Education Technology Innovation Specialist at the International Rescue Committee (IRC)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) 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, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Education Technology Innovation Specialist

Requisition ID: req29476
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Employment Type: Full Time
Employment Category: Regular
Sector: Education

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 the potential to serve humanitarian needs.
• This is the result of Nigeria’s large market economy and because most of the country (including urban areas) faces 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

• We are 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 to 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 in 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 of developing exciting new educational programming in Nigeria, scope existing solutions globally and locally, and manage existing GRIP initiatives in the country.
• The successful candidate will report to the Education Coordinator in Nigeria and coordinate with the global Education GRIP Led to support the 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

Regional innovation partnerships & convening:

• Build and maintain a network of the 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.

Program & Project Management:

• Manage delivery across several projects with 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 project 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.

Business development:

• 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 (e.g. remote management), make this additive to the base language here.

• Hire, supervise, and build the capacity of team members in relevant technical and management competencies.
• Develop and implement remote management capacity-building approaches to build the strengths of the team in Syria.
• Coach, train, supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting annual performance objectives, providing regular and timely positive and constructive performance feedback, and providing documented semi-annual performance reviews.
• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.
• Approve and manage all time, attendance and leave requests to ensure adequate departmental coverage; ensure monthly, accurate timesheet submission and carry out probationary reviews.
• Hold high-quality meetings with each direct report on a regular and predictable basis, at least monthly.
• Provide a measurable development plan including on-the-job learning with the aim of strengthening technical capacity, exchanging knowledge within the team and providing guidance on career paths.
• As required identify staff performance issues and work with Human Resources to document and address these in accordance with the National Staff Employment Policies.
• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.
• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being. Model healthy work-life balance practices. Support appropriate interventions in response to identified staff care needs of both national and international staff.
• Look for opportunities to support staff in their career growth, where appropriate. As part of a succession plan and nationalization goals, identify, train and develop the capability and capacity of national staff to successfully transition roles and responsibilities, by the end of the assignment.
• Adhere to and act in accordance with the IRC Global HR Policies and Procedures, and communicates through word and example a high standard of compliance with all applicable policies and regulations.

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:

Qualifications
Education/Work Experience:

• Preferably a Master's Degree in Education Technology, Bachelor’s Degree in Education, International Development or a related field.
• 4-5 years of experience delivering projects and programs ideally in an NGO or social enterprise setting.
• Experience in working with cross-functional digital teams.
• Experience in delivering innovation projects (ideally education technology and innovation ones) end-to-end, on time, on budget and to a high quality.
• Experience in financial management at project and program levels.
• Good understanding of, and experience with, project planning software and a range of cloud-based technologies (esp Asana, Mavenlink, Hubspot & Excel)
• Enjoys collaborative working, flexible structures and working with a geographically dispersed team.
• Ability to multi-task and move quickly between projects through effective prioritization.
• Organized and with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to apply a diversity and inclusion lens and approach to work.
• Cares about the mission and goals of the IRC.

Desirable:

• Preferred experience working in education in humanitarian contexts.
• Preferred experience creating or incubating digital solutions.
• Experience in working on projects with a diverse range of non-profit, commercial and entrepreneurial stakeholders.

Demonstrated Technical Skills:

• Demonstrated Managerial/Leadership Competencies: N/A

Languages:

• English
• Hausa or Kanuri is desirable 

Computer/Other Tech Requirements:

• Full professional competency in Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.  Add position-specific (e.g. accounting software, statistical software, etc.).

Ability to Travel:

• 30% of the 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, colour, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.