About Caribou Digital

Caribou Digital is an impact organization on a mission to create more inclusive economies and societies in an increasingly digital world. We support clients to use their funds and resources more effectively to maximize their social and environmental impact. Our partners are leading corporations, government agencies, international financial institutions, and private foundations worldwide. We provide fund management, strategic advisory, research, and measurement services to enable organizations to tackle some of the world’s most complex challenges.

About Live Learning

Live Learning at Caribou Digital is a dynamic methodology for development sector executives and policymakers to gain in-depth insights into specific sectors and geographies. These immersive experiences take participants out of the boardroom to directly engage with the digital economy. Participants meet with leaders from innovative companies, test live products, meet consumers across the digital literacy spectrum, and chat with the micro businesses that are the beating heart of emerging economies. Each trip is carefully tailored to individual learning goals, ensuring participants acquire actionable insights, deep understanding, and lasting connections beyond the trip.

Project Description

Caribou Digital will host a week-long Live Learning trip in Nairobi, Kenya, tentatively scheduled in early November. It will be attended by an estimated 25 - 30 individuals, based globally, who are responsible for a portfolio of investments across Africa and Asia spanning health, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, and livelihoods.

Specifically, the goals of the Live Learning trip are to:

• Experience approaches to breaking down barriers to digital connectivity for women and girls, including innovations around affordability, accessibility, digital literacy, relevancy, safety & security, and social norms
• Explore digital health applications, including conversational AI chatbots used by patients, doctors, and community health workers to improve outcomes for women and girls.
• Uncover how community health worker and field force applications impact women’s lives and livelihoods.
• Explore how AI is being used to improve farming practices for women smallholder farmers, focusing on precision agriculture and climate localization.
• Delve into the impact of social commerce on female micro-entrepreneurs and how they use WhatsApp and other social media applications to grow their business.
• Learn how alternative data can unlock access to finance for women-owned or women-led small businesses by leveraging ‘data footprints’ and other online activities to unlock access to or de-risk credit.
• Experience the digitization of education in Kenya, how digital learning and digital technology are being integrated into the Kenyan curriculum, and EdTech innovation to upskill women learners and girls.

By listening to current portfolio partners, digital economy leaders, innovators, and front-line workers and experiencing digital products and services first-hand, the Foundation hopes to build a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in leveraging digital to improve women’s lives and livelihoods and identify ideas for their future investments at the intersection of gender and digital.

About the Learning Partnership team

The Learning Partnership (LP) team will also support the delivery of this Live Learning.

• The LP director will co-lead this with you, and support client interactions, ensure key factors for success are being met, and support prep and execution activities.
• 3 additional team members will support with prep and lead groups during field visits
• Caribou Digital has preferred designers, copy editors, etc. to support materials preparation.

About the role

Supported by Caribou Digital’s existing Learning Partnership team, you will co-lead the planning and execution of this trip in Nairobi, including the following responsibilities and deliverables:

Agenda and meeting facilitation

• Develop a shortlist of individuals and organizations to
  • 1)meet during the field visits
  • 2) invite to the fireside chats and cocktail event, and
  • 3) present during the context-setting day. Organizations will be shortlisted based on the Foundation’s focus areas and learning objectives. Some organizations will be current portfolio partners.

In particular, we seek someone with contacts in HealthTech, EdTech, FinTech, and AgTech in Kenya, with Healthtech and EdTech being essential.

• Present the trip Agenda to the client and refine it based on feedback.
• Conduct outreach to selected organizations to share the trip’s objectives, get a commitment, and align expectations.
• Fix the timing for each meeting/meet-up and ensure all relevant parties are informed and make appropriate arrangements.
• Act as the point of contact for selected organizations, fielding questions and ensuring they are appropriately prepared for each prep meeting with client staff and the event itself.

Experiential apps

• Collaborating with the Learning Partnership team, design activities that participants can do to experience local apps and services connected with learning themes

Implementation of the field-trips

• Conduct field visits to brief people we will meet with, ensure that they are suitable and able to discuss topics of relevant, ensure that locations are appropriate and safe, and that travel times fit within the agenda
• Ensure all group leaders are prepped on schedule, providing context-setting notes to relay to the group, note-taking processes, and group facilitation expectations.
• Lead one group by providing contextual insights before and after each session, assisting with note-taking, and facilitating group work, discussions, and debriefs
• Coordinate with client’s logistics support team and backstop logistical support during the field visits, including ensuring buses are going to the right places, groups are being guided to meeting locations, etc.

Context Brief

• Lead the development of the context brief / mini-booklet, which will outline the overall landscape and contain discussion guides, as well as details about digital products and services and QR codes to download [Caribou Digital designers and copy editors will support you with this]
• Conduct landscaping desk research and draft the booklet content
• Prepare discussion guides for each organization and/or agenda item based on learning objectives and client feedback

Other preparation activities

• Develop templates for capturing learnings.
• On-the-ground preparations as necessary in support of rural field visits to ensure that meet-ups go off without a hitch
• Lead dry-run session with all team members (likely to be held on the weekend before the event)

On-going technical preparation and support during the event

• Conduct the welcome briefing to take participants through the agenda and any logistical information
• Participate in the daily context setting
• Participate in debriefing sessions in line with the Foundation’s learning agenda

Post-Event

• Write up notes to document learnings from each meeting
• Ensure photos and videos are uploaded appropriately and synthesized
• Own the post-trip report, which synthesizes the learnings, solutions, intervention ideas, and recommendations of investments in partners generated from the trip, including collating videos and photos.
• Participate in internal trip debrief with the Caribou Digital team

The work effort for this position is expected to be 36 days from September 1st, 2024 (or sooner), through November 30th, 2024, tentatively and depending on the selected date of the event.

About you

• Experience: 10+ years of work experience in the digital economy sector. Experience hosting events is a plus.
• Location: Must be based in Kenya
• Education: Minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field; an advanced degree in business, social sciences, or science is preferred.
• Network: Strong connections in Health Tech and EdTech in Kenya (essential), with additional contacts in FinTech and Agtech as a plus. Your network should include start-ups, innovators, thought leaders, influencers, and policymakers.
• Skills: Proactive and independent doer, excellent writer and public speaker, adept at communicating complex ideas clearly.
• Team orientation: Respectful, inclusive, and supportive in team environments, with experience working in remote teams as a plus.