Technology Development Officer

The French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) is a public French scientific and technological institution that has been working for 75 years in countries of the Global South. It is under the dual authority of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Its research, expertise, valorization and training activities aim at contributing to the economic, social and cultural development of the Global South.
IRD in Vietnam, though its International Joint Laboratory ACROSS has recently been awarded a funding by the EuropeAid “Green Partnership with ASEAN” program to develop, with partner schools in the Lower Mekong countries (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam), a set of “sustainability metaverses”, i.e., educational solutions based on the integration of immersive virtual reality environments with serious games and scientific simulations. This project, called SIMPLE (Sustainability Issues Metaverse for building Participatory Learning Environments), will also be providing an integrated learning environment called the Mobile Metaverse Learning Lab (M2L2) that can be deployed quickly and provide a complete virtual reality playground for classes, even in remote locations with limited Internet bandwidth. The virtual universes developed in SIMPLE will be based on calibrated scientific models validated in well-documented case studies, ensuring the realism of the development scenarios that participants will explore and allowing them to collaborate virtually in real time to explore solutions to sustainability issues.

Under the direction of the team leader and in cooperation with your team members, you will insure the efficient and coherent implementation of the technical tasks related to the design and implementation of the hardware and software platforms. The technology development officer reports to the project manager and team leader.
You will have the support of local project officers for execution of the technical tasks by each partner of the project (IRD, CTU, and NSTDA).

Activities:
– Participate to the essential developments of the platforms (notably to ensure the open-sourcing and reusability of the platforms).
– Conduct a constant technology monitoring in this rapidly changing domain.
– Conduct the necessary internal testing of the pilot versions.
– Document the platforms and coordinates with the Project Officers and their teams on each site to make sure they produce and get the right equipment and software for their case studies.
– Prepare guidelines for the proper reuse of the platforms.
– Participate to the “train the trainers” sessions, to present some of the simple technical aspects related to the platform use.

Skills and competences:
– Very good knowledge of the metaverses and gamification processes.
– Good knowledge of the domain and its current state in South-East Asia.
– Ability to identify the right equipment and software to use in the project.
– Ability to read, write, and speak English.
– French and/or a local language would be a plus.
– Good communication and writing skills.
– Advanced skills in MS Office Products (Word, PPT, Excel) to support documents preparation.
– Ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines and to quickly adapt to multiple priorities.
– High attention to details and organized
– Independence and rigor
– Proven ability to work in a multicultural environment

Degree and experience:
– At least a master’s degree in computer science with a specialization on modeling and simulation.
– At least one-year experience with the development of modeling and simulation platforms.

Environment:
The position is located in Hanoi, in the premises of the ACROSS laboratory. The work will be done in close coordination with the team leader and project manager of the SIMPLE project, as well as the co-directors and colleagues of the ACROSS laboratory.
The position will imply travels within Vietnam and to Thailand to meet our local educational partners and work with them.

Indicative remuneration:
Depending on the candidate’s profile, experience and requests, an individual proposal will be made after the interview.

Do you recognize yourself in this description?
If so, please send us your CV and cover letter to the following address by 15th February 2023: alexis.drogoul@ird.fr
Applications containing only CVs will not be considered.