28 / Canadian Government Executive // January/February 2022 INTERVIEW release... as you heard in the intro, Eleanor mentioned that within two weeks, we had something live. And I think that demonstrates a lot of how quickly our CICs can move when there’s a will behind it to deliver some sort of outcome quickly. In the last part of our three-pronged approach that I mentioned, we co-create, we co-execute, and we also co-operate solutions with our clients. So now that something is live, we’ve actually done several releases where we’ve created new updates. We are now running and managing that solution so that it’s highly available, it’s resilient, there’s no downtime. And that’s really when you bring the power of cloud. Cloud environment really virtualizes the infrastructure you are using - we’re not reliant on specific environments or infrastructure. We are able to use services that are also highly available. Arjun mentioned we have this information stored in databases that are highly available. We have experienced layers that sit on top of these databases. You can interact with that information in a very user-friendly way. And the way we were able to build this in two weeks is we use components that are already available on IBM Cloud. We stitch them together into a solution where business users can use it. Information is stored safely and securely, and it’s hosted on highly available environments. The people that are working across their CICs are very familiar with how to use this cloud technology, so that’s how we can move so quickly with speed. And I believe it goes to show when you have the right system, method, and technology in place, even if you’re a large organization like IBM, you can move very quickly to create a solution. Q: Thank you very much for that. That’s very clear, even though I’m not someone who knows anything about cloud or anything digital, I completely understand that. That’s really, really neat. I wonder if I can ask all three of you - do you have a sense of the future next steps in the situation of the Afghan refugee crisis? Is there a sense of what your next steps are for this project? EleanorTaylor: Frommy perspective, we see it evolving in a number of ways. So one is, we are currently partnered with quite a large number of NGOs, but there are people out there who are not leveraging this platform. And I believe that the more people we can bring on to use this platform, the better we are at representing the whole population. We want to make sure that everybody out there knows that we want them, invite them to use this platform and that they can then benefit from the information that it brings and the power with which we can use that information to both advocate and evacuate people. The other piece that we hope to evolve is a way by which we can access the backend. We see ourselves building out a volunteer teamof folks who can domore detailed vetting. All of our applicants offer a reference in the information that they provide, and those who’ve not been successful in their application, we now will have the ability to contact those references and really push their application through advocacy to IRCC. So we think we can evolve in that domain. And then finally, we would encourage any of our government partners to see the power of this tool, to recognize how secure it is and how agile it is in having up to date information. And so, we take every opportunity to encourage those people that are working with us to take advantage of this platform too. Arjun, anything to add? Arjun Grewal: Yeah. To that point, I think continued engagement with our government partners is going to be really important. And I think to Ali’s point about the CIC, it’s served a really good location and environment to have conversations about the work that IBM’s doing, and its tech for good portfolio, but also showing how technologies can complement, augment, and accelerate government processes. So, I think that’s something that we want to look forward to and see where this can be applied in emergency services outside of IRCC. Q: Great, thank you so much for telling our readers this story. This is fascinating. Anything I missed? Anything you want to... final thoughts kind of thing? Eleanor Taylor: From my perspective, it’s just to just put on the table that IBM did all this work for us for free. They brought together this team of... There were times we had eight or nine people from IBM on the call day in, day out developing this platform for us, and we are an all volunteer-based team. And just want to say how grateful we are for the work that they have done and to acknowledge that it’s really transformed how it is we can do our work. Ali Shakil: Yeah. just to echo what Eleanor was saying, a big part of what we do here at IBM is we want to deliver outcomes for people. And Arjun alluded to our portfolio on ‘tech for good’ - we play a role in many different areas, including some of the P-TECH Programs we do in Canada for helping address the skills gap and educate people that may be less fortunate. But we also love helping out in situations like this. It’s very rare where you could be watching the news in August, September, and then you have a role to play in how you actually change what’s happening on the ground. And the bridging the gap, seeing something and then having an impact on it for our people does a lot for our culture as well. People feel that this is something meaningful. It’s something that has purpose. And it reminds us that technology is just a means to deliver an outcome. We’re very lucky at IBM where over our long history, over the past 100 years, this is what we do as an organization. We try to do things for good for the world and build innovation that matters. We have the tools, assets, the people and the technology in our portfolio to deliver that outcome with speed - I think that’s what makes IBM quite powerful. And we’re very lucky that an organization like Aman Lara has put the trust in us to deliver this with them. Lori Turnbull: Thank you. Thanks to all three of you for telling us the story and for sharing the experience that you had, and I’m absolutely really keen to see what your next steps are - what happens next. Thank you. Although hybrid models can mean additional degrees of flexibility for women in balancing professional and personal responsibilities, it is equally important that hybrid arrangements be utilized by men, thereby avoiding a segmented workspace of predominantly in-person workers (male) and partially remote (female) workers.
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