Digitally transforming to shape the future
Digitally transforming to shape the future
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GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY
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MICHAEL BANYARD
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U N I T E D N AT I O N S
Federico Cocchioni, CTO of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, discusses digital transformation within the United Nations
T
he United Nations (UN), founded in 1945 following the end of World War II, is an international organisation that takes
action on issues such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human 04
rights, humanitarian concerns and gender equality. Federico Cocchioni, current Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, has seen the UN develop over the years into an efficient, innovative, effective, inclusive and transparent organisation that highlights the importance of leaving no one behind. Indeed, within Cocchioni’s office in Beirut the motto is “shared prosperity and dignified lives.� Over the course of 20 years, Cocchioni has held nine positions at the UN. He began his career in 1999 as an Associate Information Systems Officer, tasked with migrating an old and obsolete email system over to one that was more robust, secure and standardised.
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U N I T E D N AT I O N S
“Innovative technology is helping significantly in various peacekeeping, humanitarian and development operations carried out by the UN” — Federico Cocchioni, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia 06 In addition, Cocchioni utilised his past career knowledge of IBM Lotus Notes to implement a new distributed database system for rapid deployment and secure encrypted data replication. Today, his role at the UN is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, working on technology to support the Sustainable Development Goals in the region. Within the UN Secretariat, Cocchioni’s division is addressing the digital agenda for technology, which
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2019 AT ESCWA’ 07 can be summarised into four key
has truly ridden the wave of digital
areas: “Deepening the UN’s internal
revolution, with its transformation
capacities, exposure to new tech-
starting in the 1990s. “We moved
nologies, supporting dialogue, and
from analog to digital in the 90s,
enhancing the UN’s system support
embracing the internet and email,
to government capacity develop-
which allowed staff worldwide to
ment.” Cocchioni also highlights the
finally communicate smoothly and
importance of the UN increasing
quickly. At the end of the 90s, we
partnerships within both the public
introduced webmail, coupled with
and private sectors (governments,
the use of Blackberry devices for
academic, private companies and
mobile email.” Moving on to the
civil society) to ensure effective
early 2000s, Cocchioni explains the
engagement on new technologies.
introduction of electronic document
Reflecting on the organisation’s
management. “We introduced scan
evolution, Cocchioni believes the UN
and send devices as well as optical w w w.une sc wa . org
U N I T E D N AT I O N S
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character recognition in order to
content management (ECM) and
better handle, archive and search
customer relationship manage-
through vast amounts of documenta-
ment (CRM), as well as developing
tion.� Other implementations over
a centralised data warehouse to
the years include, voiceover IP, satel-
build business intelligence solutions,
lite imagery, radio communication,
reduce the number of data centers
data capabilities and global govern-
used by the organisation and reduce
ance of an IT infrastructure
its reliance on local infrastructure.
to improve security.
“Innovative technology is helping
In the last decade, the UN has been
significantly in various peacekeep-
working to centralise and standardise
ing, humanitarian and development
its main systems, including enterprise
operations carried out by the UN,�
resource planning (ERP), enterprise
comments Cocchioni. In particular
“geographic information system (GIS)
part in the Sudan peacekeeping
technology such as satellite imagery is
mission. We were responsible for
being utilised by military observers for
setting up from scratch the entire ICT
border identification and asset track-
infrastructure including satellite com-
ing, as well as digital radio and satellite
munications, mobile redeployment
communications for staff deployment
vans, and the wide area network for
in areas with no infrastructure.”
voice and data.
In 2006 – following the sign-
“There were major challenges” he
ing of the Comprehensive Peace
notes. “The country was very large,
Agreement in 2005 – Cocchioni took
and procurement of equipment
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Federico Cocchioni Federico Cocchioni is Chief Technology Officer at the UN’s Regional Commission for Western Asia, ESCWA, where he holds responsibility over the current technological transformations taking place in the organisation. Federico leads a dynamic team of IT experts that deliver innovative software solutions to streamline the processes within the UN. He holds over 20 years of experience leading key functional improvements while in the Organisation, updating the IT services and leading the Information Management strategy across New York Headquarters, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand and Lebanon. Currently, UN-ESCWA is undergoing broad reaching changes to use the power of emerging digital technologies to develop the region as well as the Organisation. The role of Federico and his team is integral to the structural and strategic developments taking place across UN organisations today.
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U N I T E D N AT I O N S
1945
Year founded
HQ
New York City, US
46,834
Number of employees
10
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and recruitment of qualified people
internet bandwidth. It was important
takes time.” In the year Cocchioni
that we established and installed
was part of at the major operation in
servers within the local area network
Sudan, $60mn dollars was dedicated
to reduce the use of limited band-
to acquiring the infrastructure to
width running through satellites.”
deploy IT and telecommunications
Internally, the UN has come to the
services across the country. “These
end of its 2014-2019 ICT strategy,
operations can be quite expensive
which focused on five key pillars:
because the UN deploys where
modernise, transform, innovate,
there’s no infrastructure and where
govern and optimise. To achieve this,
it cannot rely on existing government
the UN has been working through a
provided electricity, radio and com-
number of phases to restructure its
puter networks. At that time, we didn’t
ICT operations globally. Key projects
have cloud services either, which was
Cocchioni highlights include the
a major challenge alongside limited
UN utilising innovative technology
“ At this stage I think we are much more solid than before, due to our strong central governance in headquarters” — Federico Cocchioni, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
Other ways the UN is utilising technology is through the use of data. “To work more collaboratively we need to have integrated knowledge portals which allow all UN System partners in each region access to data in one consolidated place and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals (SDGs),” says Cocchioni. The UN has also been looking to reduce its footprint with hybrid cloud technology, building upon its continuous goal of a centralised system. “We created two major enterprise data centers in Europe and we are in the process of developing a cloud
in relation to online collaboration. “We adopted the Microsoft Office 365 platform, which has allowed integration between email, video conferences, document sharing and more
strategy, following our initial move to hybrid cloud.” In addition to these changes, Cocchioni highlights the importance of innovation and how the UN has been developing its cyber diligence and analytics. “At
– something that
this stage I think
was very much
we are making
needed within
great strides
the organisa-
on the path of
tion to be more
digital integra-
effective and
tion in an effort
efficient.”
to improve w w w.une sc wa . org
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a clear Sustainable Development Goal – Goal 17 – with a dedicated office for partnerships and innovation labs. “Lately, the UN has been empowered to look for useful partnerships with institutions, the private sector and other UN entities to find the best solutions,” says Cocchioni. Over the years the UN has partnered with various organisations to achieve its operational goals. “We have worked with IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle as well as Lenovo for desktop and laptop computers, Cisco for network equipment, video conference equipment and network security, HP for servers, Dell EMC for data storage and VMware for virtualisation.” collaboration, reduce the problem
Cocchioni highlights that although
of siloes of information and, thus,
the UN still needs to perfect its
increase our ability to deliver the
operational strategies and further
2030 SDGs agenda. These suc-
digitalise its processes, it’s vision of
cesses are largely due to our strong
working towards a better world and
central governance in headquarters.
its global position as a non-profit
We are now looking to embark on
organisation makes it a strong and
a new strategy for the next five years
constant catalyst for innovation
focusing on emerging technologies,
around the world.
partnerships and increased financial accountability for IT initiatives.” When it comes to working with partners, the UN has established w w w.une sc wa . org
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RIAD EL-SOLH SQUARE, BEIRUT, LEBANON, 1107 T +961-1-981301 www.unescwa.org