About GIZ Rwanda

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been working in Rwanda for more than 40 years.Rwanda is a country with a turbulent and, at times, tragic history, and t...

About This Opportunity

The position of Data Scientist at GIZ Rwanda located in Kigali, Rwanda offers an opportunity for qualified professionals to contribute their knowledge and experience in a dynamic working environment. The organization seeks individuals who are motivated, reliable, and capable of performing their duties effectively while maintaining professional standards.

About GIZ and the Project

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZ’s portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi and as well as selected regional activities and projects. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development; Good Governance; Climate, Energy and Sustainable Urban Development; Digital Transformation and Digital Economy; and regional projects in the Great Lakes Region.

At GIZ, we do not just work in international cooperation – we strive to shape the future of sustainable development. Through the AI Hub of the Digital Transformation Center Rwanda, GIZ brings together several initiatives that foster responsible and impactful AI innovation across Africa.

Our Mission? To foster responsible and impactful AI innovation in Africa and to build a thriving, inclusive and locally driven AI ecosystem – one grounded in sound policy, strong skills and real-world use cases that deliver socio-economic impact across the continent.

Our Approach? The AI Hub hosts and connects a range of initiatives that work together to:

• Shape enabling AI policy and responsible, ethical and inclusive AI governance;
• Strengthen skills and capacity across the public sector and the wider AI ecosystem;
• Turn ideas into impact through concrete, scalable AI use cases;
• Grow a vibrant AI community and innovation ecosystem across Africa.

Our Partners? We work hand in hand with governments, civil society, academia and open-source AI communities, foster collaboration between the African and European private sector, and partner with regional organisations such as Smart Africa and the East African Community.

Your Next Career Move? We’re assembling a dynamic, purpose-driven team and are looking for an exceptional Data Scientist with expertise in AI and particularly Natural Language Processing & Machine Translation to help bring this vision to life. This is a hands-on technical role for a builder: you will own the AI Hub’s language-technology products – conversational assistants (chatbots) and machine translation – from concept through to deployment, champion open-source and open-innovation approaches, and help partners and GIZ projects turn AI ideas into working, responsible solutions. If you’re passionate about applied AI, African languages and building technology that lasts, this is your moment.

Responsibilities

The Data Scientist is the technical owner of the AI Hub’s Natural Language Processing & Machine Translation products and a hands-on advisor to partners and GIZ projects. The role spans three interlinked areas – product ownership, AI use-case development and technical advisory – and is tasked with:

• Owning the AI Hub’s products in the areas of conversational AI and machine translation – from concept and design through development, testing, deployment and iteration – with a strong emphasis on African languages and low-resource NLP.
• Championing open-source and open-innovation approaches, including responsible use, adaptation, fine-tuning and release of open models, datasets and tools, and the building of local capacity to sustain them.
• Facilitating structured assessments of potential AI use cases – from problem framing and feasibility through data readiness, technical scoping and prioritisation – to detect where AI can deliver real socio-economic value.
• Advising other GIZ projects and partners on the design, procurement, integration and quality assurance of NLP, machine translation and broader AI solutions.
• Embedding responsible, ethical and inclusive AI practices across the product lifecycle, including data protection, privacy, fairness, transparency and mitigation of language and representation bias.
• Ensuring effective project and product management across the assigned workstreams, including planning, budgeting, steering of contractors, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Building and maintaining relationships with diverse stakeholders across Rwanda and the region – government, academia, start-ups, developer and open-source communities – and identifying synergies across GIZ projects and networks.

• Owning the AI Hub’s products in the areas of conversational AI and machine translation – from concept and design through development, testing, deployment and iteration – with a strong emphasis on African languages and low-resource NLP.
• Championing open-source and open-innovation approaches, including responsible use, adaptation, fine-tuning and release of open models, datasets and tools, and the building of local capacity to sustain them.
• Facilitating structured assessments of potential AI use cases – from problem framing and feasibility through data readiness, technical scoping and prioritisation – to detect where AI can deliver real socio-economic value.
• Advising other GIZ projects and partners on the design, procurement, integration and quality assurance of NLP, machine translation and broader AI solutions.
• Embedding responsible, ethical and inclusive AI practices across the product lifecycle, including data protection, privacy, fairness, transparency and mitigation of language and representation bias.
• Ensuring effective project and product management across the assigned workstreams, including planning, budgeting, steering of contractors, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Building and maintaining relationships with diverse stakeholders across Rwanda and the region – government, academia, start-ups, developer and open-source communities – and identifying synergies across GIZ projects and networks.

• Communication
• Management
• Budgeting
• Planning
• Research
• Training
• Procurement

• Bachelor's Degree (A0)
• Expertise in AI, particularly Natural Language Processing & Machine Translation