Technology for Development Consultant (Community Manager), ICTD Digital Center of Excellence at UNICEF

How can you make a difference? 

We are looking for a technically capable community builder with a passion for working with open-source Technology for development(T4D) projects. The successful candidate will be able to promote open-source projects to foster, educate and engage a community of end users.

The technology for development consultant (Community manager) will also liaise with counterparts at external organizations, as necessary, for building relationships, technical documentation for open-source projects and other initiatives related to ICTD DCOE. The consultant will be responsible for creating fora and materials to advocate for RapidPro as a Digital Public Good and Infrastructure for digital messaging and notifications.

The Successful candidate will ensure that RapidPro users are engaged, aware of product improvements and aware of data best practices through regular webinars, meetings and newsletters. In addition, the community manager might be tasked with engaging with individual RapidPro users to learn about their experiences using RapidPro, support with the creation of abstracts for conferences and ensuring that users are aware of and linked to resources on how to deploy RapidPro for their use case.

The Technology for development consultant (Community manager) will also liaise with counterparts at external organizations, as necessary, for building relationships, technical documentation for open-source projects and other initiatives related to ICTD DCOE. The Consultant will also support ICTD DCOE, country office and regional office teams in leveraging the technical documentation to successfully implement programme objectives as well as in the creation of materials for advocacy and sharing outcomes with a wider audience. The consultant may be required to represent UNICEF and ICTD at meetings, conferences, and other events, as well as attend meetings with colleagues based in the field.

Scope of Work:

Summary of key functions/activities:

The consultant will undertake the following activities monthly in support of specific deliverables:

• Support RapidPro scale-up and organizational technology for development mainstreaming activities
• Work with regional Technology for Development (T4D) Business Analysts (BAs), the Health Program Division, and other stakeholders to collect, review, reorganize, and update RapidPro guidance documents, SOPs, “playbooks,” templates/tools, etc to be used by T4D BAs and/or vendors providing “RapidPro expert services” to country office (CO) colleagues
• Develop/adapt RapidPro support materials for use by DCOE RapidPro (or public goods) helpdesk staff, support materials for use by CO-based ICT staff, and materials Regional and Country office T4D staff trainings
• Author and maintain product resources
• Build, manage and grow the RapidPro community
• Build relationships and increase engagement with members of the RapidPro community
• Welcome new members and engage with community user feedback
• liaise with counterparts at UNICEF and external organizations, as necessary, to building relationships with RapidPro users
• Coordinate discussions with RapidPro hosting vendors
• Share outputs and outcomes from RapidPro working group discussions
• Organize knowledge sharing events and showcases for the work of the RapidPro community
• Create materials for advocacy and sharing outcomes with a wider audience

Maintain and expand web-based and document-based product resources for T4D tools, including:

• Product overview documents for RapidPro and related technologies (such as Superset dashboards, U-Report, Surveyor app, CasePro, and others)
• Content to drive better usage and learning, such as feature overviews, tutorials, and tips/tricks
• Content to introduce and promote exploration and analysis of data generated by RapidPro and other T4D tools
• Technical manuals for setup and configuration of software tools
• Case studies, implementation overviews, and deployment experiences with products by UNICEF and others
• Copywriter’s manual and documentation guidelines for all technical documents
• Update and maintain global content library to streamline RapidPro knowledge management and capacity building with the UNICEF RapidPro ecosystem.

Drive global recognition of RapidPro capabilities among internal and external stakeholders:

• Web content, key messages, op-eds, fact sheets, blogs, etc.
• Work with ICTD comms team, country and regional offices to develop human interest stories and/or supporting UNICEF programme staff in writing human interest stories, including through assisting with shaping story angles, providing writing tips, and supporting with the finalization of stories.
• Develops donor and fundraising content packages such as fact sheets, beneficiary testimonies, interviews, blogs, etc.
• Works with the team to develop and deliver UNICEF RapidPro newsletter in timely manner.
• Develop messages for social media platforms.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

• Bachelor’s degree in English, Journalism, Communications, or a related field
• Three to five years of professional experience in communication and writing for an external audience
• Outstanding writing skills in the English language with demonstrated ability for logical and analytical writing as well as ‘de-jargoning’ technical language for a wider audience
• Experience producing detailed technical product documentation
•  Experience working with and building open-source communities
• Attention to detail, research skills and the ability to work under strict deadlines is a must.
• Effective interactive communication
• Client service and people-oriented
• Relationship/community building
• Ability to work across time zones

In addition, the following will be considered a strong asset:

• Education/work experience in engineering/technical fields
• Humanitarian or development programme background
• Experience using and deploying RapidPro and other T4D tools.
• Familiarity with UNICEF organizational structure.
• Comfortable coordinating between multiple remote teams and stakeholders.
• Superior technical writing skills.
• Superior command of the English language.
• Experience working in low-resource settings and writing for multicultural audiences.
• Experience working with software product development teams.
• Experience in delivering guidance, technical support and mentorship to individuals, teams and groups
• Experience with processing large amounts of information and synthesizing it.
• Ability to work in a team and in a diverse work environment.

Deadline: 01 May 2023