Building a Virtual Knowledge Factory to support community initiatives

At CGI, we support our professionals in using their talents and experience to make a difference in our communities.

Our operations in the Netherlands established the Virtual Knowledge Factory (VKF), a virtual unit where our professionals who are between client assignments can work on projects that are meaningful for society and communities or can generate improvements for the well-being of our professionals. As part of VKF, our professionals work together, meet colleagues from across the country, and gain experience working in agile methods.

Delivering value through collaboration

To advance our efforts, we partnered with PEP, a non-profit organization that supports different charities in The Hague. PEP serves as bridge between the city’s residents and non-profit organizations, while we serve as a knowledge center providing free consultancy services. For each of PEP’s partner organizations, our experts volunteer 40 hours of virtual consultancy on various topics such as cybersecurity and data privacy. Some of the organizations we’ve worked with include:

• Surf & Durf – a foundation that offers children and young people with social and emotional difficulties the opportunity to improve their self-confidence through surfing, also known as surf therapy. We helped the organization manage the personal data of volunteers and clients.

• Inloophuis Haaglanden – a walk-in meeting place for people affected by cancer and their loved ones. We supported the organization in using cloud services for data storage and information privacy.

The queries received by VKF are consolidated into an FAQ document that PEP uses to help other partner organizations with similar challenges.

VKF has been the springboard for a number of other initiatives including an Internet of Things (IoT) project for the CGI Spark Innovation Center in Rotterdam to test a solution that connects smart buildings and Azure. The team also created action plans that enabled our operations in the Netherlands achieve Level 5 of the CO₂Performance Ladder, a tool and management system to help reduce CO2 emissions.