Job Opportunity for Program Officer, Digital, LTE at Gates Foundation in New Delhi

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: that people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. By building a global and cultural workplace that supports greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — together with our employees and partners, we can help all people improve their lives from poverty and health to education. As an organization we offer full healthcare premiums coverage, generous paid time off, contribution to your retirement fund, several employee communities, and a commitment to embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do.

The Team

Our efforts in India focus on key issues that will affect the future of India’s most vulnerable communities: reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition; urban sanitation; agricultural development; gender equality, and digital financial inclusion.

With a particular focus on Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, we work with partners to develop impactful and sustainable solutions to improve the quality and coverage of key services for the poor and vulnerable. We also work in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.

The Program Officer (PO), Digital will work with the Digital & Health Innovation (D&HI) Cluster at the India Country Office (ICO) and report to the Deputy Director, D&HI.

The D&HI Cluster is a core enabler for key goals of the ICO across our portfolio. On the health innovation front, the Cluster is focused on new products such as vaccines, drugs, devices, diagnostics, modeling and other data science approaches that are crucial to many programs. On the digital side, the aim is to build performance-oriented and equitable health systems capable of improving India’s health outcomes, or to drive innovations in Agriculture, Sanitation, Financial services for the poor, or to enable socio-economic empowerment of women, Digital can help achieve sustainable program goals. The Foundation’s Digital Health strategy in India is two-pronged (i) long-term system transformation through Digital Health Architecture – defining and implementing the right building blocks of Health Data Dictionary, interoperability standards, digital governance etc.; and (ii) ongoing digital innovations to enable better service delivery, data quality, behavior change, and therefore program outcomes. 

Your Role

We are looking for a New Delhi-based PO, Digital to provide backfill coverage for a team member going on parental leave, starting in January 2023.

The PO, Digital may work on the following (not exhaustive):

• D&HI Portfolio: Support ongoing refinement of digital strategies in cross cutting areas across India programs at a central as well as state level.
• Digital Portfolio for Gender Equality (GE): i) Women’s Economic Empowerment – support our digital platform work with the national Self Help Groups program and allied government, private sector, and civil society programs. ii) Bridging the Digital Gender Gap – support the ongoing learning agenda on finding ways to bridge the digital gender gap.
• Digital Portfolio for Global Growth & Opportunities (GGO). i) GGO Learning Agenda on Digital – support the design and development of digital advisory solutions for low literate low skilled user communities in Bihar. ii) Support digital programs related to ongoing investments in Agriculture, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), and Financial Services for the Poor.
• Internal and external representation: Serve as technical expert internally to provide feedback on new digital investments across our work related to GE and GGO. 

This is a limited-term position for nine months. Relocation will not be provided.

What You’ll Do

The PO, Digital will be responsible for the following deliverables:

Investment Management & Development (approx. bandwidth utilization – 60%):

• Engage with partners, resolving bottlenecks, convening required partnerships and collaborations to advance investment goals, reporting internally and externally on investment progress.
• Completion of regular check-in video-conference calls with existing partners (either monthly or quarterly), including writing brief reports of each call.
• End-of-year grant Annual Reports – Completion of “PO Analyses” narratives of at least three-four Annual Reports, including tracking grant outputs, achievements, and results.
• Write ups and resolution of ad hoc issues that arise during grant management.
• In collaboration with team members, shape new opportunities and help design new investments.
• Support the entire process of developing new grants through our “INVEST” software system, including writing narratives, developing and working within budget, seeking internal and external technical feedback, addressing leadership questions, and securing approvals.
• Evaluation of technical competencies of bidding organizations; and support potential partners to design investments.
• Co-lead consultations with governments, other donors, private service providers, and NGOs on new opportunities.

Learning and internal engagement (approx. bandwidth utilization – 30%):

• Engage with program teams in Gender Equality, Agriculture, WASH, and Financial Services for the Poor on digital priorities and goals.
• Complete various written narratives and PowerPoint presentations for internal strategy documents, including for the Fall 2022 Co-Chair Review; Operational Plans, and other key strategy and program management documents.
• Other written and verbal deliverables as required pertaining to strategy, grant development and management, and partnership development.

External relationship management (approx. bandwidth utilization – 10%):

• Partner ecosystem for our GE and GGO work as well as key government partners/collaborators. 

This role will require travel (approx. 25%) to engage with partner organizations, government partners/collaborators, and communities in the field.

Your Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in technology or other advanced degree in one or more of the following: business administration, law, policy, economics, or sociology, with five years of relevant experience in the intersection of digital, community, consultancy and government in India.
• Background in the application of digital technology to address challenges in rural/semi-urban contexts. Basic mastery of advances in a wide range of digital, including but not limited to mobile applications and digital channels (e.g. SMS, IVR, USSD, voice technology, social media, smart phone apps).
• Understanding of the enabling elements of mobile and digital adoption, including affordable connectivity, digital literacy, locally relevant content and mobile-enabled real-time data collection and analysis.
• Ability to communicate intricate digital concepts to partners with a diverse set of backgrounds, including internal leadership, program staff, grantees, government partners and other foundation operational resources as well as skill in building consensus among key partners with diverse priorities.
• Experience driving multi-partner (private sector, civil society organizations, government) product development or service delivery models offering information, markets, financing, insurance, and other services.
• Strong investment design and project management skills, and ability to push towards results within complex, demanding, fast-moving environments.
• English language fluency, including strong written and verbal communication skills. 

Other Attributes

• Excitement to join one of the most exciting teams at the Foundation, get to know our groundbreaking work, and liaise with Foundation technical experts and leadership.
• We are looking for professionals who enjoy the challenge of working on complex problems and collaboratively creating solutions with the potential for transformational change in the lives of communities with limited income, literacy, and digital access.
• The candidate must be prepared to work across diverse aspects in this field, bridging a range of expertise, including digital technology, development economics, business development, data and analytics, policymaking, investment, and philanthropy.
• Be a solid teammate, with a demonstrable ability to work with optimism, patience, flexibility, efficiency, tenacity, and diplomacy in a fast-paced, challenging environment, using a hypothesis-driven approach and analytical rigor to develop sound strategies and implementation plans.
• Demonstrable ability to work respectfully with a variety of partners at all levels to find common ground across different incentives (governments, companies, donors, NGOs); proven cultural sensitivity and ability to interact with people from different countries and organizational cultures. 

*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

Application deadline: 23 October 2022

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.