Data Scientist Intern

Vacancy code VA/2012/B5004/1560
Position title Data Scientist Intern
Department/office NAO, UNDG
Duty station New York, United States of America
Contract type Other
Contract level Other
Duration 3-6 Months
Application period 07-Dec-2012 to 07-Jan-2013

United Nations Core Values: Integrity, Professionalism, Respect for Diversity
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Background Information - UNOPS

“UNOPS plays a critical role in providing management services for our life-saving, peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations. I have seen many examples of how these activities help suffering people in troubled parts of the world.”
-Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General...
UNOPS mission is to expand the capacity of the UN system and its partners to implement peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations that matter for people in need.

Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, UNOPS vision is to always satisfy partners with management services that meet world-class standards of quality, speed and cost effectiveness.

By assisting UN organizations, international financial institutions, governments and other development partners, UNOPS makes significant, tangible contributions to results on the ground.

UNOPS employs more than 6000 personnel and on behalf of its partners creates thousands more work opportunities in local communities. With its headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, a network of five regional offices and a further 20 operations and project centres, UNOPS oversees activities in more than 80 countries.

UNOPS is committed to achieving a truly diverse workforce.
Background Information - NAO

North America Regional Office
The UNOPS North America Regional Office provides services that help implement projects for a range of partners, and support operations run by the UNOPS Mine Action Cluster, Small Grants Cluster and Development Group Cluster. In addition, the office serves as a liaison between UNOPS headquarters and its Executive Board, which supports and supervises UNOPS activities globally.
Background Information - Development Group Cluster

Development Group Cluster

The UNOPS Development Group Cluster is based in the North America Office and supports a diverse and complex portfolio including partners such as the United Nations Development Programme (the Bureau for Development Policy, the Human Development Report Office, and the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation), the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the United Nations Secretariat and a broadening community of primarily New York-based UN partners in the delivery of project management, implementation and administration services.
Background Information - Job-specific

Global Pulse is a UN innovation initiative harnessing new digital data to help the public sector understand sooner how communities are coping with the impacts of global crises. To this end, Global Pulse is developing a 21st-century approach to impact monitoring, building social software for evidence-based decision making, and establishing a network of “Pulse Labs” to mainstream the use of real-time data analysis into development policy. Pulse Labs are national facilities established to support the public sector by developing analytical and technological capacity for harnessing real-time data to strengthen social protection.  The overarching objective of Global Pulse is to mainstream the use of data mining and real-time data analytics into development organizations and communities of practice.

To achieve its goals, Global Pulse is looking for a Data Scientist intern to work in the Global Pulse New York Lab.  The Data Scientist intern will be a part of the team that will work to apply data mining techniques (anomaly detection, association learning, cluster detection, classification, and predictive modelling) to create actionable insights from a broad range of structured and unstructured data that is growing rapidly in scale.  The Data Scientist intern will assist with the acquisition, analysis and visualization of data from a variety of sources in order to: i) help understand emerging human vulnerabilities to socio-economic shocks, ii) detect and highlight patterns that could indicate how people are coping with emerging hardship, and iii) gather evidence of changes in behavior and perception correlated with public sector policies and programmes.

This vacancy is for a full-time internship. Interns not receiving any funding through an internship programme, or from a specific institution, will receive a stipend at the end of each month to contribute to the cost of daily expenditures. Aside from this stipend, Interns are responsible for any expenses they may incur as a result of partaking in this internship programme (inclusive of travel/visa expenses where applicable).
Functional Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Data Scientist, the intern will:

    Assist the team to define, design and implement research projects harnessing Big Data to improve both understanding of population behavior, needs, and vulnerabilities as well as capacity to monitor and evaluate the impacts of development policies and programmes;
    Support the team to perform data studies and data discovery around new data sources or new uses for existing data sources;
    Assist in developing new approaches to detecting events and trends within real-time data sources such as online media, social networks, imagery, geospatial data, communications logs, transaction records, etc.;
    Contribute to the design and implementation of statistical data quality procedures around new data sources;
    Assist the team to visualize and report data findings creatively in a variety of formats;
    Interact with the global community through a variety of media.

Competencies

    Familiarity with analytical techniques such as text mining, sentiment analysis, predictive analysis, event detection, and modelling of complex systems;
    Familiarity working with quantitative and qualitative data;
    Knowledge of scripting, coding, and web design required for data access, analysis, and presentation;
    Knowledge of AI, machine learning, predictive analysis and visualization.
    Excellent communication skills


Education/Experience/Language requirements

EDUCATION:
            
Applicants must be studying for a university degree such as Bachelor's, Master's, Ph. D. (or the equivalent), or have graduated from such studies within three years prior to the application date of the internship.

Area of study should preferably be one of the following:

    Applied mathematics, physics, computational finance, economics, computer science, engineering or other related technical disciplines.
EXPERIENCE:

    Knowledge of Big Data, social network data, and geospatial data/satellite imagery,
    Experience working in a developing country setting;
    Experience working in the fields of global development or crisis management;
    Experience analyzing data from social monitoring systems, monitoring and evaluation work, or other survey work in developing countries.

LANGUAGE:

    Fluency in English required.
Contract type, level and duration

Contract type: Internship letter of agreement.
Contract level: N/A
Contract duration: TBD
Additional Considerations

    Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time (CET)
    Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
    Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
    Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
    The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS. 
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