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The e-Assessment Association (eAA) is the leading professional membership body promoting better assessment through technology. We bring together awarding organisations, education providers, technology suppliers, researchers and policymakers to advance high-quality, innovative assessment practice in the UK and internationally.
We are now seeking a new Chair of the Board to lead the next phase of the Association’s development.
This is a high-impact governance role for an experienced senior leader who is passionate about assessment, education and technology, and who enjoys working collaboratively to make a difference across a complex and evolving sector.
Why this role matters
The Chair plays a pivotal role in shaping the direction, influence and effectiveness of the eAA.
Working with a committed Board of Directors and a small, professional operational team, the Chair provides strategic leadership, ensures strong governance, and acts as an ambassador for the Association and its members.
The Chair of the eAA Limited also serves as Chair of the Board of e-Assessment Services Limited, the Association’s trading subsidiary, supporting the sustainability and growth of the organisation.
This is an opportunity to:
- lead a respected, member-led organisation at the forefront of digital assessment;
- influence policy, practice and debate across assessment and education technology;
- support the continued professionalisation and growth of the Association; and
- work with a knowledgeable, engaged Board and an experienced executive team.
The role is supported by an annual honorarium of £6,000 in recognition of the time commitment and responsibility involved.
What you’ll be doing
As Chair, you will:
Provide strategic leadership
- Lead the Board in setting the strategic direction of the Association and monitoring progress against agreed objectives.
- Support the long-term sustainability, relevance and impact of the eAA.
Ensure strong governance
Ensure the Association operates within its governance framework and complies with all statutory and fiduciary duties.
Foster a positive, inclusive and professional Board culture that encourages open discussion, diverse perspectives and collective decision-making.
Work closely with the Vice-Chair and other Directors to maintain continuity and effective governance processes.
Support and challenge the Executive
- Provide support, guidance and constructive challenge to the CEO and operations team.
- Oversee performance against strategic and operational goals.
- Review budgets, management accounts and strategic plans in collaboration with the Treasurer and executive team.
Represent and advocate
- Act as an ambassador for the Association with members, partners, sponsors and external stakeholders.
- Represent the eAA at key events, including the e-Assessment International Conference and Awards.
- Use your networks and credibility to enhance the Association’s profile and influence.
Essential experience and attributes
- Senior leadership experience within assessment, education or educational technology.
- A strong understanding of assessment principles and the role of technology in transforming assessment practice.
- Demonstrated Board-level governance experience, ideally within a company limited by guarantee, charity or membership organisation.
- Excellent chairing and facilitation skills, with the ability to lead a diverse Board effectively.
- Strategic thinking, integrity and the confidence to provide constructive challenge.
- Strong communication and ambassadorial skills.
Desirable
- Experience of working in or alongside professional associations or member-led organisations.
- Established networks across education, assessment and technology sectors.
- Experience representing an organisation publicly at conferences or sector events.
Non Charity Employer 
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African Development Choices (ADC) is a UK-registered charity on a mission to reduce poverty by empowering communities to make more informed choices in the management of public resources.
ADC’s purpose is to enable communities to independently meet their needs for essential services, such as clean water and safe sanitation, and improve lives in Africa.
At ADC we encourage a working culture of seeking and giving input, showing and taking initiative, and commitment to the organisation and its purpose.
We now have an exciting opportunity for a volunteer Senior AI Agent Architect to join ADC and help build a live prototype of MajiGuard AI.
Main purpose of job:
To lead the technical design and hands-on development of MajiGuard AI, an agentic AI prototype that helps ADC identify underused WASH resources, structure recovery and reallocation cases, and verify that recovered value reaches facility upgrades and operations and maintenance.
Division: Technology / AI Innovation
Department: Product & Engineering
Position reports to: Head of AI Innovation
Direct reports for the position: Volunteer AI engineers, developers and technical contributors
Main Duties & Responsibilities:
- Lead the end-to-end architecture of MajiGuard AI, including the selection and integration of models, agent workflows, orchestration tools, retrieval systems, data structures and human-in-the-loop controls appropriate for a live prototype.
- Translate ADC’s operational goals into practical AI workflows, especially for identifying underused WASH resources, standardising evidence and case preparation, supporting recovery and reallocation decisions, and verifying delivery of value to facility improvements and ongoing operations and maintenance.
- Build and iterate a live prototype using pragmatic, cost-effective tooling, with strong attention to reliability, traceability, security, maintainability and ease of future scaling.
- Design structured inputs, prompts, evaluation criteria and decision logic so that outputs are useful to non-technical ADC teams working across programmes, research, partnerships and leadership.
- Establish a technical roadmap for the prototype, including architecture choices, milestone planning, testing priorities, deployment options and documentation for future funders, partners and developers.
- Work closely with ADC leadership to shape the product vision and ensure the prototype aligns with ADC’s wider governance and public service innovation model.
- Advise on suitable approaches for data governance, privacy, model risk, hallucination control, auditability and responsible AI use in the context of public-resource management and service delivery.
- Define and monitor prototype success metrics, including usefulness, accuracy, turnaround time, workflow fit, and operational learning that can strengthen grant applications, partnerships and future product development.
- Support the transition from local experimentation to a live prototype environment, including basic cloud or hosted deployment thinking, version control practices and engineering handover readiness.
- Mentor and coordinate other volunteer technical contributors where relevant, helping ADC build a small but high-quality AI capability around MajiGuard AI.
Knowledge, skills, and experience:
Essential
- 8+ years of relevant experience in AI, machine learning, applied NLP, intelligent automation, agentic systems, or modern software engineering for production-grade data or AI products
- Strong hands-on experience designing and building AI systems, including LLM-based applications, retrieval-augmented generation, agent workflows, orchestration frameworks, evaluation pipelines and API integrations
- Experience taking ideas from concept or prototype stage into a usable live product, pilot or production-like environment
- Excellent technical judgement on model selection, system design trade-offs, latency, reliability, observability and cost-conscious engineering
- Strong programming ability, ideally including Python and modern backend tooling, with the ability to work across architecture, implementation and troubleshooting
- Experience designing structured workflows where AI outputs must be reviewable, auditable and useful for operational decision-making
- Ability to simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and translate mission goals into practical product choices
- Interest in using AI to strengthen public service delivery, accountability, governance, resource allocation, or adjacent social impact problems
- Ability to actively take initiative and help set things up in a start-up environment
- Ability to actively seek and give input in a collaborative team environment
- A committed team player with good communication skills
- Available to volunteer at least 8-12 hours a week
Desirable
- Experience with agentic AI products involving workflow automation, task routing, multi-step reasoning, document intelligence or evidence-based case management
- Experience with cloud deployment, containerisation, CI/CD, databases, vector stores, authentication and production monitoring for AI systems
- Experience working on civic tech, govtech, development, WASH, infrastructure, audit, compliance or public-finance-related products
- Experience working in an early-stage start-up or mission-driven organisation and comfortable operating with ambiguity
- Experience mentoring engineers or leading small technical teams across different locations and time zones
What ADC Offers You
This is a volunteer, remote and unpaid position with the following benefits:
- A chance to play a foundational role in shaping MajiGuard AI from concept into a live prototype with real strategic relevance to ADC’s mission
- An opportunity to apply advanced AI and product-building skills to a meaningful public-interest challenge connected to WASH, accountability and service delivery in Africa
- An opportunity to work with a diverse global team and contribute to an organisation seeking systemic social change
- Professional learning, leadership and portfolio-building opportunities through high-ownership work
- Work reference provided
This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.
Here at African Development Choices, we celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our teams are made up of people from all over the world and we welcome all applications. If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, and you require any reasonable adjustments for your application with us, please let us know by contacting recruitment(at)africandevelopmentchoices(dot)org.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.