Technical Development of Regional Innovation Portal

Item Description:

The World Health Organization (WHO) was established in 1948 as a specialized agency of the United Nations. The objective of WHO (www.who.int) is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. “Health”, as defined in the WHO Constitution, is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. WHO’s main function is to act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work.

The Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) is one of the six regions of the World Health Organization. Headquartered in Manila, Philippines, we work with health authorities and other partners in 37 countries and areas with more than one quarter of the world’s population.

Background

Innovation is one of the seven operational shifts in WPRO’s For the Future vision, which aims to transform the Western Pacific into the safest and healthiest region by addressing four thematic priorities: Health Security (including antimicrobial resistance); Non-communicable diseases and ageing; Climate change, the environment and health; and Reaching the unreached (including infectious diseases, maternal and child health).

As part of the effort to further its innovation agenda, WPRO aims to build a regional innovation portal with the primary purpose of cataloguing/documenting current and future innovation projects and activities at both regional and country levels, and visualizing connections/relationships between projects, stakeholders, funding, thematic priorities, etc. The portal should itself be based around the agreed framework on innovation adopted by the WHO/WPRO: “Rethink, Research, Redesign, and Learn”. The 3 Rs represent a cycle of iterative development and the “Learn” component includes the functions of knowledge management, evaluation, and dissemination.

The site would serve to drive collaboration and synergy across WPRO on innovation and related activities, and between innovation focal points. In keeping with the innovation theme, the portal itself should push the boundaries in terms of functionality, interactivity, and expectations.

Purpose

To develop and deploy a regional web-based portal on innovation in WHO/WPR.

Description of activities to be carried out

The consultant will design, build, and test the innovation portal (a web-based knowledge/content management system) with remote input and guidance from the WPRO innovation team using an agile and accelerated project development methodology. He/she will also enable user testing for stakeholders at WPRO as appropriate.

Technical requirements

A. Functional

The innovation portal is intended to be a web-based knowledge/content management system for both internal and external audiences.

First, the portal should catalogue and document innovation projects. Such documentation can exist on multiple levels of granularity, including news/blog-style articles, technical documentation, summary descriptions, formal evaluations, multimedia such as slides or videos, and/or articles published in the literature. These should be readily editable and annotated/commented on by users according to set roles and permissions. Different pieces view or documents would have different levels of visibility (public/private).

Second, innovation projects should be navigable and visualized alongside stakeholders, funding, thematic priorities, and other relevant information within an interactive, user-friendly, and creative graph visualization deploying 2D or 3D perspectives.

Third, dashboards and timelines should track and visualize the implementation progress of projects and activities.

The underlying data model should be flexible and configurable on the front-end to accommodate variable representations of information. The user interface should enable both viewing and editing of information according to roles assigned to different users. APIs may be required to integrate data from external sources.

The consultant should propose a technology stack and high-level solution architecture, as well as low-fidelity concepts/prototypes of the user interface. Given the rapid development timeline, hosting for development and testing should initially be by the consultant, followed by migration to servers/cloud service specified by WHO at a later stage. Sample/dummy data to populate the portal would be initially required.

Throughout the process, any applicable guidelines, requirements, and directions emanating from the WHO/WPRO IT and Communications teams would also need to be adhered to. Existing or concurrently-developed technologies and platforms used by WHO/WPRO (e.g. content management systems) could be leveraged where appropriate.

B. Non-functional

Customizability and extensibility. Given that modifications and upgrades will be expected over time beyond the duration of this contract, across both the front-end and back-end, customizability and extensibility are key.

Reliability. The visualizations, in particular, should be smoothly rendered. Data should remain consistent across presentation and persistence layers. The technology stack should be robust.

Usability. The user interface should be readily understandable, usable, and attractive/enticing to use with minimal training.

Data privacy & security. The solution should be secured via modern security protocols. Access should be password-protected and actions restricted to authorized users according to their roles and responsibilities

Method(s) to carry out the activity

The consultant is expected to conduct activities in their own time using their own resources, according to a mutually-agreed schedule/framework and regular virtual check-ins with the WPRO innovation team and user testing sessions as appropriate. Intellectual property will be retained by WHO.

Deliverables

• Solution proposal including concepts/prototypes, architecture, technology stack, and timeline
• Virtual meetings, check-ins, demos, and user testing sessions
• All files, code, and data (perhaps in a Docker container)
• Technical documentation
• User documentation/guide

Qualifications

Specific Requirements

• Experience with web development, including highly-interactive 2D/3D visualizations
• Experience working in the Western Pacific Region
• Experience with the global/public health domain and innovation
• Language: English

Competencies

• Ability to complete the task in a given time frame
• Ability to produce results

Applications

Qualified and interested individual or party should submit to the Supply Officer through WPRO UNGM at < wproungm@who.int >  and WP RO INR  at wproinr@who.int by 28 January 2021 the following:

• A letter of intention explaining who you are, why this is of interest to you (or your organisation), your understanding of the project and how you would conduct it (method), as well as any relevant comments on the tender. For instance, if you think something critical is missing, or the steps are not in the right order, please feel free raise it).
• A detailed budget (Budget must be provided in American Dollar and including and specifying all the necessary costs to produce the outputs, including taxes).
• Information on the organisation’s status (university, NGO, private entity, etc.).
• References of previous work or clients/partners in relation with this tender.

Please use Tender Notice No. 120703 as subject to all submission. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Contacts

Thi Minh Ly Nguyen – wproungm@who.int
Email: wproungm@who.int
First name: Thi Minh Ly
Surname: Nguyen