Antecedentes

Emerging and future digital technologies and the opportunities they offer will profoundly improve the lives of those furthest behind. Recognizing this potential, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched an organization-wide digital transformation that will splice digital into its DNA—harnessing its potential to do good for more people, better and faster. UNDP’s 2019-2021 Digital Strategy has created a new UNDP Digital Unit, charged with leading the next wave of innovation in sustainable development.

UNDP is the development arm of the United Nations.  Present in 170 countries with over 17,000 people, UNDP works on the world’s biggest problems: extreme poverty, climate change, good governance, renewable energy, crisis prevention, and women’s empowerment, among others.

We are leveraging the power and agility of digital to propel all people forward, starting with digital initiative development, scaling innovation, and communicating this organizational change internally and externally. To achieve this, we need a team that's nimble, that's passionate, that has the technical skills required to help close the digital divide. Are you one of these people? Read more about our digital strategy here.

To bring digital around the globe, we need someone who can work directly with digital innovations that show a high potential for global impact to make them successful.

The position of the Digital Innovation & Scaling lead will be part of the team under Chief Digital Officer and report to the Chief Digital Officer.

Deberes y responsabilidades

The Digital Innovation & Scaling Lead is responsible for the following: 

Supporting digital innovation and impact at scale

  • Identify, develop and test digital innovations globally within UNDP, leveraging ideas generated by Accelerator Labs and other innovation stakeholders
    • Assess use cases and internal processes in order to identify innovation opportunities aligned with UNDP digital strategy.
    • Coach teams working on innovations during ideation and product design
    • Advise teams working on innovations on key decisions regarding product features and technology options
    • Provide project management support, including supporting the development of innovative solutions
    • Support product testing and improvements as required
    • Source innovations in collaboration with relevant business units and needs.
  • Connect stakeholders as necessary across UNDP involved in digital innovation (Country Offices, Regional Bureaux, Accelerator Labs, etc)
  • Lead the development and implementation of scale up and scale out strategies within UNDP and partner agencies

Manage and coordinate digital and innovation support services

  • Support the growth, management and delivery of a global digital response service for UNDP.
  • Develop and coordinate team(s) to provide appropriate digital capacity.
  • Balance competing demands and priorities to ensure alignment with broader agreed visions.
  • Structure and manage requests for support.

Innovation Portfolio Management

  • Actively employ a portfolio management approach to ensure that the innovation pipeline, inclusive of emerging (“fuzzy front end”) technology, supports and responds to SDG and UNDP digital strategy
  • Align innovation pipeline and portfolio with strategy and ensure sufficiency of plans to deliver strategic targets and goals. (e.g. Early Strategic Alignment review of new digital initiatives)
  • Support innovation scaling by working to expand existing and future digital initiatives throughout UNDP region, countries and partners.
  • Interact and collaborate effectively with relevant UNDP partners and agencies.
  • Dynamically evolve portfolio strategy and manage portfolio performance to changing needs of diverse stakeholders within the UNDP and UN eco-system.

Staff and Leadership Development in Innovation

  • Provide advice and support for digital innovators across UNDP in frontier technologies and digital innovation processes
  • As part of the digital team, work to create conditions for a culture of innovation and strengthen this  competency amongst UNDP stakeholders (Bureaux / Country Offices)
  • Support with specific innovation and digital partnerships and collaborations with solution providers.

Innovation Tracking, KPI management

  • Define key performance indicators and milestones for individual initiatives, the portfolio and team performance.
  • Monitor impact measures and adjust initiatives accordingly.

Competencias

Core

Innovation

Ability to make new and useful ideas work Level 5: Creates new and relevant ideas and leads others to implement them

Leadership

Ability to persuade others to follow Level 5: Plans and acts transparently, actively works to remove barriers

People Management

Ability to improve performance and satisfaction Level 5: Models high professional standards and motivates excellence in others

Communication

Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform Level 5: Gains trust of peers, partners, clients by presenting complex concepts in practical terms to others

Delivery

Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement 

Technical/Functional

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

• Ability to build strong and sustainable relationships and capability to interact at all levels within the organization.

• Ability to deliver in a high pressure environment

• Ability to handle complex situations and multiple responsibilities simultaneously, mixing long-term projects with the urgency of immediate demands.

• Ability to collaborate with and achieve actionable results

• Ability to develop digital initiatives and oversee the development of long-term plans and proposals to support business objectives

• Ability to challenge, convince and manage multiple stakeholders

• Ability to effectively drive business, culture, and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment.

• Strong business acumen; understands the key financial drivers and dynamics related to growth and revenue goals

• Full knowledge of project, risk and operations management

• Ability to formulate and allocate budgets

• Strong conceptual thinking to develop new strategies & innovative projects

• Self-motivated and able to work with a high degree of autonomy

• Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of UNDP and the SDGs

 

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

  • Masters Degree in fields related to Business Administration, Public Administration or Management, Computer Science, Innovation Management or equivalent.
  • A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

  • At least 8 years of professional experience in innovation management and/or digital product development at a senior level
  • Deep understanding of traditional and emerging technology innovations (e.g. mobile apps, blockchain, artificial intelligence)
  • Working knowledge of cloud computing, business intelligence and analytics, Agile, lean startup, and DevOps methodologies
  • Strong understanding of the human-centered design and lean startup methodologies.
  • Proven track record in driving projects - effectively delivering impactful elements of projects in fast-moving environment, ideally for new businesses, new business models, startups.
  • History of successful intra/entrepreneurship in a high growth environment.
  • Experience in supporting innovations to scale within large organizations and change management.
  • Practical experience of innovation management within the UN and/or international development environment.
  • Able to generate new and original solutions to complex problems

Language Requirements:

  • Excellent knowledge of English, as well as writing, presentation, and communication skills. Fluency in other UN languages is an asset

Application Procedure 

The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):

Personal CV
Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on the Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below.  Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring.  When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.
 

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points)

  • Demonstrated experience and deep understanding of technology innovations (e.g. mobile apps, blockchain, artificial intelligence) (Maximum points: 20 points)
  • Working knowledge of human-centered design and innovation/scaling process (Maximum:20 points)
  • Demonstrated experience in working with  multicultural and remote teams ( Maximum 10 points)
  • Demonstrated experience in a social mission-driven organization with a global scale. (Maximum points: 10 points)
  • Interview (10 points)

Candidates with a minimum scored of 49 points (70% of 70 points) will be short-listed for the financial evaluation, and an interview may be needed.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest-priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated

 

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.

The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily fee (based on an 8-hour working day with 1-hour lunch included - and an estimated 21.75 days per month).
The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including the daily professional fee; the cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities, and consumables; life, health, and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.
 

The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into a contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of Digital Innovating & Scaling Lead and will be responsible for the fulfillment of the deliverables as specified above.

Payment modality

Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted, and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.

 

 

 

 

 

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 -  UNDP P11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template