Nearly six months ago, while doing a feature on CIOs of multinational organisations, I met Atifeh Riazi, then Global CIO of Ogilvy World-wide. During the conversation, Riazi revealed that she was quit-ting her job to work with ‘technologically disenfranchised’ communities across the world. I was surprised. Why would a CIO leave a lucrative job to venture into something like that?

In subsequent conversations with Riazi, she revealed that she has formed an international NPO (not-for-profit organisation) called ‘CIOs without Borders’ (CWB). The organisation is dedicated to using technology to alleviate shortages in medicine and medical knowledge. CWB works with international NPOs to provide free or low-cost IT services to achieve its goals. With an effective team of volunteers and IT professionals from around the world whose services and expertise can be used via online collaboration tools, CWB has undertaken two very unique projects – ‘Project Rwanda’ and ‘Project Vietnam’.

Rwanda has one doctor for every 25,000 citizens. CWB is planning to implement a revolutionary computerised medical diagnostic system. This system will help any technician and one nurse quickly figure out what’s wrong with a patient and determine a treatment plan. This is a trusted system in use for the past five years in our own country, India.

The second project that CWB has undertaken is to compile critical information about ‘Agent Orange’ (code name for an herbicide and defoliant, contaminated with TCDD, a toxic substance that causes DNA damage) which was dropped by the US army during the Vietnam War. The information is published on a single website in both English and Vietnamese to accelerate the continuing efforts to determine the full scope of the tragedy and develop holistic remedies.

In the 10th Annual CTO Forum conference in Beijing, we organised a session on “CIOs as global corporate leaders: Beyond the comfort zone”. We’d identified Inclusive Growth; Managing Climate Change; Controlling Terror; and Promoting Diversity as four areas where we can make a difference. Are some of us leading the way? Should these issues be on our radar? Are we doing enough, what are we doing and can we do more? I will wait for your response.

rahul.mani@9dot9.in