Request for Proposals: Website Development At Asia Society for Social Improvement & Sustainable Transformation

Background

ASSIST Asia is a self-sustaining Pan-Asian NGO with its HQ in the Philippines and a footprint across South & SE Asia. Focused on social improvement and sustainable transformation, we have implemented over 300 projects in 25 countries in the last 20 years with various agencies including ADB, AfDB, DEG, GIZ, IFC, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNHCR and World Bank as well as private corporations including Puma, Holcim, Nestle, Philips and Schneider amongst others.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), nearly 11 million children and young Filipinos are not attending formal school. Of the 42.8 million household population aged five to 24 years old, the PSA said that 10.7 million or 25 percent are out-of-school children and youth (OSCY). There is a crisis in foundational learning, as well as an alarming decline in the literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. Many schools in the Philippines lack facilities and human resources to help children with their lessons.

In service of its goal to further sustainable development, ASSIST is initiating a project to bring vocational and technical training to out of school children. To be able to bring about this outcome, eLearning modules will be produced and disseminated to these youths via a free and open source platform to maximize the initiative’s reach.

A separate consultant will be contracted to develop the eLearning modules, however there is a real need to design, code, and develop a website, in order to serve as an interactive online platform and knowledge base for the target audience.

Location: Remote

Project Objectives

The project’s objective is to bring technical and vocational education to out of school youths through creation of eLearning modules and dissemination of the modules on a secure, free, user-friendly, and scalable open source platform. The modules will help capacitate these youths in order to achieve the following outcomes:

• Improvement in livelihood and socioeconomic development
• Decrease in probability of juvenile delinquency
• Upskilling in essential skills that employers look for to improve employment opportunities for out of school youths

Specific Scope of Work

The selected firm for this call will be working closely with ASSIST. The expected work and outputs for this call are the following:

Phase 1: Website Planning and Designing

• Design an intuitive user interface that is accessible and user-friendly for learners, reviewers, administrators of varying technical proficiency.
• Develop a custom theme based on the provided wireframes and prototypes, ensuring a visually appealing and responsive design.
• Integrate and configure all necessary third-party tools, libraries, modules and plugins to ensure the website functions as intended, using open-source solutions where possible.
• Identification of necessary functional plug-ins and other required interactive features.
• Staging server set-up and domain.
• Creating a user journey flow diagram.

Phase 2: Website Development (Set-up, Programming & Functional Enhancement)

• Front-end coding and back-end coding.
• Set-up of functionality plug-ins.
• Establishing user access roles on the website.
• Procure and configure necessary servers or cloud infrastructure to host the eLearning platform.
• Integrate interactive features and optimize the website for search engines and user engagement.
• Design the platform to optimize server performance and quick load times to handle high concurrent user traffic.
• Implement a monitoring and analytics system to track usage patterns and user engagement, informing future enhancements.

Phase 3: Website Technical Support and Deployment

• Develop disaster recovery and data backup solutions to prevent data loss and ensure data integrity and availability.
• Ensure compatibility across various devices and web browsers, including thorough testing and optimization for cross-platform performance.
• Implement industry-standard security measures to protect user data and platform integrity.

Phase 4: Website Maintenance and Post-Support

• Monthly analytics and proactive updating of necessary codes and plugins (6 months after day of release).
• Develop comprehensive training materials for the website use and provide post-launch support.

Timeline

The project is expected to be completed 8 months after the contract is signed. Due to the collaborative nature of the project, the timeline will be constructed upon planning meetings with ASSIST and the respective firms.

Qualifications (Years of experience; Experience working with social sector and corporate sector; Tools expertise; Regional experience)

• 7+ years of experience in web development using custom and open-source technology;
• Has worked with HTML, CSS, WordPress, JavaScript, PHP7.2, SQL Database, and Bootstrap
• Has worked proven experience with React, Node.js, and Drupal 7/8/9/10
• Preferably with native web application development experience using Next.js and Laravel
• Strong track record of working with global clients and intended target audience;
• Ability to complete work on-time and report progress consistently;
• Familiarity and context of the South East Asian market; and
• Sound knowledge of the target audience (out of school youths).