Open Innovation Manager: USAID's Innovation Design, Execution, and Acceleration Support (IDEAS) Activity
Full Time
Washington, DC
Posted
Job description
WHO WE ARE
Come grow with us! If you are a passionate change agent who thrives in a collaborative, entrepreneurial and inclusive, culture committed to operational excellence, we would like to meet you.
At Resonance, you get involved in the work, in the field, not just in the deck. Our teams are autonomous and self-sufficient. You get to weigh in with founders and leaders on how to drive change and grow the movement while growing the company.
Resonance is an award-winning, Certified B Corporation consultancy that delivers market-based solutions to address the world's toughest challenges. We enable a variety of donor, commercial, and investor clients around the world to catalyze lasting impact. Resonance seeks to catalyze large-scale social, environmental, and economic change by fostering new and dynamic forms of collaboration. We do this by fostering public-private partnerships, facilitating sustainable investment, and providing deep analytical insights in frontier markets.
POSITION MANDATE
Resonance is seeking candidates to serve as the Open Innovation Manager for the anticipatedInnovation Design, Execution, and Acceleration Support (IDEAS) activity.The IDEAS activity will provide design assistance, technical expertise, and administrative support that will bolster USAID and implementing partner efforts to execute open innovation programs, as well as accelerate the resultant innovations for increased uptake in appropriate markets or contexts. The Open Innovation Manager will design and implement Innovation Challenges that foster innovative solutions to generate real impact capable of succeeding at scale while delivering solutions to the relevant end-users. Resonance is working with diverse clients to harness new technologies and catalyze collaborative partnerships to support entrepreneurship, collective problem solving, and new and sustainable approaches to the world’s most complex problems.
To meet these objectives, Resonance will support the full challenge life cycle including the steps of assessing the development challenges, designing and launching open innovation challenges, and implementing, accelerating, and scaling these competitions. This is a full-time position based in Washington DC or remote.
OUTCOMES / ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
- Support COP and DCOP to design and implement innovation challenges and coordinate all aspects of innovation challenge implementation.
- Contribute to the design and management of open innovation challenges that are informed primarily by research and stakeholder priorities.
- Support the DCOP in liaising between implementing partners, non-governmental organizations, and private sector actors to support innovation challenges by coordinating with these partners to support information flow and integration of efforts.
- Develop and manage challenge work plans, in close coordination with the DCOP and client
- Support DCOP in the identification and engagement of a wide array of stakeholders to support solutions to identified challenges in different communities globally, depending on the challenge.
- Contribute to scopes of work, request for applications, or other challenge design documents.
- Collaborate on the utilization of online crowdsourcing and dialogue platform.
- Collaborate in the design and management of co-creation events with challenge awardees and other stakeholders as appropriate.
- Inform communications and outreach activities based on stakeholder insights, dialogue, contextual nuance, and Challenge protocols.
- Support each Challenge launch and selection process through recruitment of judges to evaluate solutions to transnational corruption, hosting of webinars, training of screeners and judges, and the shortlist interview process.
- Help adapt open innovation tools to each challenge context.
- Coordinate inputs from short-term specialists and subject matter experts
- Other tasks as assigned.
REQUIRED EDUCATION & EXPEIRIENCE
- Bachelor’s degree in international relations, Public Administration, Business Administration, or another relevant field required;
- Five (5) years’ experience working in international development and progressively responsible work experience in managing complex projects of similar size and scope as IDEAS
- Experience in innovation for development programming required, with a particular emphasis on facilitation, systems, co-creation, crowdsourcing, and competitions;
- Strong project management skills in a fluid, multi-stakeholder, and high visibility situation. Experience with USAID project context preferred;
- Strong interpersonal skills and experience working with multidisciplinary teams;
- Demonstrated experience working effectively with multiple stakeholders including government officials, private sector, multilateral organizations, educational institutions, local implementing partners, and community groups, especially as it relates to building capacity to work with donor organizations;
- Excellent written and oral communication skills in English is required.
PREFERRED EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
- Master’s Degree in international relations, Public Administration, Business Administration, or another relevant field required
- Experience managing USAID-funded open innovation programs is preferred
TRAVEL EXPECTATIONS
Limited travel could possibly emerge dependent on requirements.
WORK ENVIRONMENT AND PHYSICAL DEMANDS
This position operates in a professional office environment, and routinely requires the use of standard office equipment such as computers, phones, printers, photocopiers, and filing cabinets.
The physical requirements described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
As a part of the responsibilities for this job, the employee is required to communicate, detect, converse with, discern, convey, express oneself, and exchange information orally and in writing with others. The employee must be able to remain in a stationary position, sitting at a desk for prolonged periods, move or traverse inside the office and facilities; operate, activate, use, prepare, inspect, place, detect, or position computers and other office equipment, such as a calculator, copy machine, furniture, and computer printer. The employee must be able to make substantial repetitive motions of the wrists, hands and fingers. The employee must be able to lift and move up to 15lbs at times.
WORK AUTHORIZATION/SECURITY CLEARANCE
US work authorization required. Preferably DC based, but remote could be considered.
AAP/EEO STATEMENT
The Equal Employment Opportunity Policy of Resonance is to provide a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity or expression, and sexual orientation) parental status, genetic information (including family medical history) political affiliation, military service, age, veteran status, disability, or marital status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. These protections extend to all management practices and decisions, including recruitment and hiring, appraisal systems, promotions, training, and career development programs. Consistent with these obligations, Resonance also provides reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, and practices.
Resonance believes that employees should be provided with a working environment which enables each associate to be productive and to work to the best of his or her ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment based on any of the above-mentioned characteristics.
We expect and require the cooperation of all employees in maintaining a discrimination and harassment-free atmosphere.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. No phone calls or emails please.
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