Author: Ha Young Kwon

Digital transformation has grown into the international spotlight in recent years, highlighted with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, translating to a push towards educating future generations about the importance and relevance of systems of data – an education to sharpen analytical skills and critically solve modern-day issues. 

This holds true for Cayetana López, Chus Antoñanzas, Cristina Aguilera, Mireia Boneta and Raquel Lucena of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, all university students in their final year of Data Science studies.

Passionate about their studies and looking for a challenge, the students signed up as a team under the name ‘Team bitsbitsbits<3’ for UNICC’s Global Hackathon: Data for Good. 

UNICC’s Global Hackathon: Data for Good launched on Tuesday, 16 February 2021 with an introduction from the organization’s executive leadership to a global audience of UNICC and other UN organizations’ staff members, university representatives and over 140 students. Following introductory remarks from UNICC’s Director Sameer Chauhan and Chief of Digital Business Solutions Ninna Roco, Anusha Dandapani, Chief of Data Analytics, introduced the three challenges of the hackathon: COVID-19 Open Challenge, Refugee Crisis: Predict Forced Displacement, and the UN75 Visualisation Challenge.

Out of the three challenges, Team bitsbitsbits<3 chose to showcase their skill sets in data with Challenge 2: Refugee Crisis: Predict Forced Displacement.

In the beginning of the Hackathon, we didn’t know what to expect. We suspected there was going to be a challenge about COVID-19, but we wanted to opt for a different challenge with a broader context. More importantly, we were excited to work with real numbers and to know that behind each statistic and data set, there were people’s stories and lives.

Team bitsbitsbits<3

Though the students had not previously worked with data sets on the UN mission regarding forced displacement of people and refugees, they collaborated and received guidance from mentors to ultimately be chosen as a finalist team.

Titled “Prediction and Interpretation of Forced Displacements,” Team bitsbitsbits<3 focused on addressing the issue of migration within an international context. In the introduction, the students explained their target variables: internally forcibly displaced people, refugees abroad and asylum requests for the year 2025 on a per-country basis. The team introduced their ‘Time Series Forecast Model,’ which included a layer of interpretability and then explained their input variables, which consisted of countries’ rates of fatalities, numbers of forcibly displaced people, information on terrain, the Human Development Index and the overall population count.

The team first optimised data in the data pipeline with a pre-processing procedure before feeding it into a machine learning model of gradient boosted trees; the numbers were then interpreted to predict target variables. All data used in building the model and determining the variables originated from data sets provided by UNICC. 

In the process of building the model, team members adhered to the advice of UNICC mentors during feedback sessions, building a simple yet comprehensive model, given the complexity of the data. In the end, the team’s model presented a correlation most notably between a country’s rate of fatalities and its number of forcibly displaced populations for both local and global interpretability.

The team’s final result from their data pipeline and machine-learning model was the positive correlation between a country’s rate of fatality over the time frame of six years and number of forcibly displaced populations. The participants concluded their presentation with a message that is it important to notice these trends in data and fight the unmitigated increase of forced mobility through means of policy, backed by data.

Following the Hackathon, the students reflected on their Data Hackathon experience and the value of an education in Data Science.          

We are part of the first generation of students in Barcelona to be taught Data Science in a university setting; before, Data Science was just taught to new hires on the job. So, this finalist position in the Data Hackathon is not only an accomplishment of our team but also the Data Science curriculum and generation of students graduating to enter careers in the field.

Team bitsbitsbits<3

Motivated by the Hackathon experience, the participants were keen to learn more about not just data for social good but also professional opportunities that marry their passion of data science with the UN mandate. 

Team bitsbitsbits<3’s involvement in the UNICC Global Hackathon is indicative of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly SDG #4: Quality Education, and SDG #9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.

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This article is part of a series of stories from the first UNICC Global Hackathon: Data for Good that took place in February 2021. The hackathon drew registrations from a total of 140 students from 54 universities located in 13 countries around the globe, all of whom came together to tackle three major UN related challenges: COVID-19 Open Challenge, Refugee Crisis: Predict Forced Displacement, and the UN75 Visualisation Challenge. To learn more about this successful event and its wonderful finalists, please refer to this article here.

UNICC staff present digital business master classes to students at Università del Salento, University of Valencia and Universidad Internacional de Valencia.

Università del Salento – Project Management Master Class with Marco Liuzzi

The Università del Salento’s Department of Economics, in collaboration with the Department of Engineering for Innovation, partnered with UNICC for a Business Management seminar on Project Management perspectives, held remotely on 26 April.

Nearly 30 students from various faculties attended the session led by Marco Liuzzi, Chief Operations Officer, UNICC, upon invitation from Professor Roberto Paiano. 

During the master class, Marco explored, compared and contrasted traditional best practices in project management with agile best practices. The session launched with a dive into the two ‘traditional’ best practices (PRINCE2 and PMBoK), highlighting differences and similarities between the two project management methods.

One topic involved specific techniques for scheduling, with an illustration of the level of detail to and efficacy with which these best practices can help get work done. 

For a historical perspective, Marco excavated relevant project management foundations such as the Agile manifesto for software development developed in 2001.

Once the background was set, the class engaged in discussion about other key practices in software development, such as the Scrum framework, the culture that it creates for teams, the roles within a project it requires and the events in a project timeline – ultimately, an overall ‘philosophy of working.’ Some questions addressed as part of the seminar included:

• Traditional means no longer useful? 
• Is there still space for a traditional – a.k.a. waterfall – project management approach?
• What are the pros and cons of traditional vs. agile best practices?   
• Are agile best practices always the way to go?

Participants brought their insights to Marco’s willingness to engage in these issues, resulting in a dynamic class for everyone on the call. There was a consensus that there was space for both the traditional and agile best practices approaches, depending on scope, scale and context of a given project. 

University of Valencia, School of Engineering – Zero-day Threats Landscape Class with Gabriella Andriuzzi

Also in April, the University of Valencia School of Engineering, located in Burjassot, Spain, held a conference to bring engineering and data science students across the university to network with professionals in the tech sector. For a session on cyber security, the University reached out to UNICC to deliver a virtual master class presentation. On 21 April, UNICC’s Gabriella Andriuzzi, Informational Security Administrator, with the help of Amadeo Cioffi, Lead, Cyber Security Operations, presented a session on “Zero-day Threats from the Defender’s Perspective.”

The session was well attended, with nearly 200 participants on the call, including strong UNICC representation. Gabriella discussed operational implications of cyber security from the perspective of the Security Operations Centre (CSOC) teams whose main task is to prevent, detect and respond to zero-day attacks to protect their organizations. 

The master class covered zero-day attacks, starting from typical targets of attacks such as government entities, large business and organizations, political targets, etc. While exploring the scope, Gabriella noted timelines of cybersecurity attacks and specific terminology to inform all participants of how and what defines a vulnerability, an exploit or an attack. Then, the conversation shifted to preventative and detection efforts in mitigating such attacks.

She included a case study to emphasise the impact of cyber security. The study was on the active exploitation of multiple zero-day Microsoft exchange vulnerabilities in March 2021, with a detailed timeline of the attack, the conceptual understandings of each phase, and ultimately, the steps to take towards a timely and effective response. 

Gabriella touched upon the key points that with the increase in sophisticated methods of cyber-attacks, it is the responsibility of individuals and organizations alike to develop innovative protection and detection technologies that support the use of best practices. 

Universidad Internacional de Valencia – a day in the life with UNICC Unified Communications Project Lead Ricardo Pardal

To launch the beginning of a new academic semester in September 2020, the Universidad Internacional de Valencia hosted a series of master classes titled “The Day to Day in International Organizations” for Master’s students in legal studies. Presentations were conducted weekly by representatives from international organizations such as UNESCO and NATO. UNICC was invited to present on the daily activities of supporting its 70+ Client and Partner Organizations through ICT solutions.

Ricardo Pardal, Project Lead for the UNICC Unified Communications team delivered a master class to nearly 50 students on the general mandate of UNICC, its strategic position as the leading digital business solutions provider for the UN family, the historical growth and development of the organization, especially regarding the pandemic – and ultimately his role and responsibilities on the Unified Communications team. 

The students’ engagement was great; the questions were on a spectrum from general inquiries about United Nations and how to get involved to specific topics such as the history and importance of UNICC’s Valencia offices. In fact, the Q&A ended up being the same length as the presentation!

Ricardo Pardal, Systems Administrator, Unified Communications, UNICC

The master class first began with an overview of UNICC and then detailed tUNICC offices locations, particularly the Valencia office with its support to the UN Secretariat and its Department of Operational Support (DOS). 

As the master class was a virtual event due to pandemic restrictions, Ricardo spoke about UNICC’s business continuity and teleworking processes during the onset of COVID-19. He elaborated how UNICC was able to successfully adjust to remote working conditions with a significant increase in demand for its services. Tying this to his day-to-day role, Ricardo then spoke about relevant projects on the Unified Communications team of UNICC, such as the provision of enterprise-level telephony services.

UNICC’s involvement with academic institutions through master classes such as these demonstrates the willingness of the organization and its staff to engage with bright minds through insightful presentations and dynamic discussions. Its participation speaks to UNICC’s commitment to SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic universalised remote working, UNICC was supporting many of its 70+ Partners and Client Organizations in providing remote services on a global scale. 

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) was one, with its subscription to UNICC’s Common Secure threat intelligence network services for a stable information security posture. 

GGGI is a relatively new Client of UNICC headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization dedicated to supporting and promoting strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies.

Information security services was just the beginning. GGGI, in over 30 country offices spanning six continents, many in challenging locales, faced the need to ensure its ‘last-mile’ business continuity. The organization was set to upgrade its local office networks with a centralized, secure and reliable connectivity solution. Local office infrastructure was often outdated and unreachable, particularly with the constraints of the pandemic. The bottom line was a state-of-the-art technology refresh to ensure that local network appliances could be managed remotely at any time, from anywhere, by any number of GGGI ICT specialists. 

To meet this need, GGGI approached UNICC in late 2017, looking for solutions to these challenges, as stable connectivity is key to all business in their country offices. UNICC would provide, implement and deploy Meraki cloud managed appliances for up to 30 GGGI country offices. 

The key solution was the Cisco Meraki appliance with cloud-based remote management capabilities; specifically, the MR42 model that opened a world of optimisations for GGGI’s country offices. Apart from the latest hardware features, presence location analytics and extensive options for network infrastructure, all deployed MR42 Meraki Appliances, with the help of UNICC staff, are managed entirely remotely, successfully eliminating the need for on-premise ICT staff support. 

The project began in 2018, with 13 appliances implemented by July. The rest of the deployment was slowed down with significant delays and changing local priorities, with the balance of deployments shifted down to just three offices. With the COVID-19 pandemic unfolding, there were multiple challenges for procurement, delivery, installation and management of the remainder of the Meraki boxes. 

UNICC helped with design, implementation, procurement and follow-up to ensure that the appliances made it to the ground and were properly installed. 

Designated UNICC team members deftly coordinated all aspects of procurement and delivery of these devices to each GGGI focal point in country offices. Then, in coordination with UNICC, each office installed its Meraki appliance device, a process of standard configuration completed remotely without the need for a physical ICT presence. 

Once configuration, network infrastructure and security controls such as firewalls were set in place, UNICC oversaw the capabilities for monitoring and supporting the appliances. In streamlining the procedures, UNICC created a pathway to self-sufficiency for GGGI country offices to take over. 

Finally, the deployment and rollout of the Meraki appliances in each office was signed off with detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), should issues arise in the future. 

Despite delays and external impediments, UNICC successfully closed the project with two batches of devices delivery totaling 16 Meraki MR42 cloud appliances installed and functioning in the following GGGI country offices.

In the GGGI office locations with network and connectivity challenges – with critical projects to deliver – UNICC’s services to procure, deliver, configure and deploy the Meraki appliances made all the difference. With reliable connectivity and robust network infrastructure management in place, GGGI’s country offices can continue to fulfill their missions and their mandate.