ICRISAT seeks:  Scientific Officer – Artificial Intelligence (Dakar, Senegal) – 2 positions

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT) is seeking applications for two Scientific Officers – Artificial Intelligence to support quantitative analyses and modeling of risks to the resilience and stability of agricultural smallholder systems, in partnership with public and private partners. These activities are undertaken as part of a Habitus project on Hyperlocal Elicitation and Understanding of Risks to Stability In Complex Systems (HEURISTICS: 2020-2023). The Scientific Officers’ work location will be c/o agCelerant-Senegal, Dakar, Senegal and they will be reporting directly to the HEURISTICS project principal investigator at ICRISAT.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid tropics have over 2 billion people, of which 644 million are the poorest of the poor.
ICRISAT is headquartered in Patancheru, near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and five country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. In WCA, ICRISAT has its regional hub in Mali and country programs in Niger and Nigeria.
ICRISAT, established in 1972, is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. For more details, see www.icrisat.org.

Habitus aims to create self-sustaining, adaptive, generalizable, and scalable methods for generating causal system models based on local knowledge to aid operational decision making. The HEURISTICS project (2021-2024) will assist decision makers to assess and enhance the resilience of local populations to destabilizing shocks and long-term changes (e.g., disease outbreaks, communal violence, weather extremes, climate change) and to evaluate the likely effects of interventions. From the perspective of local agrarian populations in West Africa, the aim is to provide services such as decision support tools and safe access to trusted buyers, lenders, insurers, etc.

CCAFS aims to address the increasing challenge of global warming and declining food security on agricultural practices, policies and measures through a strategic collaboration between CGIAR and Future Earth. CCAFS brings together the world’s best researchers in agricultural science, climate science, environmental and social sciences to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and trade-offs between climate change and agriculture. CCAFS is structured around four closely inter-linked global research flagships: Climate-smart agricultural practices; Climate information services and climate-informed safety nets; Low-emissions agricultural development; and Policies and institutions for climate-resilient food systems. The Program is focusing on five regions: South-East Asia, South Asia, Latin America, East Africa and West Africa.  For more information visit www.ccafs.cgiar.org.

The Job

• Strengthen, through data intelligence, our understanding of the differential resilience of local populations to destabilizing shocks and long-term changes (e.g. disease outbreaks, market volatility, weather extremes)
• Organize field interactions with local agricultural communities and value chain stakeholders (agro-industries, banks, insurance, input supply, extension services, intermediaries) for the effective development of risk control solutions based on crowdsourced information
• Enhance capacity in the use of new tools for resilience analytics, including artificial intelligence, real-time yield forecasts, digital platforms, IoT devices, Earth Observation, social networks modeling
• Assist the project team in communicating HEURISTICS research results within ICRISAT, CGIAR, DARPA and to external audiences, including the preparation of peer-reviewed and public awareness material

Qualifications

• MSc in applied mathematics, computer science, or agricultural/environmental sciences
• Strong computational capacity (working knowledge of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning)
• Experience with West African smallholder agriculture an advantage
• Superior communication capacity with English and French proficiency required
• Leadership and listening skills, and a results-oriented personality
• Interest and ability to work in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams
• Willingness to lead a small team of machine learning interns
• Willingness to travel as per needs of the job and work extra hours in challenging field conditions 

Employment conditions

The two positions offer a unique opportunity to engage with local agricultural communities, stakeholders and academic experts in artificial intelligence while collaborating with scientists from various disciplines. The selected candidates will be offered a 2-year contract with possibility of extension based on satisfactory performance and availability of funds. The post is in category A of the NRS (Nationally Recruited Staff) category, with a competitive salary and other benefits.

How to apply:

Applications must be sent to the address Icrisat.Mali@cgiar.org no later than December 20, 2020. Applications should include:

• An up-to-date Curriculum Vitae, with copies of degrees and relevant working certificates
• The names and addresses (including phone/e-mail) of two referees
• A motivation letter stating the date of availability of the candidate

Screening of applications will begin immediately for recruitment by mid-January 2021. All applications will be acknowledged, however only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer and is especially interested in increasing the participation of women on its staff.