Description

Background:

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.

The Technology for Development (T4D) team is housed within the Program Department’s Technical Support Unit (TSU). It collaborates with Mercy Corps’ global teams and external partners to unlock new possibilities that increase program quality, impact, and innovation, helping improve more lives through the power of technology. Our mission and purpose are to drive sustainable program impact through responsible application of existing and emerging digital technologies.

The T4D Data Science team (T4DS) works with program teams and other Mercy Corps departments to develop solutions for the delivery, analysis and use of data for decision making and generating evidence. The T4DS team mixes data advisory of programs with direct implementation of data science products to provide programmatic evidence and increase the capacity for use of data and analytics at the organization.

Purpose / Project Description:

This consultancy will support the implementation work by the T4DS team to support direct program needs, the development of a catalog of replicable, off-the-shelf analyses, and other strategic priorities, especially involving geospatial analysis. The consultant is a creative and flexible analyst with experience working with technical and non-technical users.

Consultant Activities:

• Programmatic workflows for geospatial analyses with implementation and resultant data loaded to the Rapid Institutional Crisis Response Platform
  • 2-3 analyses to be completed based on priority, time, and data availability
  • Key priority analyses:
    • Vegetation index analysis – 10 days
    • Erosion analysis – 10 days
• Pipelines to ingest, process, analyze, and visualize new data for the Rapid Institutional Crisis Response platform for priority regions (Middle East and North Africa, Horn of Africa).
  • 1-3 days per pipeline
  • 3-4 dataset pipelines to be completed based on priority, time, and data availability
  • Key priority datasets:
    • GLOFAS (Global Flood Awareness System) flood data and forecasts
    • Cloud corrected nightlights analysis across regions of interest
    • Global commodity price data
    • Waterways layers for regions of interest

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will provide as final deliverables:

1. Final technical products corresponding with each of the outlined activities above
2. All code, datasets or workflows created for each activity above appropriately stored in either Github, in AWS or the T4D shared drive as appropriate
3. Ongoing technical documentation of each technical product developed including:
   1. Inline documentation of code
   2. A technical handover document detailing how to run and troubleshoot (can take the form of a Github Markdown readme or pdf)
   3. High level diagrams of data flows/architecture as necessary

Timeframe / Schedule:

Consultant will work with the T4D Director of Data Science to develop a timetable and workplan for the deliverables in the first week of the consultancy during the kickoff meeting.

The projected start date for this consultancy is as soon as possible and projected end date is mid-January 2024.

Working hours are flexible and we love async communication, but this position will require at least some overlap with US Central time zone during the week

The Consultant will report to:

Director of Data Science, T4D

The Consultant will work closely with:

• T4D, TSU teams

Required Experience & Qualifications:

Required

• 5-7 years of experience in a technically relevant field
• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as GIS, Geomatics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, and related fields or equivalent professional experience
• Strong and demonstrated skills in data analysis and manipulation
• 2+ years of relevant experience working in an Analytics environment
• Knowledge and familiarity with common sources of humanitarian data (including e.g. HDX, WorldPop, common earth observation products, FEWSNET, FAO, ACLED, OpenStreetMap etc.)
• Excellent and demonstrated skills with geospatial analysis including remote sensing analysis
• Strong knowledge of geospatial data formats, projections, transformations, and structures
• Programming experience in Python or R (Python strongly preferred)

Desired

• Strong preference given to those with experience and familiarity with the AWS cloud environment (including Lambdas, RDS, Fargate, S3, ECS); AWS Geospatial Sagemaker experience a plus.
• Experience with remote sensing image classification using machine learning algorithms either in desktop software or programmatically
• Familiarity or experience with machine learning
• Proficiency with web GIS tools like Leaflet, OpenLayers, and GeoServer or Mapbox Studio and Mapbox GL JS
• Web development experience in e.g. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node.JS, Django frameworks, etc highly desirable
• Familiarity or experience in thematic areas such as agriculture, water resources, climate change, natural resource management, conflict and food security is also a strong asset

Documents Comprising the Proposal

Please submit the following documentation for the proposal:

• CV (if available, please include links to a portfolio or examples of relevant past work working on web applications or with tools/services/programming languages listed above. Your GitHub link is also fine!)
  • Work examples may be requested at a later point if not provided
• Day Rate (please include or your submission will not be considered, can be sent as a follow up message)

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.