The Future of ICT in Relief

1. The Future of ICT in Relief RedR Conference, London December 5, 2007 Edward Granger-Happ CIO, Save the Children Chairman, NetHope

2. "The art of prophecy is very difficult-- especially with respect to the future." --Mark Twain

3. Looking Back "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” --George Santayana

4. The world is an increasingly unsafe place to be

5. Banda Aceh – Ground Zero 5

6. What are the key questions? • What is fundamental in disaster relief? • What is fundamental in long-term development? • Is technology a benefit to communities in crisis? • For relief operations, do we bet on on-line or off-line applications? • Can supply chain management (SCM) be a competitive advantage for nonprofits? • What is commodity and what is value-added for a non-profit?

7. What is this large object? a very large ship 5 miles inland in the middle of the road

8. Changing Priorities By Program Type Ranking factors 1-4, 1=highest For emergency response, time and volume are king; for development, cost and quality reign

9. In 7 yrs, cost drops 30x and speed increases 400x

10. Stages of a Disaster Stage 0: Preparedness • Relief agencies: • Collaborate and determine roles in a disaster • Determine systems of data, voice, video and physical exchange • Develop a protocol for engagement • Catalog relief resources • Partner with local communities • Prepare to engage, inform and steward potential donors • Example: STC earthquake preparedness in Georgia

11. Stages of a Disaster (cont.) Stage 1: Within hours of disaster striking • First relief workers arrive on the ground. • Survey and assess damage, transmit pictures, security information, relief material and personnel requirements to Head Offices. • Agencies decide how deeply involved they will be with relief efforts. • Locating family members (people don’t eat, clothe themselves or sleep until they found their loved ones) • Example: CRS in sectarian fighting in eastern Congo • This is the Highly Individual, Highly Mobile ICT stage

12. IRAQ 12

13. Stages of a Disaster (cont.) Stage 2: Within two weeks of disaster striking • Teams begin to arrive on the scene as risk of disease and malnutrition escalates. • Requirements are continuous monitoring of disaster, assessment of victim needs, management of relief material deployment between and across aid agencies, personnel security, application and reporting of donated funds, uploading of case studies, pictures and relief reports. • Example: Relief International in Bam, Iran earthquake • Small Group, Highly Mobile/Temporary ICT stage

14. Stages of a Disaster(cont.) • Stage 3 – From one-six months following a disaster striking to multi-year. • Agencies provide resources for building reconstruction, counseling, family reunification, food distribution, water purification, etc. • Agencies become part of the community over a long period of time. • Example: Actionaid in tsunami relief in southern India • Large Group - Permanent ICT stage

15. Stages of a Disaster(cont.) • Stage 4 – Learning • Lessons learned: • Agencies determine what worked and what did not work • Then make adjustments • Example: NetHope members in Pakistan earthquake response

16. An NGO Supply Chain Assessment Reporting Country – Sub-Office Plan Procure Ship Warehouse Ship Ben. Track • For development, procurement is competitive; for emergency response, procurement is pre-determined and agile • Beneficiary tracking is key in the NGO supply chain; commercial SCM applications lack this

17. Looking Ahead

18. A Triad of IT Drivers Metcalf’s Law the network effect is exponential Nielsen’s Law high-end user's connection speed grows by 50% per year Moore’s Law CPUs double every 18 months

19. Verizon FIOS Service 100 MB/sec fiber to homes! This is the same speed as the backplane of a laptop 3 years ago!

20. Bottom Line? Don’t Bet Against the Network! By the time it will take you to work around the connectivity issues, the network will be where you need it to be.

21. What if we’re wrong? Strategy is about making bets!

22. Advice from a Hockey Legend “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” --Wayne Gretzky

23. A Leading Indicator

24. Another Leading Indicator

25. Current University Students • I asked Dartmouth Graduate students: • So what do you use to communicate more, IM or Texting? • Answer: Neither • Neither? • We do everything in Facebook

26. It’s the Social Network not the Wired Network

27. Why? • The social network is the future • Working together in loose-tight ways • “Loose” geography (e.g. the NGO community) • “Tight” purpose (e.g. disaster relief) • Richer collaboration(e.g. NetHope)

28. “If you’re a CIO, you need to spend a lot of time out on the fringes of the Web because that’s where the innovation’s taking place. You need to spend a lot of time with people under 25 years old.” –Gary Hamel

29. “Did You Know?” presentation, Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, United States.

30. For the rest of the world, this is the Internet

32. Key strategic questions • If we will have all the bandwidth we need globally, what changes for relief applications? • If the #1 device used in emergency response is the cell phone, what changes when the cell phone can operate like today’s laptops? • Do we build disconnected applications for the interim or wired applications for the future? ONE MORE TIME: Where is the puck going to be?

33. Questions?

34. Appendix • Additional detail slides

35. Top Ten Themes • Continuing explosion of computing hardware triangle • Global communication growing geometrically • Commoditization of technology components • Retirement of the current middle class • Flattening from triple convergence • Run-the-business software (ERP) • Increasing regulatory framework • Results-oriented philanthropy • Rise in world-class, operational excellence • Rise in merger and acquisitions

36. On Leaders and Followers • First-movers – the pioneers, trail-blazers, fast & agile leaders; but with higher costs and higher risks—requires serious focus • Second-movers – the fast followers; capitalize on the mistakes/learning of pioneers; follow the successes, but need to overcome the leaders • Frugal-movers – the pragmatic followers; more cautiously follows industry leaders, picking what works well, waiting for lower costs of entry; may constantly be in catch-up mode • Late-movers – the laggards, miss most opportunities, resist change; sometimes luck-out

37. Key strategic either-or bets Follower IT focused on operations More effective-efficient service dept’s Add results-oriented M&E data/reporting when donor demand is unavoidable Build technology and operations incrementally Capacity building by staffing and training MOS operations Leader Programs leveraging technology More effective and efficient programs Lead NGOs and set the results-oriented M&E data and reporting standard Leapfrog competitors by buying the best operations Capacity building by staffing, training & leveraging technology World class operations

38. Pendulum Dichotomies - IT cycles over the past 50 years Left Brain (60s, 90s) Centralized Standardized Generalized Rationale Autocratic Big is Better In-source Tight Right Brain (70s, 80s) Decentralized Customized Specialized Creative Democratized Small is Beautiful Outsource Loose The next wave?

39. 1. Continuing explosion of the computing hardware triangle • Applications & data will be distributed in-country, closest to sources & lowest-cost-to-maintain locations, yet will seem as if we are running programs on our desktops. • Continued time-compression made possible by readily available, cheaper & faster technology means an increasing real-time involvement in each others work, and donor participation in programs. This will drive greater levels of collaboration, but not always in ways we expect or want. For example, fact that donors & providers will be able to virtually participate in program planning, delivery & evaluation, may be unwelcome, but inevitable. • Cheaper, faster information & communication technology (ICT) will also mean that where work gets done will become less relevant & highly flexible. Working real-time in groups while in different locations will become commonplace, as will employees working from home, on road, etc. • These trends will also drive greater levels of collaboration among NGOs, as is already evident with consortia like NetHope, LINGOS & IWG/ECB. • Increased 24 x 7 connections will continue to drive up stress & make it more difficult to unplug from work. Productivity gains rapidly produce information saturation, high stress & burn-out. Managing work-life balance will therefore become a major organizational issue & need in near future.

40. 2. Global communication will -continue to grow geometrically • Digital divide among world's population will widen rather than narrow as acceleration in computing outpaces global adoption. Efforts to bridge this gap will need to double & triple. Educating adolescents on use of computers as a way to break cycle of poverty will become increasingly important from a programmatic standpoint. • Need for technology education programs among emerging countries will increasingly become a requirement for children to thrive as productive adults. • Most strategic use of technology is to deliver wholly new programs, or existing programs in wholly new ways, that would not be possible before application of technology. This means thinking abut programs in a new way • For dissemination of information (outward flow), technology can play a more capacity building role. This impacts all of sectors. flip side is collection & reporting of information (inward flow) from beneficiaries to providers in terms of basic M&E data.

41. 3. Commoditization of technology components • shift from development to integration (already one of IS strategic shifts) will continue to accelerate. • Moving IT work to regions and country offices will need to become part of our IT strategy.

42. 4. Retirement of the current middle class • Immediate impact will be on staffing positions (technology and others!), with a resulting sellers market and bidding war among organizations. This will require three responses: • moving more jobs offshore, developing our field locations to do more headquarters jobs, • moving up food chain to do higher-level tasks in HQ (e.g., integration rather than development for IT), and • use of more standard, off-the-shelf software and tools. • opportunity is keep aging workers engaged, with more creative retirement and semi-retirement plans

43. 5. Flattening from triple convergence • Internet revolution means (1) new global playing field, (2) new businesses processes & (3) entry of huge workforce of China, India & Soviets • Donors will increasingly expect to work directly with field programs, & to do so virtually, working through the Internet. Those nonprofits that are able to offer this will increasingly attract donors who expect this.

44. 6. Run-the-business software • Save will increasingly be in catch-up mode if we do not make leap to enterprise software. • time & investment to take this leap will become less attractive the longer we delay, forcing us to look to an acquisition strategy of buy it now rather than build it for later. • most effective program delivery organizations will attract a greater share of donor contributions from ever more sophisticated donors who will have had first-hand experience with efficiently run corporate organizations & expect this from nonprofits they support. • success of the Alliance & its long-term initiatives of Unified Presence & Stronger Members will increasingly demand shared enterprise software.

45. 7. Increasing regulatory framework • Increasing administrative & systems support will be required to meet growing regulatory demands. Compliance will be more expensive than our physical security costs to-date Choices: • Do we build now in anticipation, or react after-the-fact? • When is the right time to invest?

46. 8. Results-oriented philanthropy • Investment in higher-order systems will be required, such as Executive Information Systems (EIS), Balanced Scorecard systems (BSC), & GYST-like program tracking systems Choices: • Do we lead NGOs and set the standard, or do we follow when donor demand is unavoidable?

47. 9. Rise in world-class, operational excellence • increasing emphasis on process will require new sets of expertise among our employees to work in process-improvement mode • Significantly more data collection & reporting on administrative & programming processes themselves will be required. demand will rise for data, data, & more data. • Nonprofit donors will increasingly expect direct access to this data

48. 10. Rise in merger and acquisitions • key opportunity is for buying rather than building impact • For example, we are faced with prospect of spending $3-5M over next 3-5 years migrating from our legacy donor management system to a world-class system. Yet at end of this process, we will be where some of our competitor agencies are today Choices: • Do we build incrementally, or leapfrog competitors by buying the best?

49. From IS Staff Briefing

50. 1. Continuing explosion of the computing hardware triangle • Hardware triangle: • Bandwidth: Verizon FIOS service • Disk storage: Google server farms • CPU speed: Moore's law • As all three of these factors accelerate, the cost per unit continues to fall. • “…the cost of computing power is now around 1/1,000 of 1 percent of what it cost 50 years ago.” • PCs have dropped in price an average of 21% per year since their introduction • “If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year…”