Introduction

Cambodia remains a young and growing nation; people under the age of 30 represent two-thirds of its population, which continues to grow at around 1.6% per year. Youth also constitute about 43% of the total working-age population. Whether Cambodia can unleash the potential of its youth, however, is dependent on youth’s access to decent and higher value jobs and their ability to start and sustain their enterprises, as well as to successfully respond to rapid technological change driven by the digital economy and the Industry 4.0.

Entrepreneurship development has increasingly become a critical solution to addressing rising unemployment in many economies; however, the sector remains underdeveloped in Cambodia. According to the IDP 2015-2025, Cambodia’s entrepreneurship is mainly based in urban areas and approximately 42% of enterprises were just established since 2008. At the individual level, young Cambodians lack access to entrepreneurship capacity development and have limited access to market information, production, business matching, capital, and credit markets. Technically gifted youth entrepreneurs are not equipped with innovative entrepreneurship skills and necessary support that are vital for establishing and running viable businesses. Startups that involves advanced technologies to produce harder challenges especially getting prototyping support. Additionally, the presence of the digital economy and Industry 4.0 even puts more pressure on young entrepreneurs to timely adjust their skills, products, and services if they are to survive and continue growth.

The Dynamics and Control Laboratory (DCLab) under research unit of Mechatronics and Information Technology, Research and Innovation Center, Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC) was created in 2015. It is one of many laboratories supporting lab-based education. The DCLab has a vision to be a Center of Excellent in Intelligent Mechatronics. It is a place where students can study, do researches, build prototype of robots and mechatronics devices, create small software application, conduct capacity building for members, and engage other activities to leverage youth’s awareness of emerging technologies in the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) paradigm. To support those activities especially building prototype, the UNDP has supported equipment such as 3D printers, laser cutter, and other tools for making electronic circuit. Because of these supports, the Center has the means to build a prototype of mechanical ventilator within 4 months. Prior to this development, several other projects implemented to develop solar tracker, robot arm, mobile robot, legged robot, drone, object detection in image, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (see the video of the progress of these projects). Currently the members of the  laboratory includes 6 lecturer-researchers, 5 Ph.D. students, 5 master students, 9 final year bachelor of engineering students, and 15 junior students (see members here). With experience and the team members, it proves that the Center possesses the capacity to integrate existing technologies and create new technologies for making robots and mechatronics devices. In order to move these achievements further, the centre is seeking for ways to expand its impact beyond laboratory level which include providing support to start-ups that need technology support and commercializing  high tech products that could be prototyped in the Center of Excellence.

As a part of its ongoing work on youth employment and industry 4.0, UNDP Cambodia recently has supported and partnered with the Institute of Technology of Cambodia in effort to increase Cambodia socio-economic growth and solve socio-economic issues by using the joint research centre or The Center of Excellence to build and share knowledge/skills on various socio-economic and other development related topics which can be accessed by the general public and stakeholder alike, engage youths and assist the developing of the country’s human resource; and organize policy advocacy and leaning events on key topics, in cooperation with Royal Government and other relevant stakeholders.

In 2021, the collaboration particularly aims to increase the visibility of ITC’s Center of Excellence (CE) and its roles in raising awareness of emerging technologies and show activity models to students, faculty staffs in different universities, NGOs and other institutions; to connect youths and university students as well as increase their interests in the application of mathematics in daily life and developing technologies, STEM education and related career choices, and to build support platform for tech start-ups related to development of product prototype using I4.0 and high technologies.

Announcement Position

Location: Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA
Additional Category: Management
Type of Contract: Individual Contract
Post Level:  National Consultant
Languages Required : English  
Starting Date : 03-May-2021
(date when the selected candidate is expected to start)
Duration of Initial Contract : 110 working days
Expected Duration of Assignment : 1 May to 30 November 2021
Application Deadline : 19-Apr-21 (Midnight New York, USA)

Responsibilities

The consultant will be tasked to support overall operation of the centre of excellence throughout the contract period and produce specific output as outlined in the following table of deliverables. The consultant is expected to perform and achieve the following tasks and outputs:

• Lead the development of management structure and relevant guidelines to support future operation of CE. Specifically, the incumbent will conduct research, identify, and adopt co-working space operational manual and propose a viable incubation model for CE to support start-ups needing prototyping services. The consultant will work collaboratively with the CE and UNDP youth employment team to design each stage of incubation program, key activities, stakeholder identification for each activity of the program.
• Implement the proposed incubation/prototyping model to test its practicality with start-ups to receive support to be provided by CE. To ensure that this work is feasible, the consultant will at least have developed detail curriculum, organized workshops, and provided supports to participating entrepreneurs and start-ups.
• Work in close collaboration with head of CE to develop practical work plan in the covid19 context and coordinate to ensure that the workplan is timely implemented to raise awareness and attract and inspire youth to grow their interest in I4.0 technologies. The work includes managing website content, run social media plan and draft technology shows agenda and schedule for approval from CE management.
• Identify and liaise with stakeholders and speakers including CE management, UDNP program team, start-ups, private companies, and NGOs to be engaged in technology shows and start-ups support process.
• Organise a week-long technology shows while adopting covid19 preventive measures. The shows shall be organised based on the features and schedule in consultation with and approved by the head of CE.
• Organise a minimum of 6 workshops, training sessions, or events required in the incubation services to support with technical and logistical support from CE team and UNDP Cambodia. This includes inviting participants and liaising with workshop trainers and speakers
• Ensure mentors, advisors, and Entrepreneurs in Residence are actively engaging with participating start-ups/entrepreneurs in a respective role and manner.
• Produce a summary of an engagement and result report on quarterly basis which highlights key activities, results, and recommendations for next interventions.
  

Interested offeror must  read  the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=77038 for more  detail information about term  of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online

Competencies

• Ability to perform rapid assessment and analysis, draft project report, curriculum development, knowledge product, and project documents
• Sound understanding of the digital economy, concept of industry 4.0, and digital skills. Some understanding of product design, prototypes, and marketing
• Knowledge of entrepreneurship ecosystem and tech startups, youth’s situation in Cambodia, including youth’s roles in realizing SDGs, skills development, employment, and youth entrepreneurship
• A highly organized person, sets priorities, produces quality outputs, meets deadlines, and manages time efficiently
• Ability to present complex issues in a simple and clear manner
• Ability to facilitate workshops/meetings with diverse groups of participants and through virtual means and tools
• Ability to think out-of-the-box and works toward creative solutions by analyzing problems carefully
• Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks.
• Shares knowledge and is willing to provide support to others who request advice or help
• Works well in a team to advance the priorities of this project and UNDP
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, age sensitivity and adaptability, and is committed to UNDP gender equality strategy; and
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Requirement

Education: 

Master’s degree in Business Administration, Project Management; Strategic management, Entrepreneurship Development, Industrial Engineering, or Development Studies with relevant work experience..

Experience:

• Minimum 2 years of experience in working with both national and international organizations, governments, and private companies.
• Relevant experience in incubation programme or product prototyping service to support tech startups.
• Proven experience in project management, coordinating entrepreneurship programs, events/communications, and building partnerships with stakeholders.
• Strong experience in working with young entrepreneurs and startups.
• Demonstrated experience in building and managing partnerships with different groups of stakeholders and resource mobilization.

Language Requirement: Fluency in English

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that UNDP doesn’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal

3. Personal CV including experience in similar projects, list of publication written by Candidate and at least 3 references.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email aphikovith.phin@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP’s response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.

If you are experiencing difficulties with online job applications, please contact erecruit.helpdesk@undp.org.