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Johnny Serrano, CIO with Australian mine security specialists GroundProbe at all times had a fascination with how issues labored, from his first Sony Walkman to the rising variety of video games that had out of the blue grow to be obtainable to children.
“I actually knew that I wished to receives a commission to make video games. That was my entire motivation,” Serrano tells CIO Australia.
However it wasn’t till the now CIO50 alumnus completed highschool that he began severely considering knowledgeable profession in know-how.
A yr later, having taken step one of buying a diploma in software program engineering, Serrano discovered the inspiration to enrol in a Bachelor of Data Know-how, Digital Commerce at Queensland College of Know-how.
“I used to be actually lucky to review that enterprise IT diploma. I’d be coding in a single class after which finding out enterprise and economics in one other; it actually supplied me with a holistic view of enterprise,” Serrano says. His first actual job in tech would quickly expose him to that and extra.
The beginning of a profession in IT
Whereas working for Brisbane-based Finances Databases in 2006, he was despatched to Innisfail, 260km north of his hometown of Townsville, which had been devastated by cyclone Larry, then the strongest to ever hit Australia inflicting $1.5 billion value of injury.
With hundreds of individuals making an attempt to make insurance coverage claims for broken or destroyed houses, vehicles and different belongings, Serrano led a group to face up a brand new community and programs to assist handle the surge. That have taught him of know-how’s potential to genuinely enhance lives.
“I bought to be on the bottom, actually serving to individuals and serving to rebuild the city, which wanting again was actually significant,” Serrano says. Returning to work again in Brisbane, Serrano who can be chief information officer at GroundProbe, resumed his side-hustle within the nightclub scene serving to DJs type out their music recordsdata and programs for reveals.
Subsequent, he landed at US defence firm Raytheon, which had not too long ago established an Australian workplace in Brisbane. And for the perennial gadget junkie, this opened an entire new world of technological surprise.
“I visited navy bases throughout Australia and was uncovered to some fairly cool stuff,” Serrano says. Specifically, he labored on creating — and decommissioning — supporting infrastructure for Tremendous Hornets and F-111 fighters. He additionally helped to assist flight simulators, inadvertently realising his dream of being paid to make video games.
“Throughout my 5 years at Raytheon I can say my know-how learnings — and profession generally — actually accelerated. I labored with extremely technical people who supplied their time and expertise without spending a dime to a savvy younger employee like myself who was keen to take benefit and hear,” Serrano says.
These early mentors additional influenced him in serving to to undertake a “calmer, large image perspective of the way to cope with incidents that was each reassuring and confidence-building”.
Typically, he was concerned in extremely delicate operations, which included organising crucial initiatives in regular civilian buildings disguised in order not seem misplaced. “The defence trade information I gained, and safety controls carried out are nonetheless a part of my considering to this present day,” he says.
Saving lives with know-how
Arriving in Australia as a refugee from war-torn El Salvador within the Eighties, Serrano has at all times had a robust sense of social justice. And now, with a few years of high-level and senior know-how expertise underneath his belt, he launched into a significant profession pivot, sitting the GAMSAT medical entry examination with the intention of in the future becoming a member of Medication Sans Frontiers.
Needing to complement his revenue as a mature-aged pupil and new father, Serrano took a job as a technical enterprise analyst within the IT division at GroundProbe, anticipating to be there for a couple of yr.
Suffice to say, life bought in the best way, because it was round this time he and his spouse welcomed their first youngster into the world, now the eldest of 4.
Quick ahead to right this moment, Serrano has now spent 5 years as each CIO and CDO of the corporate the place he oversees a group of 11 which have helped set up it as a real digital transformation chief within the mining trade.
Whereas there have been important developments in security through the years, few would argue there’s nonetheless a lot room for enchancment, particularly in creating economies the place mine accidents stay tragically frequent, typically leading to lack of life and severe damage, devastating households and communities.
Because it was based in 2001, GroundProbe has been creating software program and digital sensors designed to assist mine operators — and staff — be extra alert and aware of the various risks that may current themselves, whereas accumulating web site information to tell extra clever challenge design.
Harnessing augmented actuality throughout the pandemic
Like so many know-how leaders, Serrano and his group had been thrown many a curveball all through the Coronavirus pandemic, not least of which was the lack to have GroundProbe engineers bodily go to shoppers as a consequence of journey and different COVID-19 restrictions.
This was introduced into sharp reduction when a buyer in Bolivia had one in all its radars cease at a mine web site. In response, Serrano and his group labored shortly to create an answer combining augmented actuality (AR), sensible glasses and video that has proved transformational.
“Utilizing AR we had been in a position to get all the things again up and working in underneath an hour,” he says.
Mine operators had been in a position to plug into the system and obtain detailed, real-time directions from GroundProbe’s service groups through AR headsets, serving to them keep operation of the corporate’s merchandise for detecting harmful wall motion.
With that check case confirmed, he and his group shortly mobilised to make the know-how obtainable throughout all of the 30 nations GroundProbe operates in, spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and the US.
Serrano boasts that whereas a lot of GroundProbe’s opponents had been scrambling to determine methods to keep up service ranges, the corporate confidently launched a advertising and marketing marketing campaign with the tagline ‘We’re nonetheless operational’. “Our machines do save lives everywhere in the world and we satisfaction ourselves on having the ability to preserve them up and working utilizing augmented actuality,” he says.
In some ways it was a chance for him to attract on all his previous skilled experiences, bringing collectively disaster administration and hands-on drawback fixing.
Serrano shares classes to guide
Maybe much more importantly, it helped him hone worthwhile management abilities, each within the administration of his personal group, in addition to working with senior executives in a mission-critical capability.
Serrano had beforehand led the worldwide deployment of a brand new ERP system for GroundProbe and commenced a significant program to retire technical debt, however this was totally different.
He notes that main his group in creating a profitable technology-led response to COVID-19 has helped reshape entrenched “defensive” perceptions amongst the GroundProbe administration that IT is merely an “overhead”. There’s now elevated respect all through the corporate for what know-how can do, a way that it’s a necessary a part of the enterprise, in addition to higher appreciation of the individuals which can be concerned in its deployment.
“Implementing tech is a journey, nevertheless it’s actually all concerning the individuals on the finish of the day,” he says.
Serrano feels that gaining government assist for this imaginative and prescient is the largest problem going through many CIOs right this moment, particularly as they arrive underneath elevated strain to conjure and deploy methods for digital innovation that ship tangible enterprise outcomes.
For the reason that onset of the pandemic, GroundProbe has developed a laser-like concentrate on bettering buyer expertise, which Serrano says additional underscores the significance of giving his tech group as a lot freedom as potential.
However this additionally means guaranteeing they’re free to fail.
“We get instructed we’re not allowed to fail nevertheless it’s going to occur whenever you’re a supervisor. However it’s about de-risking that, which comes again to belief,” Serrano says.
Standing up rising know-how like AR on a world scale was a dangerous transfer for him and his group, and he admits it might have gone both approach.
But he’s cautious to encourage his youthful group members to have faith of their concepts, and to not worry failure, invoking the phrases of American actress Stella Adler: “You’ll solely fail to be taught if you don’t be taught from failing”.
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