Case Study : San Juan Ministry of Education (Interview)

It was an enormous challenge and one to which the team at NEC Argentina would rise. Harnessing NEC's innovative technology and capabilities as a solutions provider was the key to a successful project. Diego Apugliese, Program Manager, NEC Argentina, highlights the difficulties in creating a solution from an extremely complex, multifaceted challenge: "One of the biggest obstacles we encountered was integration: the new system had to be a good fit with their existing ones, and with the new document digitization solution they were negotiating. But we managed to reconcile all these factors. The biggest concern you have with this kind of project is trust, but fortunately, thanks to our experience in this area, the client very quickly established total confidence in us."
He continues: "The other thing we did fantastically well was to adopt a very strong CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) methodology, which we're still using today. All the project managers working on these solutions are PMI (Project Management Institute) certified. People at this level of seniority have the ability to handle a huge number of very complex variables and make the project a success."

Using a Thin Client Solution with a desktop and VoIP Telephone for each user was just the start but it allowed the Ministry of Education to double the number of end users without making any significant increase in support staff.
The San Juan Cloud solution now covers 100% of the territory with the NEC-EMS (Education Management Suite) and a range of other solutions which all work together for the Ministry. Data is encrypted securely across the system and previously problematic areas, like updating anti-virus software, are now straightforward with just one data centre update.

But the project was as much about teamwork as it was technology. Diego continues: "Personal interaction and mutual confidence were the most difficult barriers to overcome. You can always resolve technological issues, but trust is very important ? so that means meeting your deadlines at every stage of the project. Each project requires its own team, and with integration solutions like this you need an assortment of engineers, consultants, lawyers, teachers and other people. It was quite a challenge to sit down together with all this diversity of opinion and reach agreement about what we needed to achieve."

Commercial Director Manuel Niikado points to NEC's experience as a defining factor in the projects success: "We have a long history of e-government implementation ? we became involved in this field after a major change of direction ten years ago. So we have a decade's experience of development and implementation, and this means we can get things done much faster. We have the ability to understand clients and interpret their needs."
Professor Maria Cristina Diaz is excited about the future for the people of the area using the new EC system: "This incorporation of new technologies opens infinite possibilities for the educational process. It is allowing students from isolated areas, for example, to have access to information and cultural richness that they would not get any other way. It gives us the ability to train, adapt ourselves, and to look to the future with optimism, and, importantly, transmit this optimism to our students."