Division: Giga, Office of Innovation

Duration: The selected candidate will undertake the full-time role for 3 months

Location: Selected intern will be working full-time in-person in Geneva, Switzerland and will be governed by and subject to UNICEF’s General Terms and Conditions for interns. Working hours at the duty station are from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Geneva time. 

Expected Start Date: November, 2025

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. 

For every child...Innovate

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.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

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 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%. 

You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaglobal

How can you make a difference? 

The purpose of this internship is to support Giga in migrating its country engagement project management database from Trello to ClickUp, establishing an intuitive and consistent structure across countries, and linking it with other functional teams (procurement, technology, finance) to strengthen collaboration and alignment.

Your main responsibilities include:

Under the supervision of the Country Engagement Team Lead, the intern will:

1. Review existing project management systems: Assess current Trello boards, workflows, and data organization.
2. Design the ClickUp structure: Propose and implement a user-friendly structure that:
   1. Supports country-level project management.
   2. Ensures cross-country consistency and comparability.
   3. Facilitates easy navigation for all team members.
3. Data migration: Transfer information from Trello to ClickUp, ensuring accuracy and data integrity.
4. Cross-team linkages: Connect the country engagement workspace with ClickUp workspaces of other teams (procurement, technology, finance) where relevant.
5. Standardization: Develop a consistent taxonomy, tagging, and hierarchy for projects, folders, and tasks.
6. Testing and refinement: Pilot the structure with the country engagement team and refine based on feedback.
7. Documentation and guidance: Prepare clear user guidelines and process documentation.
8. Capacity building: Conduct short orientation sessions to support adoption of the system across teams.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have: Please access the full Term of Reference (ToRs) and read a more detailed description of the internship in this file  Giga, Internship - Project Management Systems Migration.pdf

What you need to apply… 

• A bachelor’s university degree in degree in project management, business administration, information systems, international development, or related field.
• Currently enrolled in a master’s program or related field.
• Experience in project management systems, workflow design, or operations is an asset
• Experience working in an international or multicultural environment is considered an asset. 

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Proficiency in Spanish or any other UN languages (French, Russian, Arabic, Chinese) is considered an asset.

Conditions:

• Age: Interns must be at least 18 years.
• Have good academic performance as demonstrated by recent university or institution records.
• Have no immediate relatives (e.g., father, mother, brother, sister) working in any UNICEF office.
• Have no other relatives in the line of authority which the intern will report to.
• Individuals must have proof of medical insurance covering the time and location of their internship.
• This internship expects a full-time commitment. 
• Individuals are expected to provide their own laptop.

Visa:

The intern will be responsible for obtaining any visa required for them to travel to live and work in Switzerland; though the DPC section will offer guidance on how to complete this process if needed.

Stipend:

In accordance with UNICEF's guidelines, selected intern will be provided a monthly stipend to cover the duration of the candidate’s internship based on the assignment location. There is no expectancy of employment at the end of the internship.

Insurance:

For Geneva-based internship, UNICEF will not be responsible for costs arising from accidents and/or illness incurred during the intern's service, whether on or off UNICEF premises. Therefore, the selected candidate must provide proof of enrollment in a health and accident plan with coverage in Switzerland prior to starting his/her internship. HR will share additional information about Swiss mandatory insurance and taxation in due time with the selected intern.

Mandatory Courses:

Selected intern will be requested to complete online mandatory courses prior to commencement of the internship.

Leave:

Selected intern may take up to 2.5 days per month off work for any reason, including for medical reasons. The stipend will be reduced for any absence beyond this quota. The quota is cumulative over the duration of the internship, but there will be no compensation or carry-over to another appointment for unused leave days at the end of the internship.

Employment:

There is no expectancy of employment at the end of the internship.

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF competencies required for this post are … 
(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical 3) Drive to achieve results for 4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and 6) Thinks and acts 7) Works collaboratively with others.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under an internship agreement will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein. Their conditions of service will be governed by their agreement. Interns are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The intern is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the agreement. Selected intern is subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to interns who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their internship agreement.