2014-2015 Professional Fellowship Program

with Engineers without Borders Canada

The process of recruitment for the 2014-2015 Professional Fellowship Program of Engineers Without Borders Canada is now open! You will find below more details on this amazing program. Applications are due on March 25th, 2014 before 11:59pm.

The Professional Fellowship Program

The Professional Fellowship Program is a one-year program for Canadian Professionals from diverse backgrounds including staff from North American companies, social entrepreneurs, government agencies and cities staff, EWB’s professional Chapter or City Network members.

The goals of this program are to:

Provide specific professional capacities to EWB Ventures’ work in Africa.
Develop experienced Systemic Change Leaders in Canada who are passionate about creating social change in both the private and public sectors.
Deliver specific and innovative contributions in Canada through EWB’s community and network.

You will participate in an intensive learning and leadership development curriculum including a peer-to-peer learning, semi self-directed learning, mentoring, coaching, formal training and experiential learning. You will participate in a Foundation Learning (including collecting feedback on your leadership profile) and a pre-departure training with EWB’s Professional Fellows. Based on your experience and skills, you will be matched to one of EWB’s Ventures in Africa. Back in Canada, you will participate in a retreat, a debrief and a innovation project to apply at your local EWB chapter. You will reintegrate into your environment equipped with an enhanced leadership profile and a higher capacity to have impact in your work.

Roles and responsibilities

While specific roles and placements will be determined by applicant’s skills and venture’s specific needs, general responsibilities may include:

Helping to implement change within the development sector.
First-hand field work and working with local partner to implement projects.
Working within a team to shape strategy in a sector.
Piloting new projects within small teams or training field staff.

Qualifications and experience

Working with EWB overseas is the challenge of a lifetime! You will work in a highly dynamic placement with multi-dimensional goals. You will be pushed beyond your comfort zone as you engage in a variety of activities to affect change in Africa.

The ideal candidate should demonstrate the following competencies:

Ability to diagnose and solve a problem,
Takes on responsibility and is action oriented,
Presentation skills,
Systems thinking,
Self-awareness,
Learning-oriented ability,
Self-management: adaptability, ability to keep motivated and to deal with ambiguity with little support.

Positions are not restricted to engineers. EWB recognizes the need for a multidisciplinary skill set in Africa and encourages applicants from a wide range of educational and professional backgrounds. Applicants must be, or must become, an active member of a Professional chapter.

Below are more details on the roles available for this year. When filling out your application, please choose the top three roles where you feel you could best contribute.

Ref. #	Venture or partner name	Departure period, country	Specific Knowledge Skills and Attitudes (KSA) required and mandate description
#1	Kulemela Investments	August 2014, Ghana	KSA needed: Business management, Finances.
#2	Mobile Business Clinic (Business Development Services)	August 2014, Ghana	KSA needed: Business skills, Experience with small and medium businesses.
#3	Young Fellows Program (Business Development Services) The Young Fellows Program is a fellowship for young graduates of Agriculture sector from Ghana.	August 2014, Ghana	KSA needed: Engineer and/or business background (either someone with technical skills like mechanical engineer or business savvy), Professional (to work with our clients), Adaptable (work plans change), Self-starter (create your own work plan), Project Management. Depending on strength of fellow, here are the possible mandates: Provide support to our clients through technical and operational management, Impact assessment, Support implementation of the program (recruit, training development, coaching, etc).
#4	Amplify Governance	August 2014, Ghana	KSA needed: Organizational development, Strong project management and logistics, Accountant/finance background, IT development (an asset) and communications, Management experience is an asset.
#5	Water and Sanitation	August 2014, Malawi	KSA needed: Government or policy experience/interest Patience, Value working with and through others (interest/experience in capacity building, coaching, facilitating etc.) . Ability to work independently but value being part of a team, and contribute to common vision/goals as others is quite important. values process over and trust in the team to carry forward and build on their work would be helpful. Placements will be at the early stages of the next phase of WatSan. It’s likely that the fellow will be doing more contribution towards building/learning and less seeing of direct results/outputs.
#6	Rent-To-Own (RtO)	August 2014, Zambia	Here are the different roles possibles: Programmer – Integrating Salesforce with others softwares (Taroworks from Grameen, an accounting software package, SMS messaging, etc). MBA/Business – work with RtO agents and sales team to refine the sales approach and revamp the marketing strategy of RtO for 2015, with a possible rebrand. HR/Training – work one-on-one with new HR manager. at RtO to improve the professional development and internal processes in RtO (even the internal communications). Livestock/Vet expert – continue the work on piloting the livestock offering by RtO to smallholder farmers, creating a phase II pilot.
#7	AfriLEAD Institute	August 2014, Ghana	The fellow will work on developing a monitoring and evaluation system for a business fellowship with young graduates.
#8	General position	August 2014, country TBC	Choose this role if you are interested in a Professional Fellowship, but are unsure where your skills and experience are best-suited.
#9	Water and Sanitation	February 2015, Malawi	KSA needed: Government or policy experience/interest. Patience. Value working with and through others (interest/experience in capacity building, coaching, facilitating etc.). Ability to work independently but value being part of a team, and contribute to common vision/goals as others is quite important. values process over and trust in the team to carry forward and build on their work would be helpful. Placements will be at the early stages of the next phase of WatSan. It’s likely that the fellow will be doing more contribution towards building/learning and less seeing of direct results/outputs.
#10	Rent-To-Own (RtO)	February 2015, Zambia	Here are the different roles possibles: Programmer – Integrating Salesforce with others softwares (Taroworks from Grameen, an accounting software package, SMS messaging, etc). MBA/Business – work with RtO agents and sales team to refine the sales approach and revamp the marketing strategy of RtO for 2015, with a possible rebrand. HR/Training – work one-on-one with new HR manager. at RtO to improve the professional development and internal processes in RtO (even the internal communications). Livestock/Vet expert – continue the work on piloting the livestock offering by RtO to smallholder farmers, creating a phase II pilot.
#11	General position	February 2015, country TBC	Choose this role if you are interested in a Professional Fellowship, but are unsure where your skills and experience are best-suited.

Timeline

Application open – February 25th to March 25th, 2014
Interviews period – March 26th-April 15th, 2014
Foundational Learning – April to July, 2014
Pre-departure training (for both departure periods) – end of July, 2014
Contributing to Venture (Africa):
- Summer departure: August to mid-December, 2014
- Winter departure: February to mid-May, 2015
Debrief:
- Summer departure: mid-December, 2014
- Winter departure: mid-May, 2015
Contribution to EWB chapter: after return

EWB Canada

Our Model

We believe in challenging existing systems and structures which underlie global poverty and inequality. To do this, we invest in ideas for systemic innovation. We provide funding, training, mentorship and strategic support to systems change leaders who are tackling a problem in one of our 5 portfolio areas: 1) Small and Growing Businesses that Deliver Social Value , 2) Adaptable Public Service Institutions, 3) Inclusive Food Systems, 4) Engineering Leaders for the 21st Century 5) A triple-bottom-line for Canadian Mining Companies. We currently support 12 ventures across Canada and Africa. Our biggest investment in these ventures is the people who work within them – YOU!?

As a Professional Fellow

As a Professional Fellow with EWB you can expect to be surrounded by hard working, pragmatic and entrepreneurial leaders. You will constantly be challenged to grow, learn and be more than you were the day before. You will have the support and freedom to…

Dream. The world needs people who dream big. EWB is that space for you.

Grow. To create the change we need to be the change. EWB will challenge you to be continually learning, changing and growing in the direction of your values. We ask all staff to take on challenging roles that help them learn through doing. The people you work with will give you honest feedback in an effort to help you grow and to get better results. They will seek the same from you.

Act. You will have control over your work, mandate, and have the freedom to make decisions at tactical, operational and strategic levels.

Think. You’ll have the chance to think through the complexity of systemic change and work through solving some of the toughest strategic, tactical, and operational challenges out there.

Search. We constantly reevaluate our understanding of the problems we’re addressing and continuously adapt our solutions. You’ll have the chance to search out new strategic opportunities – not just implement.

Learn. We actively strive to be a learning organization. This means asking ourselves tough questions, admitting failures, being open and transparent, and maintaining a culture of constant upward, downward and sideways feedback.

Fail. We believe in rapid prototyping and recognize that failure is an important part of the change process.

There are three components of the placement:

Pre-departure Preparation: prior to the Africa component of the placement, Fellows work through 4 months of individual and team based preparation during foundation learning. Pre-departure preparation finishes off with one week of intense group based experiential learning for all fellow’s in Toronto.
Africa Venture Placement: From August – December 2014 fellows will work on their venture-specific work assignment with coaching and support from EWB’s African Venture Staff. EWB believes that continuous investment in the fellows throughout their placement will allow them to contribute effectively to the venture’s systemic change.
In-Canada Leadership: upon returning to Canada in the middle of December, fellows are expected to take on leadership roles at their local city network and implement an innovation project you will choose. Fellows also share their learning about the complexity of incubating systemic change in Africa and invest in chapter members and future fellows to develop their understanding on the change-making process.

Professional Fellowship Program