Digital and Innovations Specialist

The Role:

The Digital Innovations Specialist will drive the adoption and implementation of advanced digital technologies within the organization. This role focuses on identifying emerging technological trends and opportunities to enhance business processes and improve customer experiences. The specialist collaborates with cross-functional teams to design and execute digital transformation strategies, ensuring that the organization remains competitive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. This includes leveraging data analytics, artificial intelligence, and other cutting-edge tools to streamline operations, boost efficiency, and foster a culture of innovation.

In addition to technological expertise, the Digital Innovations Specialist must possess strong project management and communication skills to effectively manage change and foster collaboration across various departments and sectors. S/he will play a crucial role in building the capacity of staff on new technologies, promoting a forward-thinking mindset, and ensuring that digital initiatives align with the organization's overall goals and objectives.

The incumbent will be involved in all phases of the design, development, and implementation of technology solutions throughout the business case and development life cycle processes. The job holder will be expected to collaborate with other IT professionals to determine if solutions currently exist (internally or externally) or whether new solutions are feasible and determine how such solutions will impact existing work processes and systems.

Key Responsibilities:

Digital Innovation, Planning and Integration

• Design and implement robust APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to seamlessly integrate our systems with other relevant planforms.
• Participates in short-term planning sessions with a customer to implement process improvement within an assigned area.
• Develops and assists in the presentation of business cases through the capability management process.
• Serves as the link between the business, third-party vendors, and the IT technical team.
• Coordinates and ensure collaboration amongst the different Digital and Innovation teams across projects.
• Partners with program staff to prioritize and support integration and evolution of Digital solutions in improving program implementation.
• Collaborates with Procurement to ensure D4D purchases are in line with WVS standards and in compliance with donor requirements.
• Contributes to the budget preparation for expenses related to relevant digital and innovation devices and software.

Business Requirements Documentation & Consulting

• Assesses client needs utilizing a structured requirements process (gathering, analyzing, documenting, and managing changes) to assist in identifying business priorities and provide advice on options.
• Analyzes customer’s operations to understand their strengths and weaknesses to determine opportunities for improvements.
• Facilitate brainstorming and innovation sessions to cultivate a culture of creativity and collaboration across teams, driving innovative solutions within the organization Assists with the drafting of proposals for evaluation by appropriate users and managers.
• Participate in identifying business needs and propose well-researched ideas (by maintaining up-to-date knowledge of technology products) for new or improved systems and solutions that assist in meeting World Vision objectives.
• Liaise with vendor, the cloud systems administrator and coordinate existing and new software developments by providing SDLC technical recommendations and guidelines that will ensure their quality or adherence to World Vision corporate standards and tools; manage their reliability where hosted – Amazon AWS or other hosting environments; assure vendor LTAs and SLAs providing support to solutions currently hosted in these environments.
• Negotiates agreements and commitments by facilitating communication between business unit(s) and IT from the initial requirements phase to final implementation phase of projects.
• Create and maintain technical documentation for code, APIs, and system architecture.

Data Analysis, Protection & Processing Oversight

• Leverage technical expertise in data models, database design, data mining, and segmentation techniques to inform decision-making and enhance digital services.
• Develop data visualization dashboards for real-time performance monitoring.
• Oversee and manage data protection compliance end-to-end, covering the entire information management cycle from data collection to secure data removal.
• Collaborate closely with the WV Data Protection Officer to ensure compliance with data protection regulations and best practices.
• Conduct regular audits and risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities and implement necessary safeguards.
• Understand, monitor, and analyze various scripts provided by third-party vendors.
• Proactively monitor data processing workflows for anomalies and implement corrective actions

Training, Learning & Development

• Lead the process of conducting a training needs assessment for digital solutions
• Provides documentation, training, and guidance for digital and innovation clients
• Establish training content (webinar/documents/video) and facilitates online and onsite training for all deployed digital solutions including the use of VR technology.
• Assess and analyze Digital training needs. Provide capacity building (training, coaching, on-the-job support, etc.), remotely or on-site, to staff and partners in Digital and Innovation-related areas to ensure efficient and consistent adoption and use of Digital applications.
• Provide technical inputs for proposal development
• Support digital platforms operationalization.
• Support the Response Innovation Lab with ecosystem mapping of innovations an updating digital tool
• Support WV Somalia with digital platforms like the Capacity Solutions Platform to maintain the partner database

Digital Assets Management

• Deploy, configure, and maintain Digital and innovation devices based on the WVS technology.
• Evaluate user needs and system functionality to ensure that Digital devices meet required needs.
• Oversee the IT assets management system.
• Generate and distribute various reports, including compliance reports on current assets and their status;
• Ensures all devices used in Digital and Innovation projects are well accounted for during the inception, tagged, and well documented within the IT Assets database.

Digital Solutions Technical Support

• Front-End and back-end Development: Collaborate with UI/UX designers to implement user-friendly interfaces using JavaScript, CSS frameworks, Vue.js, and Nuxt.js.
• Code Optimization: Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks and ensure code quality through code reviews and best practices.
• Integrate third-party APIs and services as needed to enhance application functionality.
• Write unit and integration tests to ensure the reliability and stability of applications.
• Participates in the deployment of new or upgrade digital solution projects, including assisting co-workers and vendor partners.
• Ensures timely and quality service delivery, technical support, and advice to user requests for Digital solutions and devices.
• Collaborate with the WV Karen Cloud Services Administrator to ensure the health, security, and efficiency of the cloud environment.

Essential:

• Bachelor’s degree or in Computer Science, Information Systems, Innovation Management or another related field.
• 4-5 years of relevant technical or business work experience or innovation management.
• Proven experience as a Full Stack Developer, with expertise in MongoDB, NoSQL, Express JS, Node.js, JavaScript, CSS frameworks, Vue.js, and Nuxt.js.
• Strong knowledge of web development principles and best practices, including experience with version control systems (e.g., Git) and agile methodologies.
• Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git). Familiarity with agile development methodologies.
• Experience in developing applications for use in Health and Humanitarian settings including EMR, data collection
• Working knowledge of business operations and systems requirements processes
• Excellent communication skills with ability to engage and coherently communicate with internal and external stakeholders. Effective in written and verbal communication in English
• Demonstrate depth of Business Enterprise Knowledge
• Deep understanding of technology innovations (e.g. mobile apps, blockchain, artificial intelligence, coding)
• Proven track record in driving projects - effectively delivering impactful elements of projects in a fast-moving environment, ideally for new businesses, new business models, startups
• Proven track record in digital product development including successful design, implementation, and scaling of innovative digital solutions especially in a fragile context
• Able to generate new and original solutions to complex problems and to use human-centered design and systems thinking methodologies for problem-solving.
• Proficiency in process automation tools (Power Automate, Uipath, Zapier)
• Proficiency in database technologies e.g.  MySQL, PostgreSQL, RDBMS and data analytics tools (Power BI, Tableau)
• Ability to effectively drive business, culture, and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment.
• Ability to relate the technical issue to a largely non-technical audience
• Technical certification in one or more IT disciplines or technology. E.g. Certified Business Analyst, Data Analytics