Digital Innovation and Technology Manager

ABOUT SPARK MICROGRANTS Spark MicroGrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. Spark has worked in 800+ villages in 6 countries and has pioneered a community-driven development model in sub-Saharan Africa. Spark works with NGO and Government partners to scale the model's adoption and impact on rural communities - on their own terms. Our model combines facilitated community meetings with a small, discretionary grant to catalyse local action and institution building. Read more about our Approach , Impact and Values on our website .

Spark seeks an experienced Digital Innovation and Technology Manager to lead the organization’s use of digital tools and emerging technologies to strengthen the quality, reach, and efficiency of Spark’s programs and internal ways of working. The Digital Innovation and Technology Manager will report to the Senior Program Design Director, with technical reporting lines set based on the workstream. The position will work closely with teams across the organization, including Design, Monitoring and Evaluation, Operations, and Programs.

This role is ideal for someone who combines strong technology and project management skills with a background in e-learning and/or social impact, and who is excited by the potential of technology to improve how community development programs are designed and delivered. OUR WORK The foundation of our approach is Spark’s village facilitation and grants model, where rural communities are led through regular facilitated meetings to organize, conceptualize and implement local development projects, which are supported by a microgrant to fund them. The model has been designed to improve local livelihoods, enhance social cohesion, and improve citizen engagement.

Our operating model is based on an international team of functional advisers (e.g. finance team, M&E team, Program Design team) who support country teams. Country teams co-design the model with local partners and government, train partners or directly implement the design, and support quality monitoring and oversight. Digital tools play a key role in how Spark delivers, monitors, and learns from its programs. This is increasingly important to support quality implementation of national scale programs.

Spark aims to use emerging technology pragmatically and responsibly: testing new approaches, learning from implementation, managing risks, and scaling tools that demonstrate value for the communities we serve.

WHO YOU ARE

You are a creative and organized technology and innovation professional who is excited about applying digital tools and emerging technologies to international development and social impact. You are comfortable working across technical and non-technical teams, translating programmatic or operational needs into clear technology designs, and managing initiatives from initial concept and piloting through adoption and rollout. You are an experienced project manager who can…

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