Catherine Caruana-McManus
Public Sector & Smarter Cities Executive
IBM Australia
Smarter Census
Why ask IBM?
 Voted most Inventive Company in the world –
17th consecutive year
 4,914 Patents in 2009
 $6 Billion in R&D annually
 Workforce is made up of mathematicians,
researchers and engineers
 Passionate about expanding
analytics capabilities
– Invested over $12B in software
acquisitions
– 10 years of services research
– Biggest mathematics department
in Private Enterprise
– Subject Matter Experts across
the globe
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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* CGR 2009 through 2015, Source IBM Market Intelligence
Infusion of Intelligence into the Way the World Works
Instrumented
Interconnected
Intelligent
We can measure,
sense and see the
condition of
practically everything.
People, systems and
objects can
communicate and
interact with each other
in entirely new ways.
We can analyse and derive
insight from larger and more
diverse sources of
information, to predict and
respond better to change.
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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Today, more than ever, organisations are under
pressure to leverage a wealth of information to make
more intelligent choices.
VOLUME OF DIGITAL DATA
With the proliferation of end-user
devices, sensors and actuators, the
nature of data is changing. Data
volumes and network bandwidth are
expected to grow tenfold in the next
three years.
VELOCITY OF DECISION-MAKING
The market demands that businesses
optimize decisions, take action based
on good information and utilize
advanced predictive capabilities—
all with speed and efficiency.
VARIETY OF INFORMATION
With the expansion of information
comes large variances in the
complexion of available data—
very noisy with lots of errors and no
opportunity to cleanse it in a world
of real-time decision-making.
SHIFT IN WHAT WE ANALYZE
Enterprises need a broader, systemsbased approach to the information
they examine and optimize. Stream
computing and event processing
capabilities are enabling the analysis
of massive volumes.
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A smarter planet enables organisations to automate
the collection of data.
ABS: Use secure cloud technology to gather, house
and transfer data to provide the Australian
Government with the information they need to better
decisions about the future of the nation.
Bank of Montreal: Created a synchronized secondary
data center 100 kilometers from its primary facility to
meet government regulations and ensure the safety
and availability of data in the event of a disaster.
River and Estuary Observatory Network: Will create
the first technology-based real-time environmental
monitoring and forecasting network to guide better
policy, management and education for the Hudson
River and estuaries worldwide.
IBM Fire Program Analysis: Uses unique mathematical
algorithms to determine where wildfires will likely occur,
and helps optimize government funds and resources for
battling those fires.
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Predict and Act……the new mode of operation for a world
that is working in fundamentally different ways
We must be able to see the patterns in the data, make correlations
and predict consequences ahead of time
Analytics enables:
 Financial institutions to understand the exposures to risk
 Transportation authorities to predict and avoid traffic jams
 Energy companies to monitor equipment
and automatically issue alerts in the event of failure
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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Shaping the decisions that shape Australia
 The information collected by the Census is
used to make decisions that shape our
nation:
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




Relevant
Actionable
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
Information
Insights
Finance
Investment
Infrastructure
Resources
Schools
Hospitals
Aged care
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Smarter
Decisions
Better
Outcomes
Managing Complex Systems – A Cybernetic Approach
ABS Mission: We assist and encourage informed decision making, research and discussion within
governments and the community, by leading a high quality, objective and responsive national
statistical service.
Past
System Under Management
Economy
Manage and
Control
Instrument
Monitor
Feedback Loop
Intelligent use
of Data
8© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
Future
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Transforming the ABS Census
 Business Challenge:
– The Census is the Australian government’s most important survey.
– Every five years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics hires tens of thousands of
temporary employees to collect census data.
– There are always challenges to this data collection. For example, it is often
difficult to retrieve forms from people in secure apartment buildings and in
remote areas of the country.
– To better serve the Australian population, the Bureau sought to develop new
and better ways to include these and other diverse population segments in the
data collection.
– Accessibility for the visually impaired was a particularly important objective.
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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The Solution – a Smarter Census
 For eCensus 2006 IBM created, built, and hosted a "first of a kind" online
application
– Runs on IBM infrastructure, hosted by IBM, delivered to ABS via a secure
cloud
 For eCensus 2011 IBM re-developed the 2006 solution, turning it into a
mass scale generic questionnaire engine that uses 1/3 the server end
hardware of the 2006 solution
– The re-development was funded from the reduction in hardware at no cost to
ABS!
– Repeatable – the same software solution being deployed by ABS for Ag
Census and is going to become the ABS strategic surveying platform.
– Can be adapted to any country, providing a model for innovation of censustaking everywhere
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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ABS - CIS and Collections Management Solution
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© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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The Results
 The solution IBM developed was :
– More cost-effective than physical data collection
– Accurate – eliminates need for manual data entry & human error
– Scalable & robust – delivering e-Census via a cloud solution enabled a highly
scalable solution capable of handling the very peaky load & high availability
requirements
– Meets the Security & data privacy requirements of Govt
– Easy to use
– Accessible – more convenient for many citizens & more accessible to those
with disabilities
– Automated the collection and exchange of data – STMX, XBRL
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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Exploiting technology for faster, better outcomes
 Watson video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpW5VN2j2Q&feature=related
© 2010 International Business Machines Corporation
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“Insight and foresight are linked with leadership.
It's insight that helps to capture opportunity.”
Zhou Ming, Executive Vice President and Secretary General, China Council for Int’l Investment
Promotion (Source: IBM Global CEO Study, 2010)
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