Technical Support Consultant – Humanoid Robots in Education

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion and gender parity within its workforce, and encourages all qualified candidates, irrespective of nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. UNICEF’s office is accessible to a certain extent, and employees are entitled to reasonable accommodations that are needed for ensuring equitable working conditions.

To provide short-term technical support to Resource Centres (RCs) in Serbia for the diagnosis, troubleshooting, and resolution of technical issues affecting the functionality and effective use of humanoid robots (“Voli”) in educational settings, with the aim of ensuring their reliable operation in both RCs and mainstream schools, on the request of Ministry of Education. Technical issue resolution and software update-related support will be delivered in accordance with guidance and instructions provided by the external vendor, which continues to maintain the backend infrastructure, as well as the Android and web applications, through the UNICEF Office. All necessary documentation available will be provided to selected consultant by UNICEF and RCs. Access to robots will be provided by the RCs.

Scope of Work:

Technical Diagnostics & Assessment

• Conduct a rapid technical assessment of all 11 robots across RCs (hardware, software, connectivity, tablets, batteries, sensors).
• Identify all issues and classify all findings as per most likely root causes for future follow-up, such as:
• System freezes and delays (configuration issues)
• Command execution failures (movement, speech)
• Software instability post-update (patching issues)
• Internet connectivity loss (Wi-Fi and other connectivity issues)
• Language-related performance differences (localization issues, TTS)
• Hardware issues/damage (e.g. tablet issues)

Troubleshooting & Software update

• Support RCs to ensure all robots are updated with the latest stable software version, to make it functional.
• Test and stabilize software performance post-update
• Address bugs (e.g. “DOT” speech issue, limited song functionality).
• Provide hands-on troubleshooting (remote and on-site where needed).
• Recommend immediate fixes and temporary workarounds for unresolved technical constraints, as per assessment findings for optimize performance
• Identify and propose solutions for internet dependency issues (offline modes, hotspot configuration, network requirements, independent 5g/4g rout...