Latest Vacancies at Code for Africa

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a mid-level role as an E-learning Course Developer with strong pedagogical expertise and extensive experience in curriculum creation using e-learning technologies. 

The candidate will join our pan-African Knowledge team in one of our primary hubs in Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa. CfA has full-time staff in 21 African countries and is therefore open to exceptional applicants from elsewhere on the continent.

The Knowledge team spearheads our training partnerships through CfA’s Academy, which works with over 30 leading African universities, as well as a range of mainstream newsroom and civil society partners to deliver innovative training on topics ranging from data journalism to digital activism and data analysis and storytelling initiatives. It also includes CfA communities such as the WanaData women data science/storytelling network and the africanDRONE civic drone community, as well as the sensors.AFRICA sensor journalism initiative, with a network of more than 50+ newsroom and university partners across Africa. The Knowledge programme is also custodian of other major CfA public infrastructure, such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and Africa’s largest census data portal, HURUMap.

The Curriculum Developer will be CfA’s in-house ‘architect’ for designing the structure for our courseware modules and courses, as well as setting the benchmark for curriculum resources. The candidate reports to CfA’s Senior Programme Manager on the Knowledge team, and will work with the support of CfA’s wider team of editorial experts, data analysts and digital designers, as well as external domain experts. The candidate will champion CfA’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), ensuring that it is on par with the world’s best. 

Required minimum requirements include:

• Qualifications or significant proven expertise in learning sciences, and specifically mass open online course (MOOC) design, instructional design and learning technologies or Information architecture, evidence-based education, and/or related fields.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in training development, creating blended learning solutions for both instructor-led and self-paced training programmes.
• Experience with using multimedia and online web instructional materials, especially for a web-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as WordPress’ LearnDash platform.
• Experience assessing training needs, writing lessons objectives, and storyboarding course outlines/learning journeys. 
• Ability to work creatively and accurately under pressure with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to multitask and self-organise, and prioritise work when managing multiple timelines and schedules.
• Excellent leadership, team-building, and self-management skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.  

Preferred: preferred qualifications and skills include:

• Knowledge of data journalism and/or multimedia storytelling, or civic technology and civic engagement, or digital democracy approaches.
• Experience with developing courseware formats for new communication channels, including using mobile platforms like WhatsApp or equivalent social messaging platforms.
• Experience with creating or customising courseware content using InDesign (or equivalent tools), video scribe, audio/narration editing tools and other e-learning design technologies is also an asset.
• Expertise in adult learning and all aspects of instructional design for various formats, including instructor-led, self-directed e-learning, task-driven experiential learning, webinar-driven interactive learning, mobile optimised courseware, and various types of performance support.
• Willingness to teach others and learn/pioneer new techniques.
• Experience in remote collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello to manage workflows.
• The ability to communicate and work effectively with curriculum or domain experts and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria or anywhere else in Africa
• Languages: English
• Preferred but not required: French and/or Arabic

About the Role

The successful candidate will join CfA’s Knowledge team to lead a revamp/refresh of our existing MOOC platform, restructuring and updating existing courseware, while also improving the functionality and user experience on the platform (with support from CfA’s tech and content teams).

A major focus for the role will be to build courses that are modular, with core lessons teaching key skills, complemented by elective modules that offer topic/tool specific add-on skills. CfA courseware is intended to be flexible enough to be easily customised or repackaged for different audiences by our in-country staff trainers or university partners. The MOOC courseware also serves as the master curricula for teaching kits for our in-person/offline training workshops, as well as template course materials for our university partners.

CfA’s curriculum developer will be responsible for benchmarking our learning materials on global best-practices, and will also lead our joint development of new courses with both internal and external stakeholders to create learning solutions.

The candidate should have a strong strategic analysis and critical thinking skills, as our projects are varied and fast-paced, so you need to quickly understand and learn new things. You will need to possess a keen attention to detail and a good eye for both quality and aesthetics. You should be comfortable handling multiple tasks with multiple ongoing deadlines and should have previous experience working on the digital collaboration tools that CfA uses, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Conceptualising and designing master curricula, in consultation with CfA programme teams and external domain experts, for modular, task-driven experiential courses that function as both self-directed e-learning and as in-person courseware of instructors.
• Developing courseware support materials, including facilitator guides and user-manuals; participant materials and exercises/assignments; and course handouts/toolkits. 
• Repacking the master curriculum for offline/in-person presentation, including developing presentation slides (PowerPoint, etc) with instructor talking points/notes; class handouts and participant handbooks, etc.
• Cultivate and manage a pool of thematic experts that CfA can call upon to co-author courses and/or present flagship classes.
• Proactively measure user experience and participant trends/feedback to improve the quality and effectiveness of CfA courseware.
• Monitor overall usage/completion rates and trends for CfA’s online MOOC and other webinar-based learning programmes, to offer actionable insights to improve the effectiveness of CfA’s Academy programmes.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of the training courses 
• Monitor trends in teaching practices, and explore and recommend new technologies that will enhance Knowledge’s training model
• Advise CfA’s trainers on the following aspects of the training content: accessibility, readability, potential for learner engagement and fit with learning objectives.
• Work with CfA’s engagement team to promote CfA training programmes including the MOOC site to the wider public and increase traffic and engagement on the site.

What We Offer:

• A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
• A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
• Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
• A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.

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Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Insights Editor to join our iLAB investigative and forensic analysis team.

The Insights Editor will coordinate the data-driven investigative reports and analysis generated by the iLAB to produce actionable insights into the continent’s media ecosystem and emerging civic technology sector.

The position is based at one of our hubs in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal or South Africa. We’re also open to exceptional applicants from elsewhere in Africa.

The successful candidate will join CfA’s transnational iLAB team. The iLAB works in support of the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which is a CfA initiative that brings together the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms to investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB spearheads investigations that individual ANCIR newsrooms are unable to tackle on their own. This includes forensic analysis of suspected digital disinformation campaigns or toxic content aimed at misleading citizens or triggering social discord or polarisation using hate speech or radicalisation or other techniques.

You will be the editorial sherpa for the team’s multinational and multilingual team that uses digital collaboration tools and machine intelligence toolkits to create reports and datasets for a global audience and international institutional partners. 

Candidates must have demonstrable experience in managing investigative processes and research diaries, driving content production pipelines that involve collaboration across multiple multinational and multilingual teams across Africa to ensure they deliver world-class reports and data-driven insights to an agreed-upon schedule.

The ideal applicant is fluent in English. Additional proficiency in French and/or Arabic would be an advantage.

Required: minimum requirements include:

• Demonstrable newsroom management skills in a mainstream media or equivalent digital publishing environment.
• Strong interpersonal communication skills and demonstrable aptitude for operationally managing multiple content production teams across countries.
• Demonstrable ability to create team timelines and milestones with clear systems/processes.
• A solid understanding of journalistic or other media-related production systems and workflow methodologies.
• Digital workplace skill sets, including proficiency in collaborative digital work solutions such as Google Drive (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents).
• An understanding of media ecosystems and/or digital advocacy and/or digital civic engagement.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to present research insights and shape research outputs.
• The ability to collaborate with a diverse set of multidisciplinary project stakeholders.
• Experience in working with remote, distributed teams with agile methodologies.
• Proactive, solutions-oriented approach to problem solving
• Ability to work under tight deadlines with good prioritisation and time management skills
• Ability to work with minimal instruction in a teamwork environment
• Strong organisational, analytical and interpersonal skills
• High professional standards and ethics
• The basics – research, reporting, grammar, Associated Press style – are priorities in writing. .

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

• Competence in open source intelligence (OSINT) research techniques, including data scraping, data mining and other intelligence gathering techniques.
• Multiple languages, such as French, Arabic and other languages spoken in Africa.

Language and Location Requirements:

Location: Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal or South Africa. Exceptional candidates from elsewhere in Africa will be considered.

International Language: English

Preferred but not required: Arabic, French, KiSwahili or any other major language spoken in Africa.

About the Role:

The successful candidates will join CfA’s transnational iLAB digital forensic team, to craft and manage the content production process and output for the iLAB team. Outputs take the form of research reports, briefing documents and presentations, among others. 

As part of a multinational team within a growing organisation, you must be agile and able to thrive in a multicultural environment. 

You will need to work easily with people from different backgrounds who may speak different languages.

The role also will involve the ability to multitask as a writer, an editor and publisher. Developing cutting edge contents like dossiers that speak directly to the actions and advocacy needed. It is intended that the role will help shape the skills of other team members to enable them to become better writers and storytellers.  

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Managing the editorial production process and content diaries for the iLAB producing analytic and investigative reports.
• Scheduling and running the weekly ‘insights diary’ used to shape iLAB  reports and investigative outputs.
• Ensuring that reports, presentations and briefing documents are delivered on time by the relevant teams.
• Ensuring that analytical and investigative outputs are aligned with organisational goals and lead to meaningful outcomes.

What We Offer:

• A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
• A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
• Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
• A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.

go to method of application »

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for an Portuguese-speaking Investigative Analyst with extensive forensic investigations or research and/or investigative data analytics experience based in Mozambique.

The successful candidate will work as part of CfA’s internal iLAB team of forensic data scientists and OSINT researchers, who use digital collaboration tools to create evidence-based dossiers and other actionable content for a global audience and for international watchdog media partners.

The iLAB works in support of the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which is a CfA initiative that brings together the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms to investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB spearheads investigations that individual ANCIR newsrooms are unable to tackle on their own. This includes forensic analysis of suspected digital disinformation campaigns or toxic content aimed at misleading citizens or triggering social discord or polarisation using hate speech or radicalisation or other techniques.

Required:

• Demonstrable investigative skills honed from at least two years experience in digital forensics, investigations, OSINT intelligence, due diligence, asset tracking, compliance, or other investigative professions with precision writing skills. CfA will not consider any applicants who served with government intelligence agencies.
• An understanding of financial crime, organised crime investigations or influence operations, including both disinformation and misinformation, as well as digital amplification and viral media techniques would be a benefit.
• Critical thinking skills, and an obsessive attention to detail, with excellent numeracy and analytical skills.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
• Fluent in Prtuguese and English.

Preferred:

(candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage)

• Experience with statistical software (e.g. R, Python, MATLAB) and database languages (e.g. SQL) for network analysis, as well as using tools such Brandwatch or CrowdTangle for social media analysis.
• Experience in using digital technologies for conducting OSINT investigative research into financial crime, organised crime investigations, forensic investigations, influence operations and related mis-/disinformation techniques, and/or analysis of online polarisation or hate-speech or extremism/militancy and other malign content, and/or experience at using data-driven network analysis/named entity recognition tools for analysing PEPs (politically exposed people) or PIPs (politically influential people) or institutional networks.
• Familiarity with mining and handling large datasets, with demonstrable skills in selecting the right statistical tools and articulating analytical questions/approaches given a data analysis problem.
• Experience working on the digital collaboration tools that CfA uses for managing workflow, ranging from Slack and Trello, to Github and Google Drive would be an advantage.
• Demonstrable creative problem-solving/lateral thinking skills and self-direction, with an ability to work consistently in a fast-paced environment. Willingness to learn new techniques, and teach others.
• An understanding of religious freedom/extremism, terrorism networks, international money laundering operations, and/or criminal structures would be a bonus.

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: Mozambique, (Individuals located in other African countries but meet the required skills above will be considered)
• Languages: Portuguese, English

About the Role:

The successful candidate will be part of a ‘technology for good’ team of forensic researchers and data scientists/analysts at the iLAB, who work in support of African watchdog newsrooms and other human rights -defending organisations.

The iLAB’s role is to offer these newsrooms/civic watchdogs a robust toolkit of open source intelligence (OSINT) leads and resources, along with investigative support for identifying and exposing disinformation and other influence operations intended to undermine our democracies and our economies, often by creating social discord or polarisation. Your duties will include helping to identify the sock-puppets, botnets, fake accounts and unwitting proxies used by the shadowy ‘puppet masters’ who are producing and disseminating false content. The iLAB also actively gathers evidence on corruption and organised crime affecting the public sector, and transforms the information into actionable data to help civic watchdogs and investigative media better understand the nexus between politically exposed/influential people (PEPs and PIPs) and organised crime networks, and their role in subverting public resources.

As an Investigative Analyst, you will help liberate the data-driven evidence used to expose and neutralise coordinated behaviour or other malign intentions. You will also help build the detailed datasets about PEPs, PIPs and organised crime and corruption that are needed for our partners to ‘join the dots’.

And, you will work with CfA’s Academy and other teams to help train others, including journalists and human rights defenders, to find the stories and trends hidden in the data.

Responsibilities

• You will use CfA tools and methodologies to help research investigative leads and/or hypotheses, based on digital signals/evidence from public sources, and will analyse the evidence to produce timely and actionable insights.
• You will do so by planning and executing data gathering exercises involving Portuguese language sources, based on specifications that you help your team define. You will apply appropriate advanced analysis strategies on the resulting large and complex datasets to solve difficult, non-routine analysis problems. 
• You will help transform the resulting data-driven insights into clear narrative reports and presentations, underpinned by dossiers of verifiable evidence, for non-technical audiences in both Portuguese and English.
• You will use the resulting signals and data to help watchdog partners, such as journalists, produce evidence-driven analysis and reportage that is accessible and understandable to both policymakers and the general public.
• You will be part of a team of custodians for CfA’s open access OSINT tools and platforms, including connected.AFRICA and CivicSignal and source.AFRICA, amongst others.
• You will help strengthen civil society and media capacity to undertake its own forensic data analysis, by supporting CfA training initiatives and by helping produce step-by-step courseware or tutorials teaching our methodologies.
• You will help build a multicultural and transnational team ethos that values creativity and human-centred design principles.

What We Offer:

• A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
• A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
• Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidl[-py evolving industry.
• A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.