Senior IT Advisor

Program  Title

Support to RACE 2 (S2R2)

Program  Background

The Government of Lebanon, with support from the international community, is implementing the second phase of the Reaching All Children with Education (RACE) initiative. First launched in 2013, RACE seeks to improve access to formal education for 460,000 Syrian refugee children and underprivileged Lebanese children in the country. Efforts under this new phase of RACE 2 are expected to minimize the short and medium-term costs of displacement for refugee families, while strengthening the long-term capacity of the Lebanese education system to prepare children for life and work once regional stability returns. MEHE, with the support of CERD, is responsible for implementing the S2R2 program.

Program  Objectives

The Program Development Objective is to promote equitable access, enhance the quality of learning, and strengthen the systems in Lebanon’s education sector in response to the protracted refugee crisis. The key results are as follows:

1. Increase in the proportion of school-aged Lebanese and non-Lebanese children (3–18) enrolled in formal education;
2. Increase in the proportion of students passing their grades, and transitioning to the next; and
3. Improvement in MEHE’s capacity to review, evaluate, and update Program implementation.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Under the S2R2 Program, the Center for Educational Research and Development (CERD) is looking for a Senior IT Advisor. Below are the main tasks and responsibilities:

1. Support CERD management in developing CERD’s ICT strategy and ensure a stable ICT architecture that links the different systems and ensures seamless processes and security.
2. Provide direction for all software updates and ensure coordination between the different platforms at CERD.
3. Advise and design an optimal solution for CERD’s Moodle.
4. Improve the development of and support to  CERD’s IT infrastructure
5. Follow up on the continuous development of the statistics software by CERD’s Educational Research Bureau (ERB) using business intelligence and advanced data analytics solution.
6. Support in providing technical specifications for ICT related tenders when requested.
7. Contribute to building the capacity of CERD designated staff.

Perform other tasks related to the program objectives as assigned by CERD President or S2R2 Steering Committee.

Educational Background

• Master (or Engineer) in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer communication, or equivalent.
• Master’s Degree in Business Administration, Business Management, Education Administration, or a related field is a plus.

Previous Experience 

• At least 10 years of professional work experience in a similar role ideally IT Consultant with public administration or developmental projects.
• Experience in managing ICT projects and in leading teams towards achieving results.
• Experience working in the Education sector, or in projects funded by international donors and organizations is a plus.

Languages

• Fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English; French is a plus. ​​​​​​
• Behavioral Skills
• Ability to connect Business and IT stakeholders – and to
  explain complex subjects in a consultative approach and with simple terms.
• Ability to cope with pressure in a fast-paced work environment and to mitigate challenges.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills both verbally and in writing.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Strong team management and IT project management skills.

Technical and Computer Skills

• Solution Architecture with the ability to design, describe, create, and manage a coherent solution to business problems or processes.
• Strong server management (Windows, Linux, Centos, Debian...), web-servers (IIS, Apache, Nginx...) and databases management skills (MS-SQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Postgresql, Redis, MongoDB, Neo4J, InfluxDB)
• Experience with search and analytics engines like ElasticSearch and Solr; with VPNs, Firewalls, Switches, Routers, Proxies; and with Security Auditing and security best practices.
• Experience with data modelling, shell programming, machine learning, and business intelligence.
• Experience in customizing open source projects, like, but not limited to, moodle, wordpress, openemis, FreeSwitch, Dspace, and Asterisk.
• Experience with source code management tools (Git, SVN,...)
• Experience with cloud services, load balancing, DNS, CDN,...
  Experience with applications load testing and scaling.
• Experience with high Availability (HA) architecture.
  Experience with WebRTC, HTML5, CSS, Javascript, NodeJS, PHP, Python, SQL.
• Experience with designing and deploying Voice Over IP systems.
• Experience with the following is a plus: E-learning; combining multisystem into unified dashboard; A/B testing and Analytics; email list management and email delivery; Big Data, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI).