Job Specific Context
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, defend their rights, and help them fulfil their potential.
About UNICEF Digital Impact Division (DID)
The Digital Impact Division (DID) is at the heart of reshaping how UNICEF delivers lasting results for children. DID is committed to harnessing the full potential of emerging digital technologies to advance UNICEF’s mission. The division works in close collaboration with regional Digital Impact teams and colleagues across headquarters divisions, regions, and country offices to leverage technologies and capabilities that accelerate progress on UNICEF’s goals, strengthen community resilience, and expand access to essential digital services and information.
The mission of DID is to enhance UNICEF’s global digital impact by promoting equitable access to information and services, empowering communities to create lasting, positive change for children, and fostering a more inclusive, interconnected, and sustainable world for every child, everywhere.
About UNICEF Digital Inclusion
The Digital Inclusion programme supports governments and partners to improve equitable and 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.
This position is a Partner Personnel role. UNOPS is supporting UNICEF Digital Inclusion 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 Digital Inclusion personnel. The incumbent will work under the effective management and supervision of UNICEF Digital Inclusion, not UNOPS.
About Giga
Giga is an initiative within UNICEF’s Digital Inclusion. Launched in 2019 as a joint initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has the ambitious goal of connecting every school in the world to the internet.
Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the internet, and millions of children leave school without digital skills, making it more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This digital divide has widened significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school to the internet and address this new form of inequality.
Giga focuses on connecting schools so that children and young people have access to information, opportunity, and choice. Schools also serve as anchor points for their surrounding communities: by connecting schools, local businesses and services can also be connected, creating opportunities for service providers to generate revenue and making connectivity more sustainable. A 2021 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.
Giga’s mission is supported by advanced data science and AI-driven mapping to identify connectivity gaps, optimise investment, and expand access efficiently and equitably. To date, over 2.1 million schools across 136 countries have been mapped using AI and satellite imagery. Giga has supported governments in over 40 countries and helped increase connectivity in more than 20,000 schools globally.
You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following @Gigaglobal on X (formerly Twitter).
Based in Barcelona, Spain, as part of the Giga Barcelona Tech Centre, this position plays a critical role in advancing UNICEF’s global digital connectivity and digital inclusion agenda. The role provides technical leadership on AI and applied science, while ensuring strong alignment with UNICEF wide initiatives such as the Frontier Data Network (FDN). On site presence enables close collaboration with multidisciplinary Giga teams, deep engagement with research and industry partners, and active participation in key technical and forums. The role is instrumental in harmonizing approaches, sharing evidence, and strengthening coherence across UNICEF’s broader data science and AI ecosystem.
Under the overall guidance of the Innovation Manager, the Principal Research Scientist provides strategic leadership and technical oversight for Giga’s Applied Science workstream. They will shape the applied science research agenda, lead advanced AI/ML experimentation, and ensure scientific outputs drive decision making across Giga and UNICEF’s broader digital impact efforts. The Principal Research Scientist also plays a key coordination role across UNICEF, ensuring alignment with other data science and AI initiatives such as the Frontier Data Network (FDN).
Key responsibilities include:Provide strategic leadership in the development and implementation of Giga’s Applied Science roadmap, ensuring alignment with global priorities and emerging technologies.
Oversee and guide complex research initiatives in AI, ML, connectivity mapping, QoS monitoring, forecasting, and socio-economic impact analysis.
Ensure coherence and alignment across UNICEF’s AI and data science ecosystem, coordinating closely with Digital Impact, Frontier Data Network (FDN), and other relevant divisions to harmonize methodologies and share learnings.
Set research standards and methodologies, providing authoritative guidance to internal teams on AI, data science, and experimental design.
Lead high value partnerships with universities, research labs, and private sector actors.
Ensure scientific rigor through peer reviewed publications, conference contributions, and development of replicable ethical research.
Translate research into actionable insights that influence strategic planning, policy advocacy, investment decisions, and operational workflows across Giga and UNICEF.
Represent Giga at senior technical and policy forums, strengthening UNICEF’s leadership in AI for connectivity and digital inclusion.
Drive knowledge management, codifying research processes, documenting results, and disseminating evidence across country offices, partners, and global networks
Monitoring and Progress Controls
Item
Outputs/Deliverables
Month/Year
1
Research Roadmap for Giga’s Applied Science workstream finalized (methodologies, datasets, experimentation plan, partner roles, expected outputs).
Month 1, updated quarterly
2
Advanced ML/AI prototypes developed, validated, and documented (models, datasets, evaluation metrics). At least one prototype transitioned annually into an operational tool or workflow.
Ongoing
3
High-quality technical outputs produced (research papers, policy briefs, internal memos, presentations). Findings translated into actionable recommendations influencing programmatic and strategic decisions.
Monthly
4
Partnerships with universities, research labs, and private sector entities managed effectively. Joint experiments, co-authored outputs, and data exchange pipelines executed. Progress and risk summaries submitted.
Quarterly
5
Cross UNICEF coordination mechanisms established for alignment with Digital Impact, FDN, and other AI/data science initiatives. Quarterly coordination summaries submitted.
Quarterly
6
Evidence based insights integrated into UNICEF or Giga guidance, policy materials, investment cases, or country level planning. At least two documented examples annually.
Annually
