About this role

Dark Matter Labs (Dm) is working on what is needed to manifest transformations to our food, housing, land, material and nature systems towards a future of mutual thriving. In doing this, we analyse the shifts it requires in the underlying ‘dark matter’ - monetary, economic, governance, regulatory and policy systems - to make this possible, and we work with partners to demonstrate these alternatives in neighbourhoods, cities and bioregions. We share these insights openly for mutual learning.

As part of the Trees AI Trees-as-Infrastructure (TreesAI) initiative, the "Heat Sensing" project seeks to explore and establish the organisational infrastructures required to revalue nature as an integral component of urban infrastructure, alongside bridges, roads, and rail. TreesAI forms a crucial part of our broader Nature-based Solutions mission, which supports nature-inspired approaches to sustaining and regenerating the health of underlying ecosystems. Learn more in our latest blog post about TreesAI in Stuttgart, Germany. The Heat Sensing project specifically focuses on climate adaptation by understanding heat waves, engaging with local communities and partners to foster resilience and awareness.

The Project Coordinator will play a vital role in ensuring the smooth execution and coordination of the Heat Sensing project. This position is essential for managing the intricate details of project logistics, facilitating effective communication among stakeholders, and supporting the strategic design efforts. By joining this initiative, you will directly contribute to our mission of integrating nature-based solutions into urban planning, ultimately supporting a life-ennobling future.

Focus Area 1 - Project Coordination and Delivery - 60%

• Gantt Chart Management: Maintain and update the Gantt chart for this innovation project to ensure that all tasks are on schedule, taking into account the appropriate time management approach for the flexible and agile nature of the project.

• Administrative Support: Facilitate communication within the team, ensuring everyone is aware of deadlines and responsibilities. Organise and schedule meetings with project partners, and prepare and distribute meeting agendas and action points. Document and archive project materials, ensuring compliance with UK Government project requirements.

• Deliverables Execution: Oversee the production and timely delivery of project outputs, ensuring they meet the required quality standards.

• General Admin Support for TreesAI: Provide administrative assistance for the broader TreesAI initiative, including archiving documents and facilitating meetings.

Focus Area 2 - Communications - 20%

• Communication: Excellent and trust-worthy written and oral communication skills in both Korean and English. Ensure clear and effective communication with all stakeholders.

• Deliverables support: Support through contribution & proof-reading the finalisation of deliverables.

Focus Area 3 - Strategic Research & Design Support - 20%

• Diagram Creation: Develop visual representations and diagrams to support project planning and communication.

• Design Research: Conduct research to inform the strategic design elements of the project, contributing innovative ideas and solutions.

You might thrive in this role if

• You're an Organisational and Coordination Expert: You excel at managing multiple tasks, keeping detailed plans, and ensuring every aspect of a project is meticulously coordinated. You find joy in updating Gantt charts, organising meetings, and ensuring everything runs smoothly.

• You're an Effective Communicator and Translator: Fluent in both Korean (native) and English, you bridge cultural and linguistic gaps effortlessly. Your clear and assertive written and oral communication skills ensure all stakeholders are aligned and complex ideas are conveyed simply and effectively.

• You're a Natural Learner: You have an innate curiosity and a passion for learning new tools, methodologies, and concepts. You quickly adapt to new challenges and continuously seek to expand your knowledge and skills. 

• You're a Prioritization and Focus Master: You keep yourself and your team aligned with project goals, ensuring that efforts are directed towards the most impactful activities.

• You're a Collaborative Engagement Pro: You thrive on building strong relationships and managing multi-actor collaborative projects, considering plural community perspectives and ensuring stakeholder engagement.

• You're a Systems & Strategic Thinker: Seeing the bigger picture comes naturally to you. You understand how different parts of a system interact and influence each other, allowing you to make strategic decisions and contribute innovative ideas to the project.

• You're a Proactive Problem-Solver: You approach challenges with a proactive mindset, finding innovative solutions and anticipating potential issues before they arise. Your diligence, analytical skills, and hard-working nature ensure that problems are addressed efficiently and effectively.

Other nice-to-have skills that might make the learning curve easier (but are not strictly essential) are:

• Interest and experience in digital tools for urban transformation (generative AI, remote-sensing, GIS etc.);

• Interest in exploring and researching themes like urban nature, just transition, climate adaptation, urban heat island effect;

• Experience using illustration and graphic design editing tools (Adobe, Miro, Figma...);

• Interest and experience in indicator design or municipal data-enabled planning.

We are completely open to what your background might be. We highly value lived experience as a form of expertise and we consider having a broad and diverse range of lived experience within the team, as being critical for us to be able to do our best possible work together and to create a range of spaces and accommodate a broad spectrum of life experience into our planetary team.

Who you will work closely with

• Chloé, Eunji and Sofia (based in London and São Paulo), the Heat Sensing project Co-Holders, who have been dedicated to Nature-based Solutions and Cities Transitions mission at Dm;

• Partners and stakeholders from the project Consortium (based in Seoul, South Korea): in all of our work we intend to share learning and practice to communities beyond the Dm platform.

How we work

We're a multi-disciplinary and distributed team based around the globe. What's important to us is using the context and local conditions of projects to grow our knowledge and use it to iterate our knowledge and practice across all of our work. We pride ourselves on learning, experimentation and intuition, and look to provide members of the team ways in which they can grow their own knowledge and practice. We view projects, processes and how we work as an evolving design that you would be part of shaping.

Please check our Jobs page for more information on how we organise.

Pay

Our approach to pay is not based on favouring one skill over another or rewarding hierarchical power dynamics. Instead, we recognize that everyone possesses unique and exceptional skills, and we remove the process of valuing and comparing them. This allows us to focus on unleashing those skills in diverse ways based on the specific context. It gives us the freedom to determine, assign, and assess roles based on what is most suitable for each situation, rather than being constrained by predefined roles tied to compensation.

As a result, our pay is designed not to reward people for tasks done, but to cover living costs so that we are freed to create what we believe is needed in the world. 

Our current base pay for everyone on the team is:

Formula = ((Years experience* + 23)(+ 8.82 for freelancers) x 1000) = gross pro rata pay in GBP

*Years experience includes all experience after school completion age (18) - inc work, education, unpaid work (care, volunteering, etc).

We recognise that no formula that tries to do this can fully account for the unique contexts of every person. Therefore we also have a rebalancing process in place to accommodate individual circumstances.

We have recently put in place a range of benefits support across the team, including coaching, learning funds, sabbatical and secondment support, learning funds, workspace funds and more. These were set collectively by the team and vary according to statutory provisions in different geographies - we’ll be happy to confirm the relevant approach for your geography and contract type.

Our holiday policy is a minimum of 28 days/year pro-rata, but we encourage you to take all of the time that you need to properly rest.

Your Hiring Journey at Dark Matter Labs

This page outlines how the process will look like if you apply. We recommend checking it, and if you have any questions, please reach out at join@darkmatterlabs.org.

For this role, we do not require a CV, as we aim to focus more on your potential than your past experience. Instead, you will be asked to answer four sift questions (250 words max each) related to the role, which will hopefully also help you determine if this role truly interests you. Thank you for your time and energy!