Volunteer Innovation Strategy Volunteer

What will you be doing?

Role Description Africa Health Organisation (AHO) plans to influence global and local markets collaboratively with other partners for existing and future products/services by advocating fit-for-purpose product profiles, accelerating R&D and scale-up, and addressing issues of access, affordability and value for money, ultimately to improve the lives of all people in Africa and the Diaspora.   How can you make a difference? The Innovation Strategy Volunteer will provide technical advice to AHO on health and social care management for innovative products. The role will enable accelerated identification of Africa’s health needs, appropriate alignment with country, regional, and global-level actors, and a clear definition of the most efficient means of accelerating and incentivising relevant innovation.   Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

Manage AHO’s health product and service innovation projects, documenting and communicating developments to management, donors, and the innovation review board. Manage the various steps of product and service innovation, including user-needs research, market research, communication with developers, field trials, impact and cost-effectiveness analysis, health strategy, medicines supply chain strategy, and scale. Contribute to field trial design and support roll-out of new innovative products and services. Provide technical and advisory support to AHO/national systems, including capacity development in close collaboration with programme colleagues to strengthen the supply components of health systems for innovative products and services.  You will lead innovation grant applications and fundraising activities and drive innovation funding proposal development to increase financial resources to enable product innovation within the health technology space. Create tools and frameworks to optimise and document best practices for driving product and service innovation within the Health Technology space.

  VOLUNTEERING IS NOT A PAID JOB. ALL our Volunteer Opportunities are not paid or salaried. Do not apply if you want a paid job or plan to negotiate a pay deal with us. Volunteering allows people to give their time for free to society while gaining the experience they need when applying for future paid jobs.

What are we looking for?

EDUCATION and QUALIFICATION:

A university degree, preferably, Master’s Degree in one of the following areas: Public Health, Policy, Nursing, Industrial Design, Art & Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Healthcare Innovation, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Medical Device Engineering, Biomedical sciences, Biomedical Technology Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, Sport, Engineering or any STEM subject, Data Science, Medical Technology, Medical Enterprise, Molecular Medicine, Biotechnology, Health Data Science,  Innovative Medical Technology, Digital Health, TeleHealth, Medical and Health Engineering & Design, MBA Engineering, Technology, Enterprise, Innovation, Geography, Health Systems Design and Improvements, Medical Law, Statistics, Genetics and Geonomics, Economics, or a field relevant to Health Technology. Enterprise  

EXPERIENCE:

Minimum three (3) years of progressively relevant professional experience in product development or scaling Health Product Innovations. Demonstrable experience in driving product innovation, preferably within private companies. Experience using procurement, financial incentive structures, or strategic partnering to drive innovation toward solving a specific problem. Experience conducting user-needs assessments, field trials/end-user assessments, and market research. Experience developing TORs, technical specifications and/or Target Product Profiles. Knowledge and understanding of communicable and non-communicable diseases, social determinants of health, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), and medical technology. Experience working in Africa and/or familiarity with emerging health issues and humanitarian medical emergencies are considered assets.

  Language requirements

Ability to speak one of Africa's widely spoken languages would be an added advantage e.g. Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Fulani, German, Greek, Hausa, Hindi, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Lingala, Malagasy, Ndebele, Oromo, Portuguese, Russian, Sesotho, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swati, Thai, Tigrinya, Tswana, Venda, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu, etc,

What difference will you make?

Impact of Results: This role will directly contribute to AHO’s Strategic Goal 9, which is to improve access to Medical Products and Technology. To meet AHO’s goals of improving access to medical products and technology, we need to continuously evaluate whether appropriate products are commercially available and have achieved an impactful scale. This role aims to ensure that appropriate health products are available, evaluated in the proper context, implemented effectively, and scaled. Innovation projects can range from identifying unmet needs, driving R&D, enabling integration within health systems, and scaling on a broader level. In addition, the volunteer will help sharpen the overall scope, strategy, and approach of Product Innovation by contributing to Enabling Projects that improve the processes and tools used within Product and Service Innovation.