The UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 embraces the complexity of development and commits the organization to help countries to find faster, more durable solutions to achieve Agenda 2030. Important development trends like urbanization, climate change, and inequality pose significant challenges on our path to achieving the 2030 agenda of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNDP has begun ideating and incubating several strategic initiatives aimed at ensuring UNDP is ‘fit for purpose’ to deliver a new generation of solutions in line with the challenges the world faces. One such key strategic initiative is the Accelerator Lab Network. UNDP is building the largest and fastest learning global network of Accelerator Labs (91 labs serving 115 countries) embedded within UNDP’s global presence. The new offering builds on the latest thinking from the fields of complexity science, leads user innovation, and collective intelligence to accelerate development impact.

UNDP Accelerator Lab India seeks to contract an intern to assist the team in curating and building robust data processing pipelines to analyze data from cloud-based global geospatial datasets. In addition to this, the intern will support the team in documenting the data engineering processes of specific datasets in a public GitHub repository. .

UNDP has partnered with the Government of Telangana to jointly initiate the NextGenGov ‘Data for Policy’ initiative on Food Systems. The aim is to incorporate anticipatory governance models for future-fit food systems in Telangana using data-driven policymaking tools and ecosystem-driven approaches. UNDP is keen on augmenting learning capabilities, increasing the predictive or anticipatory capacity to feed into evidence-driven policies in the state, and create radical traceability and transparency across the system from producers to consumers by building provenance documentation around food that can help build trust in the system at the same time nurture sustainable and healthy practices. The goal is to design, develop and demonstrate anticipatory governance models for food systems in Telangana using digital public goods and community- centric approaches to strengthen data-driven policy making in the state.

The DiCRA platform is envisioned as a Digital Public Good that will strategically feed into data-driven decision- making in the state. The platform will have the capability to visualize and analyze high-resolution geospatial data (both vector as well as raster layers). The digital platform will curate, integrate and visualize such critical datasets and assets to answer the basic question of - What is growing where? How much is there and the spatial and temporal changes within the state across various indicators relevant to Agriculture and Food Systems? The platform should be able to visualize over time the changes that have happened to the agriculture ecosystem in terms of crop diversity, changes in soil/groundwater, tree cover, and other indicators at a higher resolution to support policy decisions. Such a synthesis of data and analytics can help identify farms that are doing exceptionally well (Positive Deviance) through which repositories of good practices and indigenous knowledge can be documented. This also helps in identifying farms that are not doing good as per the defined indicators (Negative Deviance).

Main responsibilities: The intern will work under the overall guidance of the UNDP Accelerator Lab team to carry out the following tasks:

1. Identify geospatial datasets available in the public domain to be integrated into the geospatial platforms that meets the quality criteria in terms of spatial and temporal availability, and are relevant to climate resilient agriculture
2. Develop robust data preprocessing and engineering pipeline to integrate identified datasets into DiCRA platform
3. Assist in visualising results and developing Data Stories (on the processed data) to be published on UNDP’s platforms and Medium
4. Coordinate with key stakeholders to develop Digital platforms as and when required.

1. Strong sense of collaborative work, excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
2. Keen attention to detail.
3. Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals; solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise;
4. Is willing to learn from others; places team agenda before personal agenda.
5. Supports and acts in accordance with final group decision, even when such decisions may not entirely reflect own position

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

a) The candidate should have a minimum of a Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Data Science, Geography, Environmental Studies, Statistics or related discipline.

b) Or Candidates in the final year and about to complete Master’s degree or pursuing PhD in the above academic disciplines can also apply.

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

d) Be enrolled in a postgraduate professional traineeship program and undertake the internship as part of this program.

e) Candidates with Data Science, Machine Learning, Geographic Information Systems, Geospatial Intelligence background are preferred.

Skills

• Strong Data Analysis and Visualization abilities
• Prior experience working with GIS data
• Basic understanding of development and deployment of online data products
• Languages: Knowledge of Python for Spatial Analytics is essential.
• Experience in writing blogs, features, articles would be an asset.
• Good team player and ability to adapt to change in work environment

Key Deliverables

1. Robust pipelines for preprocessing of geospatial datasets
2. Datasets integrated into UNDP’s geospatial platforms
3. Deliver quick demos and trainings to key stakeholders as required
4. Documentation of code and workflow
5. Development of data stories and data blogs
6. Assist in data compilation, processing and presentation in a wide range of projects

Application procedure:

The application should contain:

·The completed “Internship Intern Form” available on the UNDP India website at Internship Intern Form should be completed.

• CV in English;

Please group the above two documents into one (1) single PDF document and upload document.

Candidates who are selected must submit the following documents, upon selection:

• Official letter from the University confirming enrollment in their undergraduate or graduate-level degree programme;
• 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.

Working arrangements:

• As of 1 January 2020, Interns may be given a stipend according to UNDP Internship Policy, if it is not financially supported by any institution or programme, such as a university, government foundation or scholarship programme. A stipend intended to help cover basic daily expenses related to the