Case Study

Canadem Election Observation

Reliable IT Services

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Date: January 2019
Client: Canadem
Industry: Not-For-Profit
Background Information

The Organization for security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) was deployed following a request by Ukraine’s government and a consensus decision by all 57 OSCE participating States. The SMM is an unarmed, civilian mission, present on the ground 24/7 in all regions of Ukraine. The main tasks are to observe and report in an impartial and objective way on the situation in Ukraine, and to facilitate dialogue among all parties to the crisis.

 

CANADEM'S role is to

 

1. Act as the Seconding Authority to the OSCE SMM on behalf of Canada

2. Screen and support the selection of Canadian experts to the OSCE SMM

3. Provide pre-deployment briefing to the selected Canadian experts

4. Deploy the selected Canadian experts to Ukraine, including all logistics and travel arrangements

5. Provide ongoing support to the Canadian experts throughout their mission, including field visits

The Canadian experts seconded to the SMM play a crucial role in the success of the Mission and provide accountability for the people of Ukraine.

The Problem

Canadem called on Stega Networks to provide them with professional IT solutions. They inquired us to provide our managed IT services for the upcoming election observation mission in Ukraine. Within a short time frame, they requested if we could provide our disaster recovery and technology integration solutions in order to deploy 250 election observation experts in Kiev.

The idea was to send over 200+ experts throughout the region to take notes on the ground. We were in charge of managing the network security and ensuring the technology of the business operations flowed smoothly.

Throughout the past years, the election was done with pen and paper. Although with the growing amount of participants needed, Canadem needed to find the right way to automate and digitize the information.

It was a challenge but also a learning experience. Nothing like this had been done before and time was of the essence. The infrastructure needed to be done well and needed it to be done fast. We were given a month's notice for this mission and everything needed to be done well in advance to allow time for our local partners to find their groove. It wasn't like the local jobs in Ottawa that required our commercial network cabling and business network cabling services.

Canadem representitives review important political documentation
Our Goals
Time Efficient time
sensitivity

Our rapid deployment ensured the project would be completed on time.

Network Security safe and secure
connections

Stega made sure the connections between communications will be stable.

Cloud Solutions ongoing
remote support

We were able to utilize our tools to control our client’s infrastructure remotely.

Technology Integration cost effective
solutions

Stega was able to save clients' financial resources by using our diverse network to source equipment.

Our Solution
Canadem representitive reviews political documentation

Every observer needed a phone, email, username, laptop, and access control to properly conduct their observations effectively. That’s where Stega stepped in and sourced all the equipment necessary for the operation. Before the observation experts were deployed, we were able to effectively prepare the whole team with the equipment and even deployed the local area network for the headquarters of the operations.

Throughout years of experience and past projects in Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Kiev, the Stega team provides infrastructure as a service to every new mission. We either implement existing solutions we often deal with like disaster recovery solutions or cloud solutions or develop our own custom resolution that fits all aspects of the mission.

In this case, we were able to digitize processes and allow all observers to properly send their data back to HQ. We continue to provide ongoing support and are one of the few consulting companies in Ottawa to have such an international impact.

In the future, we plan to suggest an upgrade to their infrastructure and will propose our backup & disaster recovery and commercial cabling services to streamline all their processes. Along with cloud services, backups and recoveries, and backup data, Stega will ensure their systems run flawlessly and continue to stay relevant to new innovative technology.