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Job Opportunity: Junior Professional Officer – Software Developer at Pulse Lab Kampala

About Pulse Lab Kampala:
Pulse Lab Kampala is the third Lab of the United Nations (UN) Global Pulse network and is the first of its kind in Africa. UN Global Pulse is an innovation initiative on big data launched by the UN Secretary-General.

Its vision is a future in which big data is harnessed safely and responsibly as a public good.

Its mission is to accelerate discovery, development and adoption of innovations, leveraging big data and in real-time analysis, to enhance the quality of analysis that is used by decision makers in development and humanitarian action.

Pulse Lab Kampala opened doors last year as an inter-agency initiative under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator to support the UN system and the Government of Uganda. The Lab serves as a regional hub that engages with partners to advance new and exciting data innovations. These innovations leverage big data and real-time analytics in support of the implementation of the Global Goals.

The main expected output for the first and second year of the assignment is: Support the definition, design and implementation of research projects harnessing Big Data to improve both understanding of population behavior, needs, and vulnerabilities as well as capacity to monitor and evaluate the impacts of development polices and programmes.

Job Description: 
The Junior Professional Officer (JPO) will be working primarily with the technical team at the Lab composed of the Data Scientist, the Data Engineer, the Junior Data Engineer, the Data Science Officer, the Visualizations Expert, and the team members of the “radio project”. The technical team works in close collaboration with students and professors at Universities in Uganda and around the globe.

Currently, research projects are conducted in close collaborations with Makerere University in Uganda, Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Sheffield University and University of Edinburg in the United Kingdom and Politécnica University of Madrid.

The JPO will also participate in the regular exchanges and collaborations with the technical teams in the Global Pulse Labs in New York and Jakarta.

As part of the UNDP JPO programme overall framework, the JPO will benefit from the following training and learning opportunities:

  • Participation in a two-week long Programme Policy and Operations Induction Course in New York within the first 3 to 6 months of assignment
  • Use of yearly JPO duty-related travel and training allocation (DTTA), as per the online DTTA guide
  • Other training and learning opportunities, as presented in the UNDP JPO Orientation Programme

In addition, the JPO will benefit from the following specific training and learning modalities/opportunities in the receiving office: A culture of knowledge-sharing in the UN Global Pulse network; A monthly virtual meeting of all technical staff in the Lab network in which members exchange information on the technical projects that are implemented by each Lab; Regular bilateral exchanges among team members that are developing similar technical components of projects; Project implementation in collaboration with academic groups around the world that exchange knowledge with the technical team. Additionally, the network exchanges views and relevant information via a Skype group on a daily basis.

Duties and Responsibilities
Support Data innovation:

  1. Perform and contribute to data studies and data discovery around new data sources or new uses for existing data sources.
  2. Assist in developing new approaches to detecting events and trends within real-time data sources such as online media, social networks, imagery, geospatial data, communications logs, transaction records.

Support Data analysis:

  1. Support the team in the development of systems for classifying content and organizing databases.
  2. Support the design and implementation of statistical data quality procedures around new data sources.
  3. Support the develop and use software tools to extract, process and analyze data sets from a variety of sources.
  4. Implement any software required for accessing and handling data appropriately.

Participate in meetings, workshops and brainstorming sessions with development partners in-country and with team members at Pulse Lab Kampala to promote data innovation.

Required Skills and Experience:

  1. Master’s Degree or equivalent Advanced Degree in a related field of expertise.
  2. A minimum of two years of paid working experience in a relevant field.
  3. Working knowledge of English.
  4. Knowledge of software programming languages and software development.

How to Apply:
Take your applications to UN Global Pulse – Pulse Lab Kampala Head Offices on 13 Kololo Hill Dr.

Deadline to submit your application is Wednesday, 16 November 2016.

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