Request for Proposals: Development of the Orange Index

Deadline: 15 August 2025

The Impact Investment Exchange seeks a qualified technology vendor to design and develop the Orange Index™ – a platform that aggregates real-time SME impact data with macro-level indicators to benchmark national progress on gender equality and climate action.

Sustainable development indices play a critical role in guiding policy, shaping capital flows, and tracking inclusive growth. However, existing tools often fall short in capturing the intersection of gender, climate, and SME performance. The Orange Index™ addresses this gap with a transformative, data-driven approach.

Goals and Objectives

The objective is to design and build the Orange Index, a digital, data-driven platform that benchmarks gender equality and climate action progress at the country level through the lens of SME performance.
The goal is to equip policymakers, investors, and ecosystem players with actionable insights grounded in real-time impact data and global sustainability metrics.

Scopes

The selected vendor will deliver the Orange Index platform across the following work streams:
- Conceptual Design
  - Work with IIX leadership and technical teams to finalize the Orange Index methodology and architecture.
  - Define and weight a relevant basket of indicators, combining:
  - Real-time SME impact data from IIX’s proprietary platforms
  - National and regional macroeconomic, social, and environmental datasets
  - Establish transparent weighting, scoring and aggregation methodologies, ensuring alignment with SDG indicators, ESG taxonomies, Orange Bond Principles, and global best practices.
  - Finalize user stories, wireframes, and visual concepts for the platform.
- Technology Development
  - Part 1: Platform Design and Prototype Development
    - Translate the index methodology into a digital prototype to test core functionalities. The prototype should:
      - Ingest sample datasets and simulate country scoring
      - Offer a basic user interface for data visualization and interaction
      - Allow stakeholder testing and feedback collection for refinement
  - Part 2: Full Platform Development
    - Build a fully functional version of the Orange Index™ Platform based on prototype learnings and stakeholder feedback. The platform must:
      - Support integration of real-time and batch data from multiple sources
      - Build a secure, scalable, cloud-hosted system capable of:
      - Integrating multiple data streams (both real-time and periodic)
      - Cleaning, normalizing, and validating SME and macro data
      - Calculating weighted indicators and producing aggregated national scores
      - Design and develop intuitive, user-facing dashboards with embedded data visualizations and other functionalities including:
      - Country profiles and comparison tools
      - Indicator breakdowns and historical trends
      - Downloadable reports and visual assets
      - Build back-end API integrations with IIX Values™, IIX Intelligence™, and external partner platforms
      - Ensure multi-country scalability, with robust data privacy, security, and compliance frameworks
      - Include user-friendly interfaces and potential dashboards for select user groups
      - Be secure, scalable, and designed for future enhancements
- Testing, Deployment, and Knowledge Transfer
  - Ensure the platform is rigorously tested, smoothly deployed, and transitioned to IIX’s internal teams for long-term use and maintenance. This phase should include:
    - User acceptance testing (UAT) with IIX teams and select external partners to validate system performance, data integrity, and usability
    - Final deployment in a production environment, ensuring system stability, scalability, and responsiveness
    - Post-launch stabilization support during the initial period of live use
    - Delivery of full technical documentation, including:
      - System architecture
      - Data pipeline documentation
      - Index algorithm and calculation processes ○ User manuals and maintenance guides
    - Structured knowledge transfers sessions for IIX’s technical and non-technical teams

Deliverables

Inception Report and Methodology Framework
Wireframes and Technical Architecture
Functional Prototype
Fully Deployed Platform

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on:
- Proven experience developing data-driven platforms in ESG, development finance, or impact investing
- Demonstrated experience integrating real-time and macroeconomic datasets into a single analytics platform.
- Experience working with UN agencies, DFIs, private sector actors, or global organizations on ESG, index development, or large-scale analytics platforms.
- Strong expertise in index design, data weighting methodologies, or scorecard-based reporting tools
- Strong UI/UX design capabilities, with portfolio examples.
- Technical expertise in cloud infrastructure, security, and scalable API development.
- Cost-effectiveness and clarity of financial proposal.

Application Requirements

Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF in English and must include:
- Track record: Company profile with the portfolio of relevant past projects, especially those that contained similar features with detailed visuals of end-products
- Experience in data engineering, index/scorecard development, and ESG or impact finance platforms is highly preferred
- Ability to work with secure, sensitive datasets and meet our internal compliance requirements
Client References: Two professional references from similar projects with emails and contact numbers
Project team details:
- Team structure, roles, CVs and supplementary bios of team members who will work on this project.
- Number of full-time and part-time staff, subcontractors or freelancers involved with the team (if any)
- Location of team
Technical proposal
- High-level technical approach and methodology, including:
  - A maximum 10-page write-up (excluding designs) detailing the vendor’s understanding of the Orange Index, structure of the Index including integration of IIX’s SME data with macro-level indicators, and the approach to indicator selection, weighting, scoring, and aggregation logic, end user experience and use cases.
  - Proposed development architecture and tools.
  - Phasing strategy (prototype vs full build)
  - Approach to user interface design, testing, and deployment.
  - Design mockups and wireframes can be submitted as annexes
- Case studies, screenshots, or links to past projects (if available)
- Indicate expected system performance (e.g. API response time, dashboard load time, system uptime, update frequency)
- Brief risk matrix outlining key delivery risks and proposed mitigation strategies (e.g. data unavailability, integration failure etc.)
Financial proposal (in SGD):
- Detailed quotation for full scope of work
- Quote for post-deployment support and optional maintenance
- Cost breakdown for scope adjustments or changes in timeline
- Indicative budget and vendor preference: IIX has allocated an indicative budget of SGD 35,000 for this 5-month engagement. While proposals from all qualified vendors are welcome, preference will be given to Asia-based vendors, with a strong preference for those based in Vietnam.