UNOPS Geneva Office is providing support to a wide range of portfolios, including UNEP, UNICEF, UNHCR, and other partners.
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
This position is a Partner Personnel role. UNOPS is supporting UNICEF-DI as a UN partner and is acting on its behalf to provide recruitment and administrative support for this position. The selected candidate will be recruited through UNOPS in accordance with UNOPS recruitment rules, and will be engaged as UNICEF-DI personnel. The incumbent will work under the effective management and supervision of UNICEF-DI, not UNOPS.
About UNICEF Digital Inclusion
Part of UNICEF-DI, UNICEF’s Digital Inclusion programme supports governments and partners to improve equitable, affordable digital access for children, schools, and communities. The programme engages with regulators, operators, and public institutions to explore innovative approaches to connectivity, infrastructure governance, and digital public goods.
A growing number of regulators in emerging markets are exploring innovation sandboxes, temporary test licenses, and more dynamic spectrum management approaches. However, there is currently no open-source reference system that allows spectrum usage rights to be defined, allocated, revoked, and audited in a machine-readable manner that can be tested safely in regulator-approved environments.
SpecProj1 is an exploratory technical initiative under UNICEF Digital Inclusion to develop an open-source reference implementation of a spectrum-rights registry and authorization service for use in controlled test settings.
The Digital Advisor will design, lead, and deliver an open-source minimum viable prototype (MVP) of a spectrum-rights registry and authorization service. The role requires independent technical judgment, end-to-end ownership of deliverables, and the ability to translate emerging policy and regulatory questions into practical system design. The incumbent is expected to:
Design new technical approaches in an emerging area
Work with minimal supervision within broad programme objectives
Assess the quality and suitability of technical outputs
Interface directly with external stakeholders, including regulators and technical partners
The role also operates in two phases:
Phase 1 (Months 1–4): Design and demonstrate a functional MVP capable of defining, issuing, validating, and revoking spectrum-usage allocations in a sandbox context.
Phase 2 (Months 5–9): Refine and extend the system based on regulator feedback; support test integrations; document architectural options for future public-interest experimentation. This phase is intentionally less prescriptive.
Under the supervision of the Senior Advisor, Digital Inclusion, the contractor will be responsible for the following:
Technical Architecture & System Design
Design the overall system architecture for the spectrum-rights registry, including data models, identity assumptions, authorization logic, and audit logging
Define machine-readable spectrum-rights objects covering frequency range, geography, time window, and basic constraints
Design a modular architecture that can accommodate future extensions, including optional distributed-ledger anchoring of rights history (conceptual only in this phase)
Software Development & Open-Source Delivery
Implement the MVP backend service supporting:
creation, update, and revocation of spectrum-rights objects
authorization checks for test radios or clients
structured logging and auditability
Develop a minimal web-based graphical interface allowing regulators and operators to:
view spectrum bands and test allocations
create, modify, and revoke allocations
review audit logs
Develop a software-defined radio (SDR) test harness or equivalent simulation demonstrating allow/deny behavior based on registry responses
Publish all code in a public GitHub repository with clear documentation and version control.
Engagement with Regulators and Partners
Provide technical explanations and diagrams to support UNICEF Digital Inclusion engagement with regulators exploring sandbox tests
Translate regulator questions and feedback into concrete system refinements
Support the design of safe, regulator-approved test scenarios involving authorized operators or test entities
Testing, Evaluation, and Iteration
Support at least one laboratory or field-based sandbox test using the MVP
Evaluate system behavior, limitations, and usability
Propose refinements and architectural improvements based on observed outcomes
Research & Forward Planning
Document architectural options for future phases, including:
deeper authorization integration patterns
multi-operator allocation logic
identity and security considerations
optional tokenization or distributed-ledger representations (non-financial, conceptual)
Produce clear technical documentation to inform future decision-making by UNICEF and partners
Below are the Key expected delivrables :
Item
Outputs/Deliverables
Month/Year
1
System architecture document: GitHub repository initialized
Month 1
2
MVP backend (rights lifecycle + authorization API); initial GUI
Month 2
3
SDR test harness design; audit and constraint enforcement
Month 3
4
End-to-end MVP demonstration; regulator briefing materials
Month 4
5
Refinements based on regulator feedback; sandbox test support
Month 5 and 6
6
Additional testing; future architecture options drafted
Month 7 and 8
7
Final internal technical report with findings and recommendations
Month 9
