Ericsson Account Manager (Partnerships)
Summary
We are seeking a talented Account Manager to lead on Giga’s multi-dimensional, impactful, and innovative partnership with Ericsson. The Account Manager will work with our interdisciplinary team to drive progress against key partnership objectives, including communications, data sharing, and software solutions development. This role will be an important part of our Partnerships team, joining Giga in our ambitious goal to connect every school, and every community, to the internet by 2030.
We are seeking a strong and committed Account Manager who is:
- Motivated to create and grow our public-private partnership for technology and innovation with Ericsson
- Interested in exploring the role that Ericsson can play in furthering Giga’s mission to connect every young person to the internet
- Inspired to advance partnership success and improve collaboration in ways that bring value to our work
Your main responsibilities will be…
The consultant is to support and drive the coordination and management of the Ericsson partnership with Giga. In collaboration with the broader Giga team, the Swedish National Committee, and the Private Sector Fundraising and Partnerships Division of UNICEF, the consultant will be responsible for:
- Developing and managing across teams to deliver on key partnership objectives
- Leading on developing and owning relationships with counterparts at Ericsson
- Developing powerful communications about the impact made possible by Ericsson’s contributions, and identifying opportunities to bring Ericsson closer to Giga’s work
- Identifying options for collaboration or in-kind contributions that align with Giga’s strategic vision and team priorities
- Tracking and responding to possible thematic, operational or communications related requests from Ericsson
- Coordinating and communications within the Giga team and wider UNICEF environment
- Create regular reports and progress updates, according to reporting schedule
To qualify for this position, you will have…
- An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields: public and/or private sector partnerships, communications, social sciences communication, public relations, business administration and management.
- *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
- A minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible experience in partnerships/project management, and a track record of organizing and managing partnerships, especially between the technology sector and development/non-profit organizations
- Exposure to fundraising and partnerships management in the United Nations is a huge plus
- Demonstrated planning, communication, fundraising and very strong writing and editing skills
- Ability to manage multiple perspectives and sets of priorities, driving toward consensus across several stakeholders
- Experience and strength in customer relationship management
- Capacity to prioritize and manage a diverse range of partners, projects and activities
- Must be a natural project manager – keeping resources and conversations organized a requirement
- Fluency in English. Competence in another UN language preferred.
- Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
About Giga’s Partnership with Ericsson
In July 2020, Ericsson entered into a global three-year partnership with UNICEF to help map school connectivity in 35 countries. Ericsson is the first private sector partner to make a multi-million dollar commitment to the initiative and is the first to become a Global UNICEF Partner for School Connectivity Mapping. The partnership with Ericsson aims to accelerate UNICEF’s efforts to give every child and young person access to digital learning opportunities.
In addition to funding, Ericsson is committing resources for communication, data engineering and data science capacity to accelerate school connectivity mapping. Specifically, Ericsson assists with the collection, validation, analysis, monitoring and visual representation of real-time school connectivity data. The data generated through the mapping will enable governments and the private sector to design and deploy digital solutions that enable learning for children and young people. Ericsson will also engage its extensive customer base to further advance the goals of the Giga Initiative.
About Our Team
We are a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary team of software engineers, finance specialists, data scientists, policy experts, and much more. Our team is a distributed workforce and plans to remain distributed into the foreseeable future.
We are growing fast. Our team has grown by over 400% in the last 6 months as we rapidly scale to meet our stated mission. Much, if not all, of this growth is supported by our partners and the work of our Partnerships Team. To date, Giga has brought on more than a dozen partners and raised over $20M in funding. But many of our partners contribute more than just funding. To us, partners are collaborators, working shoulder to shoulder with our team to develop software, analyze data, conduct groundbreaking research, and much more!
The Ericsson Account Manager will report to the Partnerships Lead and work closely with the Communications team, Mapping team, and Data & Product team to coordinate their contributions to the Ericsson partnership.
Outside of the Giga team, this individual will work with several key counterparts on the Ericsson team, as well as the UNICEF Private Partnerships and Fundraising Division, and the Swedish National Committee for UNICEF.
About Giga
Launched in 2019 as a joint-initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has set the ambitious goal to connect every school in the world to the internet.
Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This has created a digital divide between those who are connected and those who are not, a divide that has become even wider during the Covid-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU have therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world 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. It also uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities: if you connect the school, you can also connect local businesses and services. This creates opportunities for service providers to generate revenue from paying users, making connectivity more sustainable. A recent 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%.
You cannot fix a problem unless you can see it, so the first step is to map schools and their connectivity levels. Giga uses machine learning to scan satellite images and identify schools. These are then marked by coloured dots on an open-source map: green where there is good connectivity (over 5mb/s); amber where it is limited; and red where there is no connectivity at all. The project has already mapped over 920,000 schools in 40 countries, including several which were previously unknown to governments.
Connecting every school in the world could cost US$428 billion or more. Much of the funding already exists but it is not always well aligned. Giga therefore works with governments to unlock public funds for use in delivering connectivity and to attract private investors by reducing the risks in harder-to-reach areas. We are also proposing a $5 billion Bond to finance last-mile connectivity and catalyze large-scale investment. The bond would be backed by donor governments and private foundations, much like the one issued by Gavi / IFFiM to deliver vaccines around the world.
Once school connectivity has been mapped and financing secured, Giga works with a range of partners to bring the Internet to schools. We support governments in designing competitive procurement processes. We are also developing real-time payment mechanisms, meaning that if a dot on the connectivity map is only green for three hours a day, the provider only gets paid for three hours of access. Giga is already connecting schools in 19 countries and is prototyping several test solutions, including in refugee camps and remote, mountainous regions.
Just as building railroads allowed previously isolated towns to flourish, providing good quality Internet access will allow communities to participate in the digital economy for the first time. But Giga’s work in laying the tracks for connectivity is only one part of a wider effort to bridge the digital divide. UNICEF’s Reimagine Education initiative brings all of this work together and has set the goal of connecting every child and young person – some 3.5 billion – to world-class digital learning solutions by 2030. In addition to Giga, it includes components focusing on the affordability of data and content, access to devices, teacher certification and the engagement of young people. Along with ITU’s digital skills programme and other initiatives, Reimagine Education aims to ensure that, once connected, young people are empowered with the tools they need to shape their own futures.
Our partners are a huge part of our work, supporting us with both financial resources and in-kind support. We currently have a portfolio of a small group of major financial partners, and a larger group of others who provide technical assistance on important projects, including data sharing, cost model development, and more.
You can read more about Giga’s work at https://gigaconnect.org/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaconnect
About UNICEF
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. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. And we never give up.
UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.
Payment details and further considerations
- Consultants are paid monthly
- Consultants are responsible for their own health and travel insurance
- Consultant is eligible for standard budget allowances for all work-related travel