RFP FOR CONSULTANT/ FIRMS FOR

EYEE- YEN Website & Mobile App

Posted: February 2018

Introduction/ Background:

Indus Consortium is composed of three grass organizations from Punjab and Sindh and is registered with SECP under Section 42 (1) as not for Profit Company. It is working in 21 districts of Sindh and Punjab and having base in 1700 villages. It has formal MoUs with 07 public universities and working relationship with 21 universities.

Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) is globally strengthening the ability of vulnerable or marginalized youth especially illiterate youth, girls, people with disability and transgender etc by developing livelihood assets and devising pathways to overcome barriers, challenges and developing innovative approaches to improve their socio-economic status in a community.

VSO has developed an evidence based signature programme on EYEE ‘Empowered Youth for Employment and Entrepreneurship’ to address the issues, problems, barriers and pathways in the employability and entrepreneurship of the Pakistani youth. In this signature program, VSO has entered into a new partnership with Indus Consortium to implement the project in Multan and Islamabad.

  1. The Project

“Empowered Youth for Employment and Entrepreneurship” ( EYEE) project is a continuation of signature programme of VSO to develop capacities of youth, CSOs, networks and governmenton resilience, social accountability and SIG. A series of consultations with youth, government line departments, CSOs and private sectors actors will pave way to identify issues, barriers, challenges and pathways for VSO Pakistan advocacy on youth employability. Thus the VSO Pakistan and IC together envision youth employability network for collaborative advocacy, developing linkages with private sectors and policy makers/elected representativesand will initiate policy dialogues at national, provincial and district level of Multan, Muzafargarh, and Islamabad.

The project has engaged development partners and government in a comprehensive consultative process for capturing evidences which ultimately contributes towards VSO secured Livelihood signature programme. The interventions primarily focusing on the people first approach. The process included research on youth employability, labor market analyzes in Pakistan exploring gaps, trends and growth factors in labour markets and a national consultative workshop on youth employability and entrepreneurship discovering challenges and way forward.

DESCRIPTION OF KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the overall supervision of the Project Manager(IC), a website will be developed. The consultant - will be working in close coordination with network coordinator (VSO) based at Multan.

The consultant / firm will take responsibility for the designing, testing, launching, real-time trouble shooting, securing andmaintenance (server upgrade, application upgrade and monitoring) on annual basis of dedicated Youth Employability Network website. The consultant or firm needs to conduct a detailed presentation on how they will develop / design and securely deploy the web site and mobile application and conduct detailed meetings to ensure that all the feedback is incorporated at satisfactory level.

Scope of Work:

  • Make proposal for design of the website and mobile app.
  • Design the website structure: clear catalogs & folders for data & page storage, attractive site & page layout, easy to use, update and maintain, flexible navigation & search function; counting function for web pages visited, etc.
  • Create HTML documents and graphics for implementation in the Web
  • Make recommendations for backup/restore plan
  • Training to staff on website maintenance and content update
  • Design and establish anti-hacker and anti-virus plan for the website
  • Website hosting service for 2018 & 2019
  • Warranty and maintenance service
  • Make recommendations for software, hardware, and other back-end applications related to Web development
  • Incorporate online petition page for voting purpose
  • Align Facebook page for Network Members
  • Develop Mobile app
  • Basic structure of the website: Both English and Urdu versions are required
  • Following estimated structure of the website in single language:
  • Home page
  • Static pages: 20-30
  • Dynamic Pages: 4
  • Functions:Online Petition , Subscribe email , In site search, Analytics, Photo and Video gallery ( optional), Automatic homepage recover (optional), CMS with remote administration, Other Detail Required

The hired company will be required to create (design, develop, test and implement) a web platform within the designated timeline which meets the following criteria:

  • Interactive, appealing, highly usable and responsive web design: Web Designs are very subjective, we expect the hired company to show-case their best elements in delivering suitable intranet design options. The design and solution must be easy to use
  • Average site load-time should be reasonable
  • Search engine friendly
  • Able to render appropriately on a wide variety of different browsers
  • Be Secure: The design of the solution should adhere to security best practices, for example: passwords should not be stored in plain-text, all form data should be validated, all user input should be sanitised, user interactions and activities should be logged etc.
  • Design and final solution should adhere to accessibility and compliance requirements (as defined by the project team): The Web solution should be designed to ensure that everyone, including users who have difficulty seeing, hearing, and making precise movements, can use them.
  • Public and Registered Users (Member’s) only Areas
  • Secured & Authenticated Web Access: Web solution should be secured in accordance with current best practices
  • Calendar, Events, Reminders, calendar integration: Specific authorised users should have the ability to create and administer events and event details. Other users should be able to search for and find events based on specific criteria. Members should be able to receive notifications that an event has been scheduled and reminders of upcoming events.
  • Social Network Integration:Mass Email/Messaging: The system should provide a feature to allow authorised content administrators (or other authorised administrators) to contact all or group/community members. This feature may be used to facilitate the dissemination of newsletters.
  • Search: The webshould provide users with the ability to search for and locate content based on keywords and key phrases.
  • Discussion Forum: Internet should be capable of hosting a quick and basic level of discussion with and w/o moderation of comments. Members should be able to view and create posts, edit their own posts etc.
  • Survey & Poll: Intranet should be able to conduct a survey of around 10 to 20 questions and Polling / voting system should also be available.

CONSULTANT’S CRITERIA

A reputable registered IT firm/ consultant having the experience of more than 5 years in web portal and Mobile app designing, development, management, troubleshooting and server management can apply. The registration certificate and other accomplishment certificates will be needed to attach with the proposal.

ASSIGNMENT DURATION

It needs to be finalized within the time frame of 4 to 5 weeks, which includes the incorporation of all the feedback of the client.

GUIDELINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSAL

Interested consultants and firms submit the following documents in the proposal:

1. Detailed Technical Proposal:

(i) Explaining why consultant /firm is suitable for this consultancyi.e.domain knowledge

(ii) Brief methodology of developing and designing and securely hosting web portal

2. Financial proposal

The financial proposal should include detailed budget.

How to Apply:

The consultant/ firms meet the criteria can submit their Technical and Financial Proposals in a soft along with the detailed latest CVs at the following address by 15 February2018.

Do not forget to mention "Proposal for Web Site and Mobile App Development for YEN" in the subject.

NOTE

  • Only short listed firms/ candidates will be contacted for interview
  • Indus Consortium reserves the rights of acceptance of rejection of any proposal without disclosing any reason.