Pandemic Reflections from the eyes of a CIO

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate…?

In early 2020, we started to hear about this virus that was wreaking havoc in Wuhan. Like many companies, we began reviewing our disaster recovery plans and readiness. To be honest, I don’t believe there was a playbook for the global pandemic. Even the world superpowers seemed to be on their back foot when it came to Covid-19. There were no vaccines and no protocols. In my generation we had never?seen?anything like this. The last major pandemic was over 100 years ago – the Spanish Flu of 1918. Even the Boomers hadn’t experienced a global pandemic. What this said to me is that no one had all the answers and leadership was required to come up with solutions. Most important was to give hope and navigate our teams, as well as society through a dark time. The absence of a script meant that we had to write one. For me, the most important thing was to keep dreams alive in one of humanity’s?darkest moments.?

?As the CIO for one of the largest and most successful companies in Sub-Saharan Africa, the challenge was both internal and external. The nation looked up to our team to provide Covid response solutions, such as a Call Centre for the Ministry of Health. We provided this immediately after the lockdown and had doctors and health workers ready within 48 hours. We ensured that our core systems could handle the increased volume of mobile data and mobile money transactions. Each time the organization and country called on us, we stepped up because it was our duty. There was no one else to turn to as everyone was struggling to cope. We had to ready our workforce and the nation to work from home within a period of 72?hours. We built a contact tracing app and a government chatbot. I probably can't list all the initiatives we delivered in response to the pandemic. Science gave us the figures, but the response was through creativity and making decisions under pressure without precedent.??

?One of the untold stories of first line response and support teams was the emotional toll it took on us. In 2021, we buried?two?members of our IT team and at a personal level, two?close relatives.?Many of you buried immediate family members, friends and close relatives during the same period.?Each week, someone was dying especially during the Delta strain. We had to mourn, bury, get back to work and do it over and over again without a pause. Did we become numb, or did we learn to cope? Where did we find the energy? We had grief counselling every so often, but we learnt to comfort ourselves and carry on without a light at the end of the tunnel. We lost people in the tunnel but kept going. We saw businesses come to a standstill but kept going. We couldn’t stop because there was no one to pick after us. We were the Night’s?watch that kept hope in the darkness.??

I grew as a leader but more so as a human being. Tragedy makes the strangest of bedfellows, but also shows us that we are more than the sum of our parts or differences. We learnt to cry but still walk, to sleep with one eye open and tap into solutions across the globe from people we didn’t know, but who in time became our brothers and sisters. Quitting was never an option because it would mean giving up on our dreams. It was the challenge of our time, and we met adversity with courage.?

Keeping the nation connected was the top priority. We also needed to keep the economy transacting and delivering government emergency relief each week to millions of Kenyan citizens. I may not know all the people we touched but I know we made a difference in small and big ways. There are many unrecognized heroes of this pandemic, even health workers depended on us to share information and crunch data on the spread and impact of response measures. Vaccine distribution, selection and prioritization depended on technology. Entire organizations and governments could only communicate through web conference solutions. Children couldn’t go to school, so e-learning took prominence. Goods and services were sold on digital channels, spurring the growth of ecommerce during the lockdown. We developed food apps so hospital patients could order food without the traditional menu. Everything seemed to go digital, but the human connection never died. We were constrained to small spaces but connected in larger spaces across the globe.?

?There is?now a?playbook for global pandemics, and I do believe we will be better prepared for the next one, but also ready to face adversity no matter where it comes from. A special tribute to our families for standing with us and sharing us with both colleagues and country. Daddy/Mummy was physically present but constantly occupied. I offered support for payment ecosystems but also class dojo. They all mattered, they all made a difference, and they all needed us all the same. The duality of our existence epitomized the resolve of our struggle and determination to pull through. Together we grew stronger and stayed awake through the dark night until we saw a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. I salute all the Technology teams that made it to the end, but also honour our colleagues that fell along the way.??

?The world turned to IT and IT answered the call as a collective superpower across industries and geographies. This shows that we are stronger than the sum of our parts. “We are not inadequate but powerful beyond measure”.??

?This post is dedicated to the two DIT colleagues who passed away a year ago due to Covid-19 complications. May they Rest in Eternal Peace.?

Boniface Mwangi Wanjohi (1988 – August 29th?2021)??

Benson Muasya Munywoki (1978 – September 1st?2021)??