePoint projects, and the upcoming projects under the agreed thematic areas.

Each program initiative is based on different humanitarian themes that are central to the needs of each individual Labs specific geolocation. The Labs will use AI, Blockchain, IoT and other high-tech tools to develop technology solutions that will be open source and available globally to all Member States once operational.

Duties and Responsibilities

The goal of the UN Technology Innovation Labs is to function as a start-up environment and create a platform for collaborative problem solving between UN resources, the Private sector, Academia, and Civil Society.  Each Lab will facilitate linking this platform with innovators and mentors from across the globe as well as to facilitate the global exchange of ideas and resources. UNTIL will function as a Laboratory and tool, offering advisory support and guidance that will facilitate problem-solving through hands-on-workshops, immersion-learning, and incubated projects.

Each Lab will focus on specific thematic areas of concern to the host country.  Themes will not be duplicated to the extent possible in other global Labs, but technology will be shared and transferred creating an ecosystem of innovative technology tools and testbeds for proof of concepts.  UNTIL Malaysia will focus on four different thematic areas:  Ethical fashion, Sustainable Tourism, Smart cities – Circular Economy, and Financial Inclusion.

Within delegated authority, the “Program Lead” will be responsible for the following duties:

• Create highly scalable, flexible and resilient architectures that address business problems
• Provide solutions and technical architecture for medium to Large SharePoint sites
• Manage the team of developers and guide them to achieve delivery goals.
• Maintain the quality of the technical delivery team work outputs.
• Works closely with Architect on designing and Building a SharePoint platform for tracking Annual Work Plan (AWP), procurement, and Hiring modules.
• Manage the team of UI designers to implement attractive designs.
• Collaborate with team members to consistently improve functionality and user-friendliness of the web applications
• Stay up-to-date on emerging front-end technologies
• Collaborate with Designers and Developers to create intuitive, user-friendly homepages
• Combine interfaces and workflows to enhance user experience.
• Maintain the quality of the UI/UX delivery team work outputs.
• Ensure projects have accurate estimates, meet provided timelines, and fulfill requirements
• Develop technical specification documents and technology rollout plans.
• Deliver end-user training and related documentation.
• Plan and deploy the deliverables to the live environment.
• Support and maintain the delivered project to achieve very high customer satisfaction.
• Deliver weekly progress reports with all the accomplished tasks and outcomes.

DURATION

• 4 months assignment, with a possibility of extension. Start date May 18, 2020.

4 months assignment, with a possibility of extension. Start date May 18, 2020.

Terms of Payment:

• Monthly payments    100%

• Submission and approval of timesheets;
• Submission and approval of 4/5 weekly reports every month.

Monthly payments    100%

Deliverables & Timeline:

Month 1:-

• Requirements analysis: Vision & business case, Stakeholder agreement on Scope definition
• Feasibility Study: Analyse business needs and document requirements
• Risk list & mitigation strategies: identify all project risks/ mitigation plans.
• Software development plan: detailed project work plan, with milestones

Month 2:-

• Design phase: design one or more POC prototypes to support the vision
• Technical architecture: high-level diagram
• Functional & Technical Specification: Identify supporting portal features
• Complete system design: design model and data model

Month 3:-

• Creative design: UI design, and templates
• Clickable mockups for users to see before development
• Prototypes development: executable architectural prototypes to explore critical functionality
• Testing: Use cases, Test scenarios, and test plan

Month 4:-

• QA testing plan & Performance tuning
• Production deployment roll-out plan
• System release plan and release notes
• Training: User guides and user training plan

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Technical Proposal:

• Explain in a cover page (maximum 2 pages) how candidate’s qualification and experience in research makes them suitable for the work and can lead towards the successful deliverable of the two objectives of this consultancy within the required timeframe.
• Please provide latest CV with 3 referee's name and email address that is related to work. 

Financial proposal:

Specify a daily fee amount which is all inclusive and take into account various expenses the candidate expects to incur during the contract.

Professional fee

Description

Daily rate

NO of days per month

Amount (USD)

Maximum professional fee

 20

UNDP makes payments based on the actual number of days worked. Payments must be supported by duly completed time sheet

Competencies

• Ability to manage a technical development team.
• Ability to mentor and give directions to the team of developers and testers to deliver on time with high-quality standards.
• Ability to identify issues, analyze, and participate in the resolution.
• Ability to apply judgment in the context of assignments given, plan own work, and manage conflicting priorities. 
• Shows pride in work and in achievements.
• Incorporating fair gender equalities in all areas of work.
• Ability to Speak and write clearly and effectively
• Ability to listen and interpret messages from others to response appropriately.
• Demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.      
• Ability to develop clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies.
• Identifies priority activities and assignments; adjusts priorities as required.
• Allocates appropriate amount of time and resources for completing work.
• Ability to foresee risks, Planning, and monitoring contingencies efficiently.
• An outgoing and initiative-taking person with a goal-oriented mindset;
• Communicates effectively when working in teams and independently;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Responds positively to feedback and differing points of view;

Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Computer science, Information systems, Innovation management, or related field.

A first-level university degree in combination with qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

EXPERTISE REQUIRED

Experience: A minimum of 12+ years of professional working experience in which at least 2 years with digital transformation projects is required.

Experience in successful technology project management is required. 

Experience in managing Sharepoint portals with HR, Procurement, Finance, and Project planner modules is required. 

Professional working experience in managing, medium to large size technical IT corporate projects is required.

Professional working experience in international settings outside of your nationality is desirable.

Experience with the United Nations is highly desirable.

IT skills:

• Experience in providing solutions and technical architecture for medium to large websites for a minimum of 2 large enterprise clients is required
• Experience in Panels, Views, Features and Rules, core API, CCK/Fields along with other contributed Sharepoint modules are required
• Strong competencies in Programming, Algorithms, Distributed system, Data Structures, Design patterns, and OOPs concepts is required
• Experience in doing POC’s for resolving technological issues is required
• Possess any combination of the following languages: C++, Go, Python, Java is desirable
• Actively involve and engaged in global SharePoint work on implementing and integrating the latest improvement proposals including documenting new solutions as well as maintaining existing ones is desirable.
• Being creative and passionate for POCs in project-related research and design
• Owns the end-to-end technical implementation through different stages of its lifecycle
• Exposure on integrating third-party APIs into Web sites
• Good understanding of responsive/adaptive design and grid systems
• Help Team to foresee technical risks and come up with a mitigation plan
• Experienced with version control systems such as SVN, GIT, etc.
• Strong problem solving, communication, and front-end development skills
• Proficiency in design software and knowledge in design/administration will be an advantage.
• Strong problem solving, communication, and front-end development skills

Language skills:

• English required;
• Knowledge of other UN languages is an advantage.

How to Apply:

• Kindly download the Letter of Confirmation of interest and availability and  General Terms and Conditions;
• Complete the Letter of interest attached financial proposal (as per the requirements mentioned above);
• Read and agree to the General Terms & Conditions;
• Click the ‘apply’ icon and complete what is required;
• Scan all documents into 1 pdf folder and then upload;
• For clarification question, please email to procurement.my@undp.org. The clarification question deadline is three (3) days before the closing. When emailing for clarification questions, please put "MyIC/2020/021" as the subject matter.

Forms and General terms & conditions to be downloaded:

• The UN Personal History Form (P11) is available at:http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/P11%20for%20SC%20&%20IC.doc?download
• The Letter of Confirmation of Interest at: http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/Letter%20of%20Interest%20_Annex%201.docx?download
• The General Terms & Conditions for Individual contract is available at:http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/General%20Conditions%20of%20Contract%20for%20IC.pdf?download 
• The General Terms & Conditions for Reimbursement Loan Agreement is available at:http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/Reimbursable%20Loan%20Agreement%20_%20Terms%20&%20Conditions.pdf?download 

Evaluation:

Individuals will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individuals whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

b) Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weight; [70%]

* Financial Criteria weight; [30%]

UNDP applies a fair and transparent selection process that will take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals. Qualified women and members of social minorities are encouraged to apply.