UNICEF takes a Home Depot approach to IT

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- The United Nations Children's Fund, better known as UNICEF, puts IT equipment in risky places where it can be stolen or even destroyed. Hani Shannak, the chief of IT operations at UNICEF, has found the best way to limit damage or loss is to take a do-it-yourself approach to building portable communications systems.

UNICEF developed its "Fly-Away" portable satellite communications system to be make it possible to deliver IT services anywhere in the world. It provides voice-over-IP, fax, e-mail and Internet services -- and it lets UNICEF workers in the field connect to the agency's central IT systems. Setting up the portable telecommunications system doesn't require technical expertise, Shannak added .

Shannak said commercial systems with similar functions can cost more than $100,000. UNICEF's IT department can assemble a Fly-Away system for no more than $20,000 and for as little as $5,000, depending on what equipment is included, said Shannak. "We could not afford anything else," he said.

UNICEF's IT effort took the top honors in the nonprofit category of the annual Computerworld Honors Program at a ceremony here last night. This annual contest was launched in 1988 as an effort to create a record of technology innovation. A number of libraries and universities have been collecting Computerworld Honors case studies from around the world to build an ongoing history of IT.

The IT projects recognized by the Honors program judges are wide ranging. For instance, Intelligent Hospital Systems uses a robotic intravenous delivery system that last night won a leadership award in the health care category. The IH Systems tool automatically prepares IV equipment to ensure the accuracy of dosages and labels. It is designed to automate "a labor-intensive and error-prone process," said Thomas Doherty, CTO at the Winnipeg, Manitoba-based medical device maker.

The winner in the environment, energy and agriculture category was Austin Energy in Texas for its work on a smart grid system. Andres Carvallo, Austin Energy's CIO, said he expects that by 2015 the grid will help determine whether there are enough electricity resources on hand to power thousands of electric vehicles expected to be in Austin at the time. The smart grid could also calculate how much it will cost to keep those cars running, he added.

There are, of course, many worthy candidates that don't make it to final round of the Honors Program competition, but their stories do offer an indication of the direction of enterprise IT operations.

For example, Indiana University in Bloomington created what it calls an "intelligent infrastructure" to support teaching and research. Part of the effort involves using virtualization technology to consolidate as many as 400 physical servers into 30 systems. Some 800 virtual machines are now supported on four-socket, quad-chip servers, said Robert Lowden, IU's director of enterprise infrastructure, who estimated that the cost savings generated by the project are now approaching $1 million.

And the Brooklyn Health Information Exchange in New York is working with a number of hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers to create a method sharing information. Health care providers now keep patient information mostly on internal systems -- and sometimes not even in an electronic format, said Irene Koch, the exchange's executive director. By making it possible to share information so health care providers can keep better track of patients' conditions, "we are going to improve the care by reducing errors, reducing duplication and creating efficiencies."

The Morgan Stanley Leadership Award for Global Commerce went to two NetApp Inc. executives, Chairman and CEO Daniel Warmenhoven and Vice Chairman Tom Mendoza. The pair were recognized for overseeing a company that has grown from 45 employees in 1994 to about 8,000 today.

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