RBAP-RBEC Regional ICT Workshop in Kuala Lumpur ICT ... - UNDP

Connecting UNDP through Information and Communications Technology

Bureau of Management - Office of Information Systems and Technology (OIST/BoM)

Volume 8 Spring 2014

ICT Support for Sustained Recovery in the Philippines by Elidelson Tapia, ICT Manager, UNDP Philippines In the aftermath of the Haiyan typhoon that hit the Philippines last November, UNDP and its partners set into motion an Early Recovery Programme with an emergency cash-for-work programme in affected areas. UNDP continues to support the Tacloban, Ormoc, Roxas, and Guiuan areas through a soon-to-be opened sub-office in Tacloban, the hardest-hit area during the typhoon. ICT has been front and center in setting up this new crisis recovery location.

UNDP Chief Technology Officer Shirin Hamid is pleased to note that the ICT Roadmap 2014-2015 has been operationalized and is moving forward, with key initiatives to ensure efficiency, innovation and transparency in our work. See the ICT Medium-term Investment Plan 2014-2017 and its resulting roadmap.

The office, to be located in a building provided by the government, will implement a lean office infrastructure leveraging a lean, green, modular ICT network and office setup. It employs a Deployable Emergency Communications System (DECS) with Satellite phones, BGAN Satellite terminals, mobile printers, solar chargers, and cloud-based appliance systems, the Bratislava Regional Service Centre contributing two portable solar generators. This local assembly is similar to the new Country Office ONE Box setup that GIA/OIST/BoM is now offering to UNDP offices for lean infrastructure and integrated office operations. Staff has communication equipment such as mobile phones with data plans, Pocket WiFi, laptops, and solar chargers with power banks. (Continued on p.2)

(Continued on p.3)

Inside This Issue Recovery in the Philippines

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RBAP-RBEC Regional Workshop

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Atlas updates, training, support

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ICT Strategy

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ICT Roadmap 2014-2015

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Enhanced ERBM

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Early Warning system - eRegistry

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Intranet and public websites

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Intranet file shares in Tunisia

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MS Lync, Polycom, Open Systems

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state of ICT in UNDP offices. It was interesting to hear the dialogue evolve towards embracing innovation, prioritizing programme support across UNDP, and promoting a UNDP Office of the Future.

Join the cloud!

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ICT Support for Ukraine crisis

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Office Initiatives - Office in a Box

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Services in Brazil and Venezuela

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The future involves a shift for ICT staff from server room functions towards strategic support to programmes, enhancing UNDP business through innovative ICT. For more information, see ICT workshop news brief.

ICT programme support Armenia

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Global Two-sentence News

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HLCM/CEB/ICT Network

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OIST/BoM Page

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Satellite sleeve technology for mobile communications; cash-for work programme after Haiyan

RBAP-RBEC Regional ICT Workshop in Kuala Lumpur In the spirit of supporting the new Strategic Plan and its recent Tarrytown Outcomes, the ICT community (over sixty participants) recently convened in Kuala Lumpur to share UNDP's strategic ICT vision for change and hear about successes and challenges in Country Offices in Asia and the Pacific and in Europe and Commonwealth Independent States. Everyone had high expectations--and they were soundly met. It was good to see the healthy

RBA-RBAS Regional ICT Workshop in Addis Ababa, September 2013. See page 8 for details. See video interviews at http://bcove.me/qcqxvt13

ICT Support for Sub-office in Tacloban, Philippines (Continued from p.1) Some of the challenges met included providing streamlined mobile communications during and after the disaster, as terrestrial networks were down, limiting workers to rely on Satellite communications. In addition, the Emergency Telecoms Cluster (ETC) facility was not robust enough to support all the humanitarian workers in the field and in different hubs. BGAN terminals were also not sufficient for data communications for more than a few people. In Manila, the office infrastructure was not ready for a high influx of SURGE and other missions from different Agencies. Procurement required a fast track to deploy solutions in a more timely fashion.

Lessons learned include:  Satellite sleeves for smartphones would be an ideal solution instead of multiple communication devices  Stand-by VSAT equipment should be in place for emergencies  A corporate Intranet site would provide backup and disaster recovery for information assets  The office Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan needs to be completed, updated, and tested regularly  Office bandwidth has to be upgraded to higher capacity.

Atlas is Ten Years Old! UNDP's Enterprise Resources Management system, Atlas, is ten years old! After a critical infrastructure refresh last year for enhanced performance, reliability, and costs savings, Atlas remains a key workhorse for UNDP. Important foundations are now in place to leverage more transparency, accountability, and integration.

fixes and streamlined software solutions.

The Atlas infrastructure now supports 4500 concurrent users (over three times what it was ten years ago), now with all UNDP able to use the Human Capital Management module. A PeopleTools upgrade is complete, with a new reporting platform. Expect this year also new Portal, CRM, and HCM capabilities with 9.2 upgrades.

Over the past 10 years, the group has managed 326,000 cases with over 200 On Demand training scripts and over 80 training and support missions ([email protected] for Atlas and [email protected] for nonAtlas help).

Our new strategic partner for development and innovation, Infosys, has accelerated bug

Volume 8 Spring 2014

See more on the Haiyan recovery:  UNDP Typhoon Crisis - Recovery  UNDP Mobile payments  UNDP Philippines 'Happy' video

Please see the Atlas Work Plan 2014-2015 for details.

Need Atlas training - support? Atlas and other key enterprise systems continue to be supported by the Management Support Group.

The dedicated members of the MSC team are grateful to be able to assist in ongoing support and the up and coming service delivery model.

OIST/BoM Management Support Center staff in Kuala Lumpur (see video)

Infosys Center of Innovation A program for Tomorrow's Enterprise

Continuous Improvement: Atlas Training in UNDP Uzbekistan and UNDP Pakistan by Ignacio Etcheverry, Management Support Center, Panama Regional Center UNDP offices are undergoing major changes to staff, programme, and portfolio. Atlas refresher training and continuous learning are needed at such times, especially for new people and those who move to different positions.

Rogelio Alba training staff at UNDP Panama ICT News is available online (http://goo.gl/IIULx0)

Ignacio Etcheverry delivered training in February at UNDP Uzbekistan and in March with Rogelio Alba at UNDP Panama-- to great reviews. Sessions included Atlas roles & responsibilities, Internal Control Framework/ARGUS, Commitment Control, General Ledger, IPSAS - policies, changes, Project Management, NEX/NIM Advances/Procedures, REQ/AP/PO, Cost Recovery, Billing Module, IPSAS Dashboard and Closings, and reporting and queries. 2

ICT Strategy - Operationalizing the ICT Roadmap 2014-2015

Volume 8 Spring 2014

(Continued from p.1) The Strategic Plan stresses that UNDP will make better use of ICT solutions to enhance business analytics, increase productivity, reduce transaction costs, facilitate sustainability as well as provide direct programme/project support. The ICT Medium-term Investment Plan 2014-2017 and its resulting roadmap with prioritized projects takes up this goal around business work areas of Openness and Transparency, Knowledge Mobilization, Intelligence, Talent Management, Process Integration, Resilience, and Social Engagement. The roadmap is further divided into Flexible clusters (the investment portfolio) of new projects and Fixed clusters (our 'Keeping the Lights On' operational service and support). ICT projects will be monitored and evaluated within the OIST/BoM projects area of the Enhanced ERBM platform.

Enhanced ERBM Platform The goal of the newly released Enhanced ERBM platform, a Strategic Change Implementation Group and ICT project, is to fundamentally strengthen the link between results and resources, shifting from compliance to an active performance management culture. This system, fully integrated with unit and office Intranet sites, supports clarity of purpose, better demonstration of relevance and impact of our results, reducing work burdens. It also supports effective programme management, enhancing management access to pertinent data, increased transparency and accountability, allowing UNDP to clearly demonstrate value for money in its development activities. This platform has created unit workspaces on the Country, Regional, and Headquarters levels which bring together key business

ICT projects will be monitored and reported on in the corporate Enhanced ERBM platform

processes such as the 2014 Annual Business Plan work plan processes, programme planning, support to programme monitoring, Strategic Plan implementation (e.g., IRRF baselines and target management), annual reporting (i.e. ROARs), and other associated monitoring and reporting of results. The system includes these areas:  Overview - view data as budget, utilization, or projects (SP outcomes)  Planning - Link results to Reg Bx actions  Programme - View status and monitoring of country programmes  Projects - View status and monitoring of country programme projects  Documentation - View documents by programme, office and Bureaux  Calendar - View shared calendar can be linked to corporate, office, and unit Intranet sites.

Enterprise Information Portal - Overview - Support

Early Warning System and eRegistry An Early Warning System is being developed for proactive crisis prevention, integrating an intelligence tool (Recorded Future) that collects, analyzes, and visualizes real-time cyber intelligence, corporate security, and crisis data to provide real-time crisis prevention warnings.

The eRegistry project is now underway, with simple document scanning to reduce the number of physical files.

(OCR) software and auto-tagging will be implemented to seamlessly route and tag documents in online archives.

ASD/BoM is now piloting this process, after which it can be rolled out to offices and units. Optical Character Recognition

eRegistry also means email documents can be sent to a drop-off library to have them filed using the OCR and auto-tagging software.

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UNDP Public Websites - What's New! The UNDP public websites rollout continues to advance at a faster pace, with solid buy-in and teamwork between Country Office management, Communications, and ICT staff, working to make this happen. 133 sites have been launched, at around 92% of the total of 145 sites. Sub-Saharan Africa is the first region to have completed the Web upgrade project, with 46 Country Office websites on the new corporate platform! There are still some offices pending and we encourage them to sign up to make the transition to the improved website

Volume 8 Spring 2014

platform for UNDP's online advocacy and communications results. Benefits include:  24/7 access to the website (no maintenance downtime)  Improved stability and performance, improved security, improved search, expanded digital asset management (photo library and document library) See updates at: https://undp.unteamworks.org/web upgrade.

From 79 office websites Oct 2013 to 133 sites in May 2014

SharePoint Intranet - What's New! The Intranet continues to experience greater user adoption while providing enhanced business benefits. Corporate sites provide secure, ready-to-use team workspaces, libraries, lists, Calendars, News and Announcements, and business workflows to streamline office operations and programme activities. All Country Offices have sites now and over 112 Country Offices are actively leveraging their sites. New Intranet sites include Country Offices in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso,

What About All Those Server File Shares? Badreddine Essayeh, ICT Manager, UNDP Tunisia, worked in 2013 with his office staff to move all file shares to the Intranet. He created unit workspaces (HR, Finance, Procurement, ICT, etc.) as well as programme sites (Democratic Governance, Elections, Environment and Energy, etc.). He then ported the files, communicated the move, trained users, mapped network drives to new spaces, retired 3 servers, and installed a single new one for Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and FAX. Staff now uses the Intranet for all file sharing and secure file storing. Lessons learned? Save time, streamline infrastructure, and realize savings to the office and the organization!

Central African Republic, Comoros, Iran, Liberia, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mozambique, Samoa, , Seychelles, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. Benefits include:  Reduced operational costs  Increased mobility  Integration with HQ tools such as tagging and taxonomy  Streamlined operations through business applications  Integration with Enhanced ERBM  Functional upgrades

Public websites: 5 more launches - 6 in content review stage

Brand new Intranet site at UNDP Solomon Islands

For news and information on the Intranet rollout, please visit the Intranet Rollout page.

Need to Communicate Virtually Via Videoconferencing? Khaled Hajji, OIST/BoM Telecoms Specialist Many staff still use fee-based Global MS Lync application modalities - March 2014 Crossings for their webinars. Skype, MS Lync Instant Messaging is the winner with 466,373 messages! and Polycom Virtual Meeting Room bridges are all low-cost options--mostly interoperable and available to all offices. MS Lync also features UNDP click-to-call Open Systems now offers some valuable best practices directory, desktop sharing, video, voice, IM, and videos from within the Files area of the Mission file share, and video-recording capabilities. Control dashboard, the ICT Manual, and here: Virtual Meeting Room participants can join  Portal overview (video) from phones, laptops, mobile devices,  Open a Ticket (document - video) tablets, desktops, video based rooms.  Password reset (document) Please contact OIST/BoM telephone services for information or to use Virtual  Set notifications (document - video) Meeting Rooms.

Managed Security Services

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Migrate to Microsoft Office 365 - Now!

Volume 8 Spring 2014

UNDP has begun its email migration to Microsoft Office 365, now with 3000 users reporting a seamless transition (total of 22,000). Offices are being scheduled (May-August) for migration as throughput is increased for UNDP's 80TB of data (to achieve a throughput of 4GB/hour). Time frame:  May-August. No hassle email migration  30 June. Cutover to MS Lync 2013  3Q 2014. User online storage with OneDrive (1TB of storage space - see Information Week!)  3Q 2014. Office 365 productivity tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) and MS Yammer  Later phases: SharePoint 2013 and Azure hosting platform for Country Office apps

Are you still on XP? Please note that 5% of users have operating systems that will not be supported (XP OS). OIST/BoM is working with ICT Regional Coordinators to upgrade/replace computers over the next months. Minimum Standards have been updated to reflect these requirements.

Amsale Admassu, Change Control Specialist and Diwen Xu, ICT (Intranet) Specialist, OIST/BoM

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Adoption and Readiness

 Enterprise MS Office 365 suite, with:

• MS Office 365 Presentation

 UNDP Democratic Republic of Congo is putting in a fiber optic link with higher capacity at lower costs than their VSAT  UNDP Timor-Leste is leveraging a fiber link from Indonesia and terminating their VSAT link (with a backup secondary link)  UNDP Lesotho is sharing a terrestrial link with UN Agencies (VSAT now as backup only)  UNDP Gambia now has a primary fiber optic connection (a leased line from a local telecoms company) and closed VSAT  UNDP Myanmar is taking advantage of an alternate VSAT LTA, for a realization of savings for connectivity type and capacity. The enterprise strategy is to increase reliance on less costly connectivity options, particularly VSAT links with high monthly recurring costs.

• Office 365 Quick Guide

 MS Lync 2013 for cost-free

• Minimum Standards

 Familiar online and desktop

Shathiso Nyathi, Global ICT Specialist, OIST/BoM

A number of offices have taken advantage of growing connectivity options. Some offices have realized savings with compliance to corporate connectivity standards (for example, two independent Internet links):

• UNDP Overview Presentation

 Ample user online storage (1 TB)!

audio/video/web conferencing

Connectivity and the Cloud Cloud computing brings benefits to Country Offices, from 24/7 productivity, cost efficiencies in service delivery, to serving a mobile work force with full business continuity planning. It means greater use of the Internet to access enterprise solutions, view online reports, share documents, communicate virtually, and work with geographically distributed teams. More bandwidth is needed to meet these enhanced functionalities, so connectivity in Country Offices is being optimized.

 50GB email box quota

productivity tools (Word, Excel, etc.)  MS Yammer and SharePoint 2013 

Google Apps for Business LTA for

• Exchange Online Protection • Join the Cloud website  Training page (Overview video)  Brochure - Poster Tips and Tricks  MS Data Center 101

projects and partners

Crisis in Ukraine: Support for Business Continuity UNDP has been an active participant in the development of Ukraine, a middle-income country that has made good progress in reforming its economic and social systems since attaining independence in 1991. UNDP has focused on environmental issues, social exclusion challenges, and the promotion of local self-governance and regional development.

for the UNDP Ukraine staff, systems, services, and assets.

The ICT setup of UNDP Ukraine reflects one of a Country Office in a stable country in Eastern Europe, with access to excellent connectivity and good availability of services in the local market.

UNDP, through its OIST/BoM Global Advisory services, is preparing an ICT assessment to meet gaps and challenges in the office (see draft Mission Brief).

Office staff worked successfully from home in December 2013 and February 2014 during civil unrest, because enterprise ICT systems were in place.

Recommendations:  Extend use of managed services (with corporate Intranet site),  Deploy a backup VSAT link  Develop a plan for mobility and other solutions to address business continuity.

While ICT has been an active participant in driving the UNDP programme, it must also do its part to ensure resilience and safety 5

Volume 8 Spring 2014

Country Office Initiatives - Office in a Box The UNDP Office of the Future can continue to drive development with lean and green ICT, cloud-based systems and services, an energy-efficient, paperless and wireless office infrastructure, and leasing models for office assets. A key component is Office in a Box, which aims at providing a modular solution to offices and calls for a compact, transportable rack with ready-mounted active and passive equipment. The key to the next generation of office solutions is an integrated hardware platform built to last, supporting networking, collaboration, storage, computer, operations systems both real and virtual plus an

application environment. The first phase of the Office in a Box rollout has focused on IP telephony components, for Country Offices in Zambia, Sao Tome, Mali, Togo, Nigeria, Fiji, Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. Lesotho, Solomon Islands and the Democratic Republic of Congo are planning to implement Office in a Box with server blades, and there are a few more expressions of interest from offices. See the Office in a Box setup for more details.

Nese Hatipoglu and Yuan Huang of Global ICT Advisory Services in Copenhagen

Other Fantastic ICT Initiatives  UNDP Bhutan UN House  UNDP Nepal Intranet  UNDP Pakistan Programme Support

Common and Remote ICT Services - Brazil and Venezuela Jarle Herikstad, Global ICT Specialist, OIST/BoM in Panama Stefan Zutt, CIO of UNICEF and I took part in a mission in Brazil with the inter-Agency Brazil ICT Working Group, to assist with solutions design for a Joint Operations Facility (JOF) and a Business Operations Strategy (for operational economies of scale), reviewing ICT services suitable for common services. As a result, common ICT services will emphasize:  A lean ICT service delivery model  A common Help Desk  An 'application development factory'  Common videoconferencing tools  Online collaboration tools to reduce travel costs, especially for projects.

Remote ICT management has been successfully piloted for UNDP Venezuela for the past 18 months, with the ICT function outsourced to the RBLAC Regional Service Centre in Panama. Remote access to servers is done via VPN, whereas user support takes place through MS Lync, which enables ICT staff at the RBLAC Regional Service center in Panama to take control of user desktops in Caracas for troubleshooting purposes. This remote ICT support model is good for small offices (30-35 staff) as well as offices with large operations and suboffices, to streamline and improve ICT user support.

ICT for Armenian Border Crossings to Iran and Georgia Hayk Tonoyan, ICT Manager, UNDP Armenia UNDP Armenia is helping the Armenian government's modernization of the Bavra, Bagratashen and Gogavan border crossings (MBBG) programme, with three new crossing points designed to international standards, along with a new bridge at Bagratashen to span the river between Armenia and Georgia. New high-speed fiber optic connections will be installed as part of the new IVT infrastructure. More than 120km of fiber optic installation works have already been completed, with

The new UN House in Brasilia, Brazil

The UNDP Office of the Future includes both common and remote models for services, as the ICT setup becomes commoditized and standardized, with a significant reduction in data center footprint, with more and more ICT services like messaging, network security, and knowledge mobilization being outsourced or moved to the cloud. Jarle Herikstad, Global ICT Specialist, OIST/BoM

high-end modular switches and 10GE Ethernet support, and, as an alternate/backup connection, 3G/4G LTE multi SIM integrated service routers were installed in 2013. UNDP believes that building management capacities at Georgian and Iranian borders supports the socio-economic development of Armenia through improved governance standards, through increased trade and foreign direct investment, and through a reduction in organized cross-border crime.

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Bagratashen border crossing to Georgia (above) Ardalan Sotoudeh, UNDP Iran and Hayk Tonoyan, UNDP Armenia (below) See video.

See ICT Workshop Video Interviews A and Video Interviews B.

Two-sentence News from Country Offices

Volume 8 Spring 2014

UNDP Albania - UNDP Tajikistan - Cloud Migration. The last time we met for a workshop we had VSAT connections. The prior email migration was complicated and costly. Now we have fiber optics in both of our countries and the migration to Office 365 will be a breeze. Helion Kondo and Andrey Kovalanko, ICT Managers

UNDP Samoa - Helping Users to Adopt Cloud Services. We are looking forward to the migration to the cloud with Office 365. As a proponent of the UNDP Office of the Future, my main task will be to help change people's mindsets, so they feel secure to keep their data in the cloud. Aliitasi Petaia, ICT Associate

UNDP Cambodia - Innovation. It's a pleasure to be at the point where innovation and ICT can help to change the way we deliver business in UNDP. We have many innovations in the pipeline, but one to mention is, with the coming of cloud computing, to rearrange our physical spaces around a hoteling concept so staff are not divided by building (we have three), function, and floor, so that interactions can be more meaningful. Dara Bunhim, ICT Manager

UNDP Pakistan - Programme Support. The UN ICT Working Group implemented a single One UN hiring portal for 19 UN Agencies. The public can access it for UN jobs available in Pakistan. We have developed a job tracking system for operationrelated services, so clients can get information about service workflows, status, and required documents. A UNDP election project provides an advisory role to the government, where 120 million voters used SMS texting to find polling stations, with a 55 % turnout of voters--one of the largest ever in Pakistan. We are also planning to develop a Strategic Information System (SIS) so that project information can be easily monitored. Mustahsen Qureshi, Operations Specialist

UNDP Pacific Regional Service Center in Fiji - IP Telephony - We look forward to the implementation of our IP telephony and Delivering as One initiatives with an inter-Agency ICT Working Group and a capacity development plan for the 15 island nations in our region. Farzeen Khan, ICT Manager

UNDP Liberia - Cell Phone Network. The Liberia Inter-Agency ICT Working Group has established a Closed User Group (CUG) for UN Agencies and the UN Mission in Liberia. This was done with CELLCOM (GSM), who provides Agency interconnectivity links for the One UN fiber internet connection, with a leased line to Valencia via the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable, lowering costs on telecommunications and internet services. We will next establish a common UN phone directory. Kaman Weah and Johnson Chelleh, ICT Managers

UNDP Macedonia and UNDP Kyrgyzstan - Innovation, Gaming, and Way-finding. In Macedonia, ICT projects involve the programme side, but also provide learning and fun. Recently we helped farmers to use SMS to know when to use pesticides on their crops, significantly reducing overuse. We helped with a video game they could play with their children to learn about improved farming techniques. In Kyrgyzstan, we developed a Foursquare app, allowing residents in a remote tourist area, Naryn Oblast, to post rooms and board, to make some extra money. Ljupco Mantev and Pavel Mkrtchyan, ICT Managers

UNDP Bangladesh - Intranet. We have a robust SharePoint platform going back to 2009, with many business applications to provide productivity to our 1000 users, both in the office and in projects. We are discussing how the enterprise can leverage some of our applications. Also we are keeping ready stock on frequently used ICT items, so that procurement and rollout takes 1-2 days instead of 2-3 months. In this way, an Elections Commission project received 200 laptops in a matter of days. The office has also worked with the government to deliver Google Apps for Business (Gmail, Drive, Docs, etc.) for project use. Manjur e-Khuda, ICT Manager

UNDP Timor Leste - Office and Project Support. We are two IT geeks on the ground in Timor Leste supporting office and projects. Last year during relocations we established standards for connectivity to support Unified Communications and cloud computing. This will mean UNDP can push ahead in delivering groundbreaking results in our country. Agapito Da Silva and Ulderico Ze Machado, ICT Managers

UNDP Afghanistan - ICT Refresh, Atlas Optimization, and IP Telephony. A mission from OIST/BoM took place in December 2013 with the goals of assessing local ICT infrastructure, aligning workstations with standards, and optimizing Atlas business processes. The office has also now implemented Cisco IP telephony. Further office and programme enhancements are under discussion. See ICT Advisory Mission Briefing Note and 2 videos (Addis Ababa and Kuala Lumpur) with Farhad Toghian, ICT Manager 7

22nd Meeting - CEB ICT Network Montreal, Canada 29-30 April 2014 ICT Network Chair Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure welcomed members, emphasizing the changing nature and role of ICT. He noted that many ICT activities today remain tactical (messaging, infrastructure, Unified Communications, etc.), but these will shift towards commodity arrangements, allowing ICT to have a direct contribution to programme support for Agency results. A Peacekeeping DPKO incidents monitoring system, cloud services, and federated authentication were areas of interest. ICT Network Work Plans (see ICT Network Programme Plan):  Future trends  ICT Reference Group progress (FAO)  Cyber security  Information sharing on interAgency ERP projects and directions (CABIO/SAP-SIG)  Using federated authentication to facilitate information sharing among UN Agencies that share Country Office facilities

Digital Radio Standard UNICEF, UNHCR and WFP have agreed on the adoption of Motorola’s DMR (mototrbo) technology as the global Digital Radio Standard for the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) and humanitarian operations. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Information Management Associates at IMA workshop, Dec 2013 The best of the best!

Volume 8 Spring 2014

Premier 100 ICT Leader Shirin Hamid, UNDP's Chief Technology Officer and Director of the Office of Information Systems and Technology, has been honored as a Computerworld Premier 100 ICT Leader for 2014. See Computerworld's December 2013 press release. Shirin was featured in the issue with an interview on 'reinvention strategies' in ICT today.

Information Security Awards and Honors UNDP's information security programme was honored with the CSO40 award from Chief Security Officer (CSO) magazine as a top global 40 information security organization for 2013 (with Computerworld Honors 2013). UNDP’s information security incident response team has also met the requirements and been accepted for membership into the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST).

ICT Calendar 1H 2014 Already so far this year! Data Warehouse training, VSAT migration close out, IMA Alignment task team, ICT missions to Brazil and Venezuela, 2 ICT Governance Group meetings, 2 ICT Network meetings, ICT missions to Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Jordan, and Cameroon, Oracle Cloud Workshop, OIST Town Hall, ICT Reference Group, Atlas CIOs Roundtable, email migration, RBAP-RBEC ICT Workshop in Malaysia, WGET/ETC Emergency Telecoms, IP telephony at HQ, BCP/DR training and much more!

UNDP ICT Governance The Audit Advisory Group in April noted that ICT governance has moved forward with real involvement of business users and clear benefits of managed services for enterprise services (email, ERP, Intranet) They congratulated UNDP on its cloud project and leadership in the UN system, noting cost savings to UNDP programmes. Next steps include assessing the impact of the Structural Review, re-prioritizing projects as needed, looking at ICT Innovation and Bring Your Own Device approaches to ICT assets, and aligning UNV's investment plan with UNDP's ICT Medium-term Investment Plan.

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Chief Technology Officer Shirin Hamid signing cloud LTAs with Nicholas Rosellini, Deputy Director, RBAP and Ye Aung, Chief, Global Services, OIST/BoM

Fit for Purpose Exercise Your Mind! How do OISTers stay in shape? Know who does Kuchipudi Indian Classical Dance? What about Badminton? Biking? Wine tasting? Tennis? Zumba? Ping Pong? Gardening? Golf? Guitar? Crossfit training? Guess who has a Sunday radio show (1170 am) at EBC Radio for news on happenings in Odisha, India? Know who's a member of Black Girls Run and NY Roadrunners Club? What about our kickboxing champ? Ask around... you'll find out.

Life is not all about work! B.B. Sundas, UNDP Bhutan My journey with UNDP started in March 1991 as a Programme Assistant in Programme Support Unit in UNDP Bhutan with IBM AT/XT computers (640K base memory and 360/720 K floppy drive with MS DOS!) ... see my reflections on 23 years in UNDP. Most of all I want to say that life is not all about work-- enjoy yourselves and remember the habit to tackle climate change and the global warming!