Job Description
The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives.
Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.
At work today in more than 40 countries and in 22 , IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster.
IRC leads the way from harm to home.
CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND
One of the impacts of COVID-19 is that an unprecedented 1.6 billion students across the world have been out of school; however, 258 million children were already out of school before the pandemic.
Half of these children live in crisis-affected countries. And while progress has been made towards achieving universal education over the past twenty years, these last mile children remain largely out of reach.
In response to this crisis, the Nigeria country team in coordination with the Education Global Research & Innovation Priority (GRIP) at Airbel Impact Lab and the Education Technical Unit will implement an innovative program in a number of crisis-affected contexts that reaches last-mile children and parents and caregivers, providing them with quality education solutions.
Unlike other emergency-constrained contexts, Nigeria has a large commercial EdTech market with solutions that address many of the infrastructure characteristics that we would normally consider unique to the humanitarian context.
This results in a large portion of existing commercial EdTech solutions with potential to serve humanitarian needs. This is the result of Nigeria’s large market economy and because most of the country (including urban areas) face similar baseline constraints as humanitarian contexts such as intermittent power, connectivity, and insecurity.
Due to this intersection, many EdTech companies already build with these conditions in mind as part of their commercial strategy.
Building for these conditions is not a humanitarian issue, so new solutions usually don’t need to be built up from the idea stage.
In Nigeria we will work with market ready companies with dual-use commercial applications to generate solutions for the humanitarian education context.
Job Overview / Summary
The IRC is seeking to hire a full time Education Technology Innovation Specialist (Edtech) in Nigeria to launch projects across our portfolio of the education Global Research & Innovation Priority (GRIP).
Our multi-disciplinary teams build, facilitate and contribute on projects that span research and ideation through to prototyping, piloting, evaluation and scaling.
Our solutions are co-created in partnership with colleagues and partners from the regions where we work.
You must be comfortable in a fast paced, collaborative and flexible working environment to help to manage the diverse, multi-disciplinary work.
Experience of working in cross-functional teams is essential.
We are looking for a self-motivated, highly organised individual with an eye for detail to support the process for developing exciting new educational programming in Nigeria, scope existing solutions globally and locally, and manage existing GRIP initiatives in country.
The successful candidate will report to the Education Coordinator in Nigeria and coordinate with the global Education GRIP Led to support delivery of the programs.
The successful candidate will be responsible for managing a number of programme budgets, project / resource management and reporting.
Major Responsibilities
The Innovation Specialist (EdTech) will be an integral part of the Nigeria Country team, and will work collaboratively with the Airbel Research & Innovation team and the Education Technical Unit (TU) at various stages of innovation and research.
EdTech solution scaling and thought leadership
Oversee EdTech pilots in coordination with the technology, education and humanitarian partners, while building roadmaps to scale
Ensure solutions identified have global relevance and opportunities for replication and scale
Support further understanding of localized student and teacher needs for education, preferably in humanitarian contexts
Landscape existing EdTech solutions in the global and local markets
Build and maintain a network of innovation process and education solution partners who can support the development of new educational products and services.
This includes individuals, collectives, implementers, consultancies and startups.
Work with local innovators in Nigeria, the Airbel team and other key internal & external stakeholders (remote and / or in person) to plan, facilitate and synthesize design sprints, incubators and accelerators to spur innovative projects, while ensuring alignment and synergies across projects and with broader GRIP strategic goals.
Lead a humanitarian EdTech challenge prize from inception & design to mentoring & pilots with the selected edtech partners.
Manage delivery across several projectswith multi-disciplinary teams that include education, technology, design, innovation, implementation and research expertise.
Support the recruitment and hiring of team members and consultants as may be needed.
Ensure that projects are delivered to agreed goals, on time and on budget. Oversee program budget and ensure targets are being met within the team.
Support the projects procurements activities in collaboration with the Supply Chain team.
Actively participate in continuous improvement activities eg. retrospectives delivery team meetings.
Clear monitoring and reporting (monthly, quarterly and annually) against program level deliverables and KPIs.
Support business development through scoping proposals prior to inception.
Attend and represent IRC at meetings and events.
Program Development
Staff Performance Management, Learning & Development :
Required for all positions with supervisory responsibility, if special considerations are needed (), make this additive to the base language here.
Research, Learning and Analysis
Coordination & Representation
Key Working Relationships
Position Reports to : Education Coordinator
Indirect / Technical Reporting : Edu, TA, Airbel lab
Position directly Supervises : N / A
Key Internal Contacts : M&E, Grants, HR, Supply chain and Finance
Country Program : Region / Global :
Region / Global : Qualifications
Qualifications
Education / Work Experience :
Demonstrated Technical Skills :
Demonstrated Managerial / Leadership Competencies : N / A
Languages :Computer / Other Tech Requirements :
Full professional competency in Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.Add position-specific (, statistical software, etc.).
Ability to Travel : 30% of time if applicable
Standards of Professional Conduct The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way Code of Conduct.
These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Harassment-Free Workplace, Fiscal Integrity, Anti-Retaliation, Combating Trafficking in Persons and several others.
Gender Equality : IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.
Working Environment
IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
