Responsible and Inclusive Technology Consultant

Results for Development (R4D) is a leading non-profit global development partner. We collaborate with change agents around the world — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — to create strong systems that support healthy, educated people. We help our partners move from knowing their goal to knowing how to reach it. We combine global expertise in health, education and nutrition with analytic rigor, practical support for decision-making and implementation and access to peer problem-solving networks. Together with our partners, we build self-sustaining systems that serve everyone and deliver lasting results. Then we share what we learn so others can achieve results for development, too.

We have a unique and vibrant culture at R4D. Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of our work environment and help advance our mission. Diversity—of ideas, identities, perspectives and backgrounds—is vital to who we are and what we do. We seek people who embrace these values and will help reinforce them. Our work culture is collaborative, creative and entrepreneurial. We operate based on trust and respect. Teams across the organization frequently collaborate on programmatic work and support each other in continuously building a better R4D.

Background

Want to contribute to one of the FCDO’s most innovative programmes?

The Frontier Technologies Program works with the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) at the intersection of tech, innovation, and international development.

️One component of our work - Livestreaming - explores the use of frontier technologies by working with partners all over the world to test innovations with the potential for positive social impact. The FT Hub program has a portfolio of early-stage frontier (emerging) tech solutions being tested around the world, these innovations are known as ‘pilots’ and are led by FT Hub innovation coaches. The FT program engages in a wide range of emerging tech solutions, for example Blockchain, AI, Biotech, IOT sensors, drones, web3 etc. Please see examples of the range of technologies and innovations in context here on the FT Hub Website: visit our website.

FT Hub coaching method currently supports early-stage innovations to research and develop (R&D) innovations though a series of iterative sprints, in which experiments are conducted to test core considerations around an innovation through a variety of methods (user research, lean testing, piloting).

The Frontier Technologies Program is delivered by the Frontier Technologies Hub which is managed by three partners: Results for Development (R4D), DT Global (formerly IMC Worldwide), and Brink. It’s funded by UK International Development from the FCDO UK Government.

As the UKRI have stated, ‘‘responsible research and innovation acknowledges that innovation can raise questions and dilemmas, is often ambiguous in terms of purposes and motivations and unpredictable in terms of impacts, beneficial or otherwise.’’

Within the FT Hub, we believe that developing, testing and scaling of innovation needs to be conducted in a way that explores the potential impacts and ethical considerations of innovation, and supports innovation teams to adapt and iterate their approach, to better realise responsible and inclusive scaling of frontier and emerging tech innovation.

The opportunity

The Frontier Technologies Program is looking to update its support offer to FT innovations (pilots) and the partners who build, deliver and test the innovations with an aim to ensure responsible and inclusive prototyping and piloting of technology in low middle income contexts (LMICs). The Hub is looking to work with a partner who specialises in responsible and inclusive technology; to review and update its current support offer provided to its innovations (pilots) and innovators (tech and delivery partners) to adopt a rigorous approach to responsible and inclusive early-stage tech development, and ensure innovations teams are applying responsible and inclusive approaches to developing early stage technologies, and are rigorously testing and are effectively proving (through evidence generation) the tech is responsible and inclusive.

For the purposes of this work, we define responsible and inclusive innovation as an approach to developing, testing and scaling innovation which:

· Is safe and does no harm e.g. environmentally, safeguards effectively

· Promotes inclusion and equity (reducing rather than exacerbating or entrenching existing inequities)

· Inclusive in design human-centered and participatory

· Promotes a localisation agenda and approach

We anticipate that the output for this work will include a series of proposed activities, tools, resources and indicators that will be used within each of the pilots supported through the FT program. The outputs will be tailored to respond to what’s needed at each stage of the lifecycle of a pilot – with a view that these will be shared externally for other organisations seeking to pilot early-stage innovations in a safe, responsible and inclusive manner.

It is anticipated that the proposed outputs will incorporate evidence-based best practice, including best practice from human-centered deign and behavioural science approaches to developing and testing early-stage innovations.

The Objective and type of partner

FT Hub seeks to engage a partner or technical consultant to provide support to FT Hub to enable the FT innovations (pilots) teams to effectively identify, explore, test and demonstrate (with evidence) the tech being developed and tested in a responsible and inclusive way, and therefore prove the innovations are on the trajectory to ensure equitable and safe impact.

The purpose of this work is to help the Hub to evaluate its current approach and innovation coaching offer to supporting responsible and inclusive innovation and provide additional support to update the Hubs existing processes and ways of working so that the Hub confidently promotes responsible and inclusive innovation and does no harm or further exacerbates inequities. We also seek to update our monitoring approach, to ensure the Hub is effectively monitoring whether pilots are exploring key equity and inclusion considerations and implementing safeguarding practices.

The opportunity can be for either an individual technical consultant or an organisation with a range of technical expertise. This is a global opportunity – open to individuals or organisations globally.

The partner will conduct activities and analysis on FT Hub innovations and provide technical expertise on responsible emerging tech in early-stage tech development in LMICs (including implementation of best practice on Gender, Equality and Social Inclusion) and provide expertise in behavioural sciences and human centered design related to the development and testing of early-stage innovation.

The partner will produce a light touch evaluation in current responsible tech approaches and provide a suite of resources e.g. frameworks, tools, approaches (aligned to FT Hub’s coaching innovation methods and practices) and identify key data metrics and indicators for FT Hub early-stage innovations to capture data that demonstrates the tech is responsible and inclusive. The aim for this work will be to create outputs that can be integrated by FT Hub coaches alongside existing FT coaching tools and workshops, and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems.

This is, in turn, will support FT Hub to monitor across a portfolio of innovations and have confidence that the technologies being produced are responsible and inclusive.

The scope of work and indicative timeline

Please note this is a suggestion of an approach and timeline, we welcome applicants to produce their own approaches and timelines.

Please note these phases are not exhaustive.

Phase 1: Orientation of FT Hub Pilots and key definitions associated with ‘responsible’ tech agreed

· Meet with core FT Hub innovation team (there are 4 members) to understand the processes and development of FT Hub innovations (4-5hrs consultations)

· FT hub will introduce the partner to 8 different innovations/pilots with a range of frontier and emerging technologies in different contexts and sectors. For each consultation 2-3 hours with innovations coaches and entrepreneurs.

· FT Hub will share key documentation on the innovations and coaching methods for partner to review and analyse.

· Share key findings back to FT core innovation team and agree key definitions associated with ‘responsible’ tech.

· Agree with FT Hub core innovation team next steps, key definitions and scope of work.

Phase 2: Production of resources and approaches for FT Hub innovation coaches and entrepreneurs aligned to current innovation coaching processes and practices on FT Hub.

· Draw on a range of existing expert opinion and literature on responsible technology, human centered design and behavioural science to produce evidence informed resources and tools.

· Identify proposed updates to the FT Hub innovation method. Within scope for this work could be suggesting updates or changes to the key phases pilots pass through, activities they undertake, outputs they produce, and tools and support provided for pilots from the Hub.

· Production of evidence informed tools, resources, frameworks, guidance to support FT Hub innovation coaches and teams to deliver the proposed updates and ensure and prove responsible early-stage tech is developed for a wide range of emerging technologies.

· Quick review feedback from innovations and/or core innovation team, provide iterations to resources of tools.

· Possibility of direct ‘testing’ of tools and resources with 1-2 FT Hub innovations for further iteration of the tools/resources based on feedback.

Phase 3: Development of a responsible monitoring framework that integrates into FT Hubs Theory of Change, and light touch data collection tools

· Review of FT Hub Theory of Change (including all metric, indicators, assumptions) and identification of new (or enhanced) data metrics and indicators for monitoring a portfolio of ‘responsible’ FT Hub innovations aligned or complimentary of FT Hub ToC.

· Design of light touch data collection tools for innovations/pilots or MEL team to use.

Phase 4: Roll out of new responsible tech approach to FT Hub innovation coaches (2-3 weeks roll out)

· 2 -3 training workshops with FT Hub innovation coaches to explain new processes, approaches, resources etc.

· 2-3 training workshops to FT Implementing Team (partners) and FCDO staff to explain new processes, approaches and resources and share key concepts and best practice more generally on responsible tech in innovation.

Timelines

We anticipate some of the phases can run simultaneously.

Phase 1 (1 month) Completed by August 1st

Phase 2 & 3 (2 months) Completed by October 1st

Phase 4 (2-3 weeks) Completed by mid-October

* it is expected the approach for phase 5 to be completed by 1st October.

Key Deliverables

Please note these are suggested deliverables, applicants are encouraged to define their own deliverables.

1. FT Hub innovations, Key definitions, findings and recommendations - End of phase 1 (1st August)

A light touch evaluation on the hubs current approach and innovation coaching offer, as it relates to supporting responsible and inclusive innovation, and recommendations for phase 2 and 3 e.g. outlines of potential resources for phase 2.

2. Outline of key changes needed to the FT Hub innovation methodology - End of phase 2 (1st of October)

A presentation outlining what proposed changes are recommended to the FT Hub innovation method (including the phases of a pilot, activities conducted at each phase, outputs) to better ensure safe and responsible development of technology.

3. Suite of resources and tools for FT Hub innovation coaches and innovation/pilot teams to use to test and prove tech is responsible - End of phase 2 (1st October)

Evidence informed resources, tools or frameworks produced, that are aligned to current innovation coaching practices on FT Hub, to test and prove tech developed is ‘responsible.’ This will include developing tools for coaches to use with pilot teams, in order to support them to better identify pilot risks and needs as they relate to safety, equity and inclusion. It will also include protocols and guidelines for pilot teams to follow when conducting activities (e.g. user research, prototype testing) to ensure they are conducted in a safe and responsible way, with a view to also promoting equity and inclusion and localisation. The work should draw on best practice from existing GESI frameworks, as well as from human centered design and behaviour science.

4. Responsible monitoring framework - End of phase 3 (1st of October)

A light-touch monitoring framework (consisting of indicators and supporting data collection tools), for FT Hub to adopt to monitor whether pilots have explored and evidenced that the innovation can be scaled in a responsible and inclusive way, or whether outstanding risks remain. In practice this might involve pilots self-assessing themselves against a rubric, in order to determine whether or not they have adequately deployed a ‘responsible and inclusive’ lens in their work and conducted experiments to test and validate assumptions about ‘responsible’ early-stage tech. It is anticipated that a framework/tool of this type can also be of considerable value to innovators as they identify future needs and priorities for developing their solution.

4. Training approach defined for FT Hub coaches - End of phase 4 (mid-October)

The partner will deliver an approach, agreed with FT core innovation team, for the roll out of the responsible and inclusive approaches (resources, tools, frameworks) for early-stage tech development to FT Hub coaches.

5. Roll out training on tools/resources, frameworks for FT Hub Innovation coaches - End of phase 4 (mid-October)

The partner will deliver workshops, or sessions, with FT Hub innovation coaches to share the overall principles of responsible and inclusive innovation, and how to integrate responsible approaches across the lifecycle of researching, developing, testing and validating an early-stage tech innovation is ‘responsible.’

Please note, there may be an opportunity for the partner after phase 4, outside the scope of this terms of reference, to continue to work closely with 2-3 pilots in the integration and development of the responsible resources, tools frameworks. There may also be an opportunity for the partner to develop and contribute to thought leadership in this space, for example in collaboration with FT Hub publish a Thinkpiece sharing the learning and experience of developing responsible/inclusive early-stage frontier/emerging tech. It is believed this type of thought leadership would be of considerable value to the tech and innovation in international development sector. In addition, there are opportunities to share the learnings and experience through the International Development Innovation Alliance (see here: https://www.idiainnovation.org) of which the Frontier Tech Hub is closely affiliated with through Results for Development.

Application Instructions

Please submit the following materials to FTLenquiries@dt-global.com (with “FT Responsible innovation” in the subject line):

Key documents:

○ 500-800 word introduction and description to why you or your organisation would be appropriate for this opportunity based on your experiences

○ 1-2 page description of how you would approach the scope of work including how you plan to work with the FT Hub

○ A high level workplan indicating proposed activities and timeline.

○ Proposed deliverables and timelines

○ Profiles of the team members who would work on the study and details about their proposed roles

○ A budget for the project, including a breakdown of personnel inputs (names, fee rates and number of days) and expenses.

Proposed Timeline for Application and Selection

● Application deadline 21st June @23:59 UK time

● Assessment of written applications –w/c 24th June

● 1-hour interview with FT Team (15-minute presentation by candidates, followed by Q&A) – w/c 1st July - for shortlisted applications only

Budget

The funding amount available for the contract is up to £30,000 GBP. Bids above the maximum amount will not be considered.

Evaluation Criteria

1. (40 points) Strength of proposed vision, approach and methodology in responding to the scope of work. We will evaluate proposals on the following criteria:

1. Evidence base: Strength of the proposal’s ambition to consult existing evidence base around responsible and inclusive innovation.

2. Collaborative: The extent to which your proposal incorporates collaboration with the FT Hub and FCDO, and seeks to deliver support which integrates within the Hub’s existing offer, methodology and approach.

3. Value adding: The extent to which your proposal adds to the Hubs existing methodology – especially through proposing the delivery of outputs that bring rigour to the way in which pilots are supported to identify the potential impacts of their innovation and adapt their approach to ensure the solution is responsible and inclusive in its design.

2. (40 points) Demonstrated technical expertise in innovation methods, and in ensuring innovation is delivered in a responsible and inclusive way. As demonstrated in profiles of team members. This includes:

1. Previous experience adopting innovation methods.

2. Previous experience advising on responsible and inclusive innovation – including developing tools and frameworks.

3. (20 points) Strength of the commercial proposal

1. Value for money: We will prefer proposals which offer an ambitious, but realistic use of the funds.

Maximum points available: 100

Enquiries

Please contact FTLenquiries@DT-Global.com for further enquiries regarding this Terms of Reference or for further information on the Frontier Technologies Programme. Title your enquiry ‘Enquiry – Responsible Tech Framework’

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