The AAS is a pan African organisation headquartered in Kenya, which aims to drive sustainable development in Africa through science, technology and innovation.
It has a tripartite mandate of pursuing excellence by recognizing scholars and achievers; providing advisory and think tank functions for shaping the continent’s strategies and policies; and implementing key Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) programmes that impact on developmental challenges through the new agenda setting and funding platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA).
Initiative Overview
The AAS and its partners who coalesce under the Coalition of African Research & Innovation (CARI) platform seeks the creation of a global public good that aggregates clinical research center intelligence across the African ecosystem.
The proposed clinical research platform will need to integrate with existing registries and be interoperable, be compliant with existing data protection and privacy guidelines, have capability to import site feasibility data and lists from a wide variety of excel and CSV sources including feasibility questionnaires, site lists, etc, allow for exportation of data and produce reports, be optimized for search engines and be enabled to track user activity among other requirements.
The initiative to aggregate data on clinical trials sites and capacities in Africa aims to:
- Promote African research centers by providing a platform that improves their visibility, optimizes the use of clinical trials grants across research centers and helps them sustain operations and staffing beyond individual grants through collaboration across the clinical research ecosystem.
- Reduce unnecessary duplication of effort in identifying, collecting and submitting clinical trial site feasibility assessments at the beginning of every new project.
- Develop a robust, open access, and up-to-date database of the African clinical research landscape including a catalogue of existing clinical trial capacity, regulatory requirements, performance, and predictability for clinical and translational sciences across countries.
- Increase capability to understand where there are duplication and gaps in capacity and funding and enable transparency of future investments and their impact
Position Overview
The helpdesk intern is responsible for assisting the CTC team in providing continuous user support through the helpdesk, populate library of frequently asked questions and analyses user feedback and question to inform future platform iterations and prioritization of features.
The candidate will also work with the product specialist together with the developer in conducting other system related support functions and system updates. The incumbent will also be expected to work in close collaboration with other AESA managed programmes in order to achieve the overall strategic goals of the Academy.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
- Provide immediate frontline support to users through the helpdesk and online request chatrooms.
- Document statistics and questions generated from the helpdesk to assist in feature prioritization and iteration planning.
- Provide support in backlog management, iteration planning and support to the developer during the development and roll out phases of the platform
- Participate in requirement refinement planning
- Support the CTC team during the roll out and feedback gathering workshops
Requirements and Qualifications
- Bachelor of Computer Science, Engineering or similar relevant field.
- Experience in helpdesk support, web development or similar experience
- Knowledge of Agile process and principles is a plus
- Knowledge of system development frameworks and programming languages is an added advantage
- Willingness to learn and attentive to detail.
Application Process
All Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, and a cover letter submitted by email to recruitment@aasciences.africa with the Position and Vacancy Number as the Subject no later than 13th April 2020 . Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
