Job Opportunity at Touch Foundation Tanzania, ICT Officer

ICT Officer 

Dodoma
Touch Foundation
We strengthen healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa, providing better access to care and improving the quality of local health systems.

Position : m-mama Tanzania ICT Officer

Location : Dodoma, Tanzania

Job Status : Full time employment

Touch Foundation, an NGO working to save lives and relieve human suffering by strengthening healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa, providing better access to care and improving the quality of local health systems, is seeking an outstanding individual to join its team as its ICT Officer for the m-mama Tanzania Program. The ICT Officer will join a team of highly mission- driven professionals with diverse backgrounds and experiences, ranging from management consulting to global public health. The ICT Officer will support, design and build new features of the m-mama Emergency Transportation application, by working closely with other app development and technical teams from Touch and the Tanzanian Government, becoming an integral part of Touch’s commitment to improving health in sub- Saharan Africa.

BACKGROUND

Touch Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 to help strengthen the healthcare system in Sub- Saharan Africa. Touch’s founder, Lowell Bryan, a former Director with McKinsey & Company, initially founded Touch to address the healthcare crisis in Tanzania where he understood that the country faced a daunting healthcare environment, with declining life expectancy and increasing maternal and infant mortality. One of the biggest impediments to access to healthcare was the dearth of medical professionals. Touch supported the development of a new medical school in Tanzania, created a program to improve training and delivery of services by graduates of the medical school, and started addressing the most critical challenges in the local resource-constrained health system. The success of Touch’s initiatives in Tanzania led to the expansion of programs across multiple Sub-Saharan African countries. In the recent years and in collaboration Vodafone Foundation and other funding partners, Touch has developed and implemented in multiple countries (Tanzania and Lesotho) the m-mama program which tackles maternal and infant mortality by providing emergency transportation to pregnant women and newborns in distress during and after childbirth. Touch’s work is data driven and evidence based, and we strive to share the knowledge and the information obtained through years of implementation with policy makers and other stakeholders globally.

Most of Touch’s staff work in Africa to implement our programs on the ground, with the administrative and development functions centered in the U.S., in New York City. The people who work at Touch are very smart, focused, collaborative and driven to excel which has contributed to the impact that Touch has made.

Overview of the m-mama program

The m-mama program is an innovative and cost- effective at-scale Emergency Transportation System for pregnant women and newborns led by Vodafone Foundation and implemented by Touch Foundation. Vodafone Foundation and Touch Foundation launched m-mama in 2013 in Tanzania in collaboration with the Government of Tanzania. This program addresses the high rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in rural areas by reducing delays in access to care using safe and timely emergency transportation for pregnant women and newborns experiencing an emergency. The central component of m-mama is an emergency transport system enabled by an innovative digital solution to address complications as quickly and effectively as possible. This digital technology is used to triage a patient remotely 24/7 and then dispatch an ambulance or community driver to bring the patient to a health facility.

In Tanzania, after a successful proof of concept implemented in Sengerema and Buchosa districts, and scaling the program to Shinyanga region, the m-mama program will be scaled up across the country in collaboration with the Government of Tanzania starting from October 2021.

POSITION SUMMARY

We are seeking foran ICT Officerto support the national scale up of the m-mama program by ensuring the mmama ICT system is fully functioning and by managing m-mama ICT system maintenance and operations.

The ICT Officer will work with national stakeholders, including Government ICT teams, Government health teams, Implementing Partner – Pathfinder International, andfunderand lead implementer-Vodafone Foundation. This role will be supported by the Senior Technical Manager, the Director of Programs and the Touch ICT Team. The ICT Officer will report to the Senior Technical Manager for the m-mama program. Responsibilities of the role may be adapted based upon the experience of the successful candidate.

Job Opportunity at Touch Foundation Tanzania, ICT Officer

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

m-mama ICT System Development and Deployment

• Work with the Government ICT teams to design and develop new features, especially backend development of the m-mama ICT system
• Conduct testing and Quality Assurance (0A) on staging and deployment on production environments and prevent defects/bugs
• Manage User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with relevant stakeholders, collect feedback and implement changes
• Support integration of the m-mama ICT system with other national health information systems and mobile payment solutions

m-mama System Product Management

• Co-define with m-mama program team and Government of Tanzania national stakeholders the mmama ICT strategy and product roadmap
• Support the translation of m-mama ICT strategy into detailed requirements and processes
• Work with key m-mama country stakeholders to develop and prioritize business requirements, and translate business requirements into technical requirements
• Support program team in user training and collect feedback to continuously improve the m-mama ICT system
• Gain a deep understanding of user experience, identify, and fill product gaps and generate new ideas/ propose new solutions that improve user experience
• Continuously evaluate m-mama ICT risks, propose risk mitigation plans and implement risk mitigation actions

m-mama System Operations and Maintenance

• Act as level 2 ICT support for system users both at the region and national levels. Level 11CT support will be provided by the Government ICT teams.
• Ensure availability and proper functioning of the m-mama ICT system for both front-end and back-end architecture
• Collaborate with the Government ICT teams to address bugs, faults and errors reported by the mmama program team and program stakeholders
• Work with Government ICT team to resolve any bug, defect or issue related to data configuration in the m-mama ICT system, including filling data gaps for setup of the system in each region (e.g., health facility or village GIS coordinates)
• Create and optimize documentation to support the implementation and operations of the ICT system
• Support Government ICT team to perform code diagnostics, troubleshooting and reviewing to optimize m-mama ICT code base and system performance
• Support Government ICT team on configuration of users and devices for accessing the m-mama ICT system components
• Ensure data privacy and security adhere to Tanzania security standards
  Stakeholder engagement and support
• Engage with technical ICT stakeholders at regional and national levels and build strong and sustainable relationships
• Be the key point of contact for technical ICT matters related to m-mama system development, operations, and maintenance
• Facilitate requests for data access from the m-mama system
• Support knowledge transfer of the m-mama ICT system to the Government of Tanzania
• As job vacancy announcements cannot be exhaustive, the ICT Officer will be required to undertake other duties that are broadly in line with the above key duties.

QUALIFICATIONS

Knowledge, Education, Skills and Experience:

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
• Proven backend development experience for a minimum of 5 years
• Combined knowledge of Java and web front-end React languages
• Experience with third-party libraries and APIs
• Working knowledge of the general mobile landscape, architectures, trends, and emerging technologies •
• Proficiency in the use of Excel, PowerPoint, and Microsoft Word
• Ability to self-manage and work independently without day-to-day oversight to complete deliverables on time and at a high level of quality
• Highly collaborative workstyle being able to manage multiple stakeholders
• Excellent attention to detail
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Good judgment and discretion to represent the Touch Foundation in a highly professional manner
• Maintain documentation of complete application development processes

APPLICATION PROCESS

Please submit a Resume and a cover letter outlining your interest in the position to: [email protected] Please put “Touch ICT Officer Tanzania” in the subject line of your e-mailed application.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

Touch Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age, gender identification, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability. All qualified applications will be given equal opportunity and selection decisions will be based solely on job- related factors. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.