Request for Technical and Business Advisors (Companies)

  • 17 May، 2022
Request for Technical and Business Advisors (Companies)

TERMS OF REFRENCES

Request for Technical and Business Advisors (Companies)

For Assisting Economic Empowerment for Gaza Entrepreneurs project's ICT startups 

Background About Women’s Affairs Center (WAC):

      Women’s Affairs Center (WAC) is a women knowledge-based center playing an innovative and catalytic role in empowering women and advocating women's rights and gender equality in the Palestinian sustainable development process. Its mission reflects that it is an independent and non-profit Palestinian NGO with the purpose of empowering women and advocating women’s rights and gender equality through capacity development, information and innovative research and advocacy programs. While implementing its strategy to fulfill its vision, WAC is guided by international human rights principles including empowerment and participation; equality and non-discrimination; and accountability to ensure justice and dignity for women.

About “Economic Empowerment for Gaza Entrepreneurs 2022” Project:

       WAC is implementing the “Economic Empowerment for Gaza Entrepreneurs 2022 (GoPinky-1)” project which is funded by DanChurchAid/Norwegian Church Aid (DCA/NCA). The project aims at enhancing economic empowerment and increasing the prosperity for low-income young women and men in the Gaza Strip through joint approaches that support innovation and entrepreneurship to overcome challenges that impede achieving progress towards sustainable economic development. It targets unemployed young female graduates and young Gazan entrepreneurs. It provides support to young female graduates to acquire digital skills and competencies required in the labor market and to young entrepreneurs to create new innovative businesses, which will, in turn, create employment opportunities and address market-related challenges.

Assignment Objective:

WAC is considering the selection of highly qualified ICT consulting companies to provide technical and business support and guidance to young entrepreneurs incubated by to successfully establish and sustain new business start-ups.

ICT consulting companies will be mainly responsible for providing business and technical advice as well as providing 1:1 on-demand sessions, with a total of 50-hour technical and business coaching (distributed over 5 ICT enterprises based on the type of the idea and their needs) to support female entrepreneurs to build their businesses and facilitate their access to the market.

Target Group:

5 teams of entrepreneurs (females and males), and each team is steered by a female entrepreneur.

It is worth mentioning that entrepreneurs have already received trainings and coaching on (General understanding of entrepreneurship, developing business models, and pitching skills) during the pre-incubation stage. In addition, they have received technical, business, financial, marketing and e-marketing coaching to support their idea and help on prototype producing stage in the incubation phase. They have already developed their prototypes.

Target Group:

5 teams of entrepreneurs (females and males), and each team is steered by a female entrepreneur.

It is worth mentioning that entrepreneurs have already received trainings and coaching on (General understanding of entrepreneurship, developing business models, and pitching skills) during the pre-incubation stage. In addition, they have received technical, business, financial, marketing and e-marketing coaching to support their idea and help on prototype producing stage in the incubation phase. They have already developed their prototypes.

  1. Participate in an orientation session with the project coordinator to discuss the methodology of work adopted by WAC, and with entrepreneurs to establish and launch the mentoring relationship.
  2. Assist in the selection of the best 5 out of 10 ICT startups who were previously targeted in 2021 to receive the technical and business coaching and grants.
  3. Meet regularly with entrepreneurs to discuss business progress.
  4. Work with the entrepreneurs to identify and reflect on specific goals and actions needed in order to successfully run their business.
  5. Supervise the principles of good coding.
  6. Help the entrepreneurs to identify other sources of support as appropriate.
  7. Provide encouragement to sustain the entrepreneurs' motivation.
  8. Recognize and celebrate progress as it is made.
  9. Submit quarterly reports to WAC regarding the status of the relationship and business progress.
  10. Give continuous feedback, validation, and recommendations for the related stakeholders.
  11. Participate in meetings and workshops related to the project activities.
  12. Understand and adhere to policies and procedures of WAC. 
  13. Perform other duties as may be assigned by the project coordinator concerning the mission.

Ps. The coaching sessions will be a combination of virtual and face-to-face meetings depending on the situation of COVID 19. The assigned advisor has to plan, design, and implement the sessions that could be delivered online and face-to-face.

Desired Attributes of ICT consulting companies’ members:

  1. Previous experience in programming, software development, or other related fields.
  2. Experience in developing, evaluating, and advising on ICT entrepreneurial ideas.
  3. Excellent knowledge of Information Systems, ICT best practices, and application development methodologies.
  4. Business-related knowledge and the ability to combine technological decisions with business goals. 
  5. Strong troubleshooting, analytical and critical thinking skills.
  6. Commitment to the mandate and values of WAC to help youth to help themselves.
  7. Adept at relating to and empathizing with young youth and their aspirations.
  8. Capable of developing the skills of female entrepreneurs to make strategic business decisions for themselves.
  9. Ability to maintain appropriate boundaries while providing valuable guidance during business start-up.
  10. Skilled at providing positive and constructive feedback and challenging assumptions as required.
  11. Accessible, reliable and able to meet commitments.
  12. Effective communication and interpersonal skills.
  13. Excellent reporting and formal writing skills in both English and Arabic.
  14. Ability to communicate technical information in a simplified way.
  15. Good knowledge in MS Office applications, virtual tools such as Zoom, Skype, Google classroom, WhatsApp groups … etc.

Deliverables:

The technical advisor has to deliver the following:

  1. A detailed work plan including the methodology, timeline and activities. 
  2. Progress reports of the implemented tasks, associated deliverables and the work progress in English language.
  3. A comprehensive final report in English language including but not limited to: executive summary, methodology, implemented activities, results, lessons learnt, success stories, risks analysis and recommendations for the intervention at the near and long-term developmental level. Validation on the submitted report from the Project Coordinator is a must. 
  4. Media coverage materials and rushes.

Timing:

The technical and business coaching hours should be delivered over a period of 4-5 weeks. The work timeline may be altered by the project and ICT – WAC team at its discretion. A high commitment should be granted to the timeframe and any change in the timeframe should be discussed, justified and validated by WAC. Any setback occurs affecting on the cycle of the sessions due to failure of advisor; WAC reserves the right to terminate the contracts without offering and compensations. 

Evaluation Criteria:

  1. Financial offer 30%.
  2. Relevant Experience, scientific background and Proposed Methodology of carrying the assignment/ Technical Offer 70%.

Award criteria: WAC will award the Contract to the Candidate whose proposal has been determined to be substantially responsive to the documents of the Request for Proposal and which has obtained the highest overall score.

Application Process: 

Interested applicants should hand over technical and financial offers, as below:

  1. For ICT Consulting Companies: A company profile and a list of the suggested team members (2 consultants) including their C. Vs with indication of 3 references for each CV. The consultant shall identify clearly the role of each member in the team. 
  2. ICT Consulting Company shall submit a technical offer including but not limited: (Brief Bio highlighting areas of professional experience, approach and methodology, timeframe with clear details concerning how the component to be executed). 
  3. Financial offer shall be submitted only in USD currency. (Use the enclosed template!)

Closing date for receiving offers is on Sunday 30/05/2021, at 1:00 PM (local time of the Palestinian Territory). Offers must be submitted by hand on WAC office - Procurement Department. 

Address: Al-Nasr - Al-Lababidi Street - Al-Saeed Building – 2nd Floor.