Country Operations Associate for Latin America and the Caribbean

Job Overview

We are seeking a highly motivated Country Operations Associate to join our team. In this role, you will support country representatives across Latin America and the Caribbean in developing high-impact Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to tackle major social challenges and promote inclusion throughout the region.

The ideal candidate should have a bias for action, a builder mindset, excellent communication and people skills, and a background in technology, public policy, economics, political science, or international development. Candidates should be resourceful, comfortable working with ambiguity, and ready to roll up their sleeves with a ‘do what it takes’ mindset in start-up mode to drive impact in the countries we work with - with some impatience.

Some of the DPI blocks include data-sharing, identity, trust infrastructure and payment systems. To learn more about design thinking and the implementation approach visit https://docs.cdpi.dev/

Conditions

• Part-time, with the possibility of transitioning to a full-time role.
• Remote, with occasional travel required as per project demands.
• Deadline: 20 September 2024, or until the position is filled

Key Responsibilities

• Identify high-potential countries and teams.
• Build and maintain relationships with country representatives and government officials.
• Understand needs and priorities, transforming policy problems into DPI implementation opportunities.
• Work closely with country representatives to design simple, context-appropriate solutions.
• Offer technical support, conduct training sessions, and develop learning materials on DPI.
• Collaborate with CDPI team members to leverage open-source solutions to meet country-specific needs and support the development of a regional DPI ecosystem.
• Engage with policy partners like IDB or UNDP to support countries with policy frameworks, technical advice, tech implementation and funding.
• Support pilot implementations.
• Travel to different countries as required.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience working in technology, public policy, or international development (preferably at the intersection of these).
• Experience working with projects impacting the general public at large
• Excellent communication skills: verbal, and written (concise briefs and longer blogs/explainer articles).
• Resourcefulness and strong problem-solving skills.
• People skills - We’d like you to have a nose for identifying country champions and technical counterparts who can take work forward, and answer unsaid questions/concerns country representatives may bring up.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Context and curiosity around digital public infrastructure.
• Willingness to travel to different countries as required.
• Resourcefulness and strong problem-solving skills.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field preferred – e.g., public policy, economics, political science, law, international development, or computer science. But if you dropped out to pursue an alternate path, we’re still open to hearing from you!
• Fluent in English and Spanish.
• Ideal candidates would be based in the Caribbean or Central America. We particularly encourage female applicants and those from diverse backgrounds. We also encourage candidates from the rest of Latin America to apply.

Description of the role

If you’re passionate about using technology to drive positive social impact globally, we encourage you to apply.

Digital Public Infrastructure is a topic fast gaining prevalence in the international community for its ability to drive outsized outcomes. The Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) is a non-profit that helps countries design and build technology architecture based on shared building blocks such as eKYC, payments (P2P, P2M, G2P, and B2B), consented data sharing, and sector-specific rails across health, access to credit, agriculture, education, employment, and climate response to empower individuals. The Centre is driven by a builder mindset in the space of DPI, grounded in the belief that accelerating development at scale is possible when we can understand and leverage technology for inclusion and growth.

The Country Operations Associate will be responsible for building and maintaining relationships with country representatives and government officials in various countries, either directly or through our network of development partners. They will understand the needs and priorities of different countries to co-create, with support from our technical team, a customized architecture that can be adopted at scale. They will also work closely with country representatives to design simple, feasible changes based on the current political and technological context of countries. It may also include working with policy partners such as the IDB or UNDP who support countries with a policy framework and funding, and curating learning sessions explaining DPI for countries.

About CDPI

The Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) is an agile, scale-driven non-profit that helps countries design and build technology architecture. We cover everything encompassed by DPI, including identity eKYC, real time payments (P2P, P2M, G2P, and B2B), consented data sharing & open banking, generation of verifiable credentials, AI adoption architectures, and sector specific rails across health, financial services, agriculture, education, energy transition, eCommerce, justice, and employment.

Philosophy: The Centre is driven by a builder mindset in the space of DPI, grounded in the belief that accelerating countries’ progress is possible when we leverage public tech rails for inclusion and growth. As a team, CDPI focuses on 3 major pillars of activity:

Country Engagement (bilateral and multilateral);

Creation of Industry-First Technical Blueprints & Resources to architect next-generation DPI; and

Shaping the Builder/Advisory Ecosystem of public/private partners to drive international scale up faster than we could do alone ourselves.

Team: Our Co-Chairs are Dr. Pramod Varma, Chief Architect of India Stack, and Prof S. Rajagopalan, the force who drove MOSIP open source issuance of 100 Million global IDs across 10+ countries. Our CXOs Kamya Chandra and Vijay Vujjini have been shaping key national and international DPI across Aadhaar, GSTN, Digilocker, Account Aggregator, NDHM, and beyond for over a decade. Our small mission-oriented SWAT team is diverse by design to cater to global audiences and spread across 4 continents, 5 countries (including India, Kenya, Ghana, Argentina, and Spain) and fluent in 8 languages.

Funding & Structure: The Centre is philanthropically funded by CoDevelop Foundation (who in turn are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; etc.). We are housed at an academic university – IIIT-B in India - to provide freedom to engage with any public or private stakeholder without the constraints of revenue maximization.