The Chief Information Officer (CIO) Office Team

Enrica Porcari
Chief Information Officer (CIO)

ICT-KM Program Leader

When the CGIAR’s first Chief Information Officer moved into her new office at The WorldFish Center in Penang , Malaysia , she felt an acute sense of isolation. Twelve time zones away from the USA and South America , the CGIAR newcomer felt cut off from the System that employed her. Far removed from her native Italy , temporarily computerless and with no colleagues at her host Center, she knew getting through the first week would probably be a challenge.

Now, anyone who knows Enrica Porcari will know she is not the sort of person to sit behind an empty desk and wait for things to happen. With five years experience handling emergencies at the World Food Programme and fresh from a Reuters-sponsored fellowship at Stanford University , she knew that if she wanted to get things done, she would need to get the help and support of as many people in the System as possible.

To her credit, just two months later, at the CGIAR’s 2002 Annual General Meeting in the Philippines , Enrica gave a presentation on how to position IT and Knowledge Management (KM) in the CGIAR.  Her outline, which was strongly supported by her supervisor at that time, Frank Rijsberman, and enthusiastically accepted by the Directors General, would eventually evolve into the present ICT-KM Program.

Back in Penang , Enrica looked at the newly-accepted skeleton Program and wondered how she was going to flesh out the bones.

“At that time, I had two options,” she says. “I could sit in my office and try to make things up or I could go out and ask people what they thought. So I created an advisory group and asked people from the various communities to nominate someone willing to participate in the creation of the Program.”

Subsequently, an online consultation with the various nominees was held at the beginning of 2003 culminating in a face-to-face meeting in May of the same year.

In between waiting for people to answer their mail, this dynamic woman kept herself busy building the credibility of the Program. For example, she began identifying System-wide savings opportunities. “Working together has its advantages” she repeats often.

Indeed, new negotiations for Microsoft products resulted in more than a million dollars in savings. And the number of contracts negotiated under the Program continues to grow.

Of course, there was much more to the Program than negotiating contracts here and there.

As she explains, “While all of this was going on, I took the time to create a strategy that everyone would be comfortable with. Finally, the Investment Plan was presented to the Center Directors Committee in May 2003.”

Many of the projects under this Investment Plan have since come to fruition, with some exceptional outputs. For example, CGXchange, an intranet/extranet site that spans the CGIAR’s fifteen Centers and beyond, was launched at the CGIAR’s 2005 Annual General Meeting in Morocco, where it was received with great excitement. The Knowledge Management and Sharing Project has also exceeded all expectations. And the good stories continue.

Despite these achievements, Enrica is quick to point out that the process, not just the output, deserves to be highlighted, too.

“People are actually talking to each other and working more collaboratively. For example, you can see many areas where KM programs are being created at Center level; even things that are outside my radar screen. I think we are planting little seeds everywhere and people are starting to become aware and supportive of the values we’re trying to promote. And they’re embracing it and running with it, which is the whole point of everything we’ve been trying to do. That’s the part I’m most proud of. Attitudes are certainly changing and that’s what’s going to be long-lasting.”

Before joining the CGIAR, Enrica, who holds a M.Sc in Social Sciences from the University of Milan, Italy, was Chief of ICT Field Services at the World Food Programme. It was while she was attached to WFP that she was awarded her fellowship at Stanford University to develop a project to effectively transition IT installations from emergency to development. Prior to this position, this versatile woman worked with CGNET, the same company that provides the CGIAR with networking services.

In September 2005, the ICT-KM Program Leader moved her office from Penang to IPGRI, Rome , just 30km away from her hometown of Tivoli . Although her various responsibilities with the Program have her constantly on the go, she strives hard to balance her career and family life. Her fast-paced days always include quality time for her daughter Julia, 9, and son, William, 6. Of course, no one ever does anything completely on their own, and she gives credit to her husband, Stuart, for sharing family responsibilities while maintaining his own career at FAO.

If you’re still not convinced that you can have it all if you work hard enough, all you need to do is take a peek inside Enrica’s shoe closet. All those years studying in Milan , the shoe capital of the world, have certainly had an effect on this woman’s normally tenacious willpower.

“What more could any woman want?” you might ask.

Enrica’s response: “Just a little more sleep, please.”

David Balson
ICT-KM Program Consultant

David Balson, a man with boundless energy and an obvious passion for his work, has a confession to make. Despite a successful career, and a loving, supportive family in his native Canada , there is still one thing that eludes him.

“I’m an unsuccessful retiree,” he quips. “Three years ago, my wife, Fran, and I both retired, but I missed being connected with my sphere of friends around the world so much that it was relatively easy to lure me out of ‘retirement’ and back to working with the CGIAR again.”

David’s relationship with the CGIAR spans more than twenty years; for it was way back in 1982, when microcomputers were just beginning to appear on the market, that he presented an ambitious concept paper at a meeting of the CGIAR Directors General in Washington , USA .   

He explains, “I worked for many years with the International Development Research Center (IDRC), in Ottawa , Canada , where I was responsible for a program called Telematics. At that time, the program provided financial support, ideas and knowledge on how to use data communications, computer conferencing, electronic mail, etc. in the support of development activities.

“In the early stages of the program, it was decided that the best way to demonstrate the role telematics had to play in development and research activities would be to try to get the preeminent development organizations in the world to adopt telematics techniques in their operations. So a strategy was drawn up, and I was given the intimidating task of trying to convince the Directors General of the CGIAR that this data communication stuff was really meaningful; that they could save a lot of money and improve the effectiveness of their operations.”

Despite a bout of nerves and an unfortunate, never-to-be-forgotten incident with a glass of water just as he was beginning his presentation, David successfully convinced the meeting of the meaningfulness of the strategy.

A subsequent feasibility study led to a pilot project for six CGIAR Centers, which in turn was developed into a world-wide project for all the Centers, saving hundreds of thousands of US dollars along the way. This project ultimately led to the creation of CGNet Services, a company that now services the whole CGIAR as well as many other donors with communication and information management needs.

Years later, when he was winding down the Telematics Program and starting up Bellanet, David organized a symposium on telematics in Africa with the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (UN-ECA), and who should he meet there but Enrica Porcari!

“That was in 1995, and I didn’t see her again until just a few years ago, when I was in San Francisco on business for Bellanet. At that time, she was about to be interviewed for the position of the CGIAR’s first CIO, a position that she subsequently did indeed get.”

Knowing that David was a champion of knowledge management, one of the major components of the ICT-KM Program, Enrica later invited him to help her with the design and development of the ICT-KM Strategy.

“I’d just ‘retired’ at the time,” he says, recalling that moment. “But what’s an incurable workaholic to do when he’s asked to do something that he’s been promoting and championing and enjoying for so many years?

“You see, after I’d worked on the connectivity issues, getting universities, research organizations, NGOs and donors to use conferencing and emails in their work instead of telexes, letters and faxes, the next generation of tasks was to get them to change the way they shared information, the way they viewed their relationships from one year to another in an organization, and the way they viewed their relationships with other agencies.”

“I was trying to help organizations move from a silo type of behavior where information flows vertically and everyone competes with everyone else and basically doesn’t make a lot of progress with regard to their objectives, towards a situation where information is shared freely and people come together with passion around areas, problems and opportunities of common interest to find solutions collaboratively.”

Following the development of the ICT-KM Strategy, David was asked to help during the development of the 2004 Investment Plan. Subsequent to that, while continuing to give strategic advice, he was actively involved in the development of the projects that make up the Plan; the development and implementation of an active Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) regime; and in providing direct support to the coordinators of the projects supported through the Program. At the beginning of 2006, he was asked to take this last task on again.

His current focus, in addition to providing strategic advice and support to project coordinators, is on the development of activities that promote a change in the way the CGIAR does business – platforms such as CGXchange that support collaborative work and easy access to (as well as the sharing of) critical information; and Knowledge Sharing and learning activities that directly influence individual and organizational behavior.

When David isn’t working hard, you are likely to find him at home playing equally as hard. Now that their three children have all left home, he and Fran (who has managed to remain retired) have more time to spend with each other. Avid tennis players, they hit the courts twice a week, and in between, David finds the time to play ice hockey for three teams year round, while holding his own against men considerably younger than him.

This man just seems to keep on going, and going, and going …

Jenin Assaf
Program Officer

"Excitement is contagious," says Jenin Assaf, the ICT-KM Program's newest team member. "There's an energy you get from people who are excited about what they are doing that can be quite exhilarating. Although I'm still finding my way around the ICT-KM projects, I've already spoken to a number of people who are fired up about their work with the Program and the impact it could have on all levels of research. It's great to be involved in something like this."

Jenin may be relatively new to the unique set of projects that she now coordinates and feels excited about, but she is no stranger to program management. Indeed, she brings a wide range of skills and experiences to her position as Program Officer.

Prior to coming to Rome, where she is now based at Bioversity (formerly IPGRI), this native Palestinian was attached to Vital Voices, an organization headquartered in Washington D.C. that invests in women leaders and helps them unlock their potential as catalysts of global progress. As part of her work with this international partnership, Jenin managed and provided strategic direction for women's leadership initiatives in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Before joining Vital Voices, she served as the Program Director for Partners in Humanity, an initiative of Search for Common Ground, also based in Washington D.C. During her two years with this conflict resolution organization, she developed and directed programmatic activities related to improving Islamic-Western cooperation and understanding.

While reporting directly to CIO Enrica Porcari, Jenin enthusiastically embraces the challenges of her new job with the ICT-KM Program head on. Indeed, one of her strengths is her ability to work well under fire.

"In the past, I have been confronted with situations that I haven't been prepared for, but I took up the challenges that came my way because that was what was needed to be done at that time," she explains.

One such "situation" involved an impromptu television appearance with the president of a Middle East nation. With only three minutes to prepare before going on air, this gutsy woman didn't falter, even when she realized that she couldn't recall the president's full name. Other "on-the-spot" incidents with her previous positions have more than prepared her for anything the ICT-KM Program might throw at her.

Like many people working in the CGIAR, Jenin is very much an international citizen. Born in Houston, Texas, where both her parents studied for their PhDs, she moved to Palestine when she was three years old. Almost 16 years later, she graduated from the University of Jordan, Amman, with a BA in English Literature. And four years after that, in 1998, she obtained her Masters in International Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. Then in the spring of 2005, she said goodbye to the country that had been home for almost nine years and headed for Rome as a newlywed with her Italian husband.

"Although I've spent most of my life moving from one place to another," she says, "I feel my roots are still in Palestine."

Her roots may be in Palestine but her mind is presently focused on all things Italian as she attempts to learn her husband's native tongue.

"It's proving to be much harder than I thought it would be," says the same young woman who speaks English and Arabic fluently.

No matter how you translate it, the Program is excited to have Jenin on board.

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