Louise McKeever. Image: Orla Murray/SON Photographic
Louise McKeever, CIO at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, spoke about democratising data, how IoT is changing farming and using hackathons to find talent.
While the agriculture industry has a long history, it is certainly not afraid to adapt in the face of modern tech. Ireland’s agritech sector continues to boom with AI and IoT innovations constantly sprouting up and paving the way for smart farming.
Louise McKeever is the CIO at Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. In her role, she is responsible for the information management and technology group of divisions that deliver ICT services to the department.
In an interview with SiliconRepublic.com, she said there’s no part of an organisation that technology does not touch, so CIOs have had to evolve from being a technology expert to a business strategist.
“As important as staying ahead of technology and driving tech adoption, I also need to understand the business,” she said. “The digitalisation of the agriculture sector has the potential to transform the industry, promote efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness. To support this, I am focused on providing an enhanced digital experience for both internal and external customers.”
What are some of the biggest challenges you’re facing in the current IT landscape?
The challenges I face at the department are no different than those faced by CIOs around the world. From ensuring robust cybersecurity measures to driving digital transformation.
Technology is advancing rapidly and with that, brings advanced cyberattacks and for me, the criticality of staying vigilant 24/7. In response to the global increase in the threat of malware and computer hacking, the department has a team dedicated to cybersecurity using specialist tools, with access to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and external experts if required.
The team is at the forefront in keeping staff informed of the cybersecurity-related risks posed to staff. The cybersecurity team and wider IT teams, have increased the department’s preparedness for the security obligations under the NIS2 directive, continuing to implement measures to improve compliance.
It is critical that I focus on reducing technical debt to modernise, be agile and innovative. This continuous modernisation approach allows my IT teams to maximise delivery to support business needs and to balance that with the continual improvement of our IT capability.
To ensure the department is best placed to maximise the full potential of the most innovative technology, and provide customer-centric services across our wide client base, I have a comprehensive IT modernisation and digital transformation programme in place.
AI is revolutionising the business landscape as organisations recognise the potential and want to invest in the technology despite economic uncertainty. The application of AI is nothing new within the department however, with the shift more now towards investigating generative AI and opportunities to increase efficiency, innovation and transformation.
With this, it is critical that we adopt new strategies, practices and governance policies, and this provides a further focus to my role. Where AI is used as a tool to support department activities, the methods employ open data sources or data that is already held by the department. These produce specific outputs, which are then subject to human oversight and review. Multiple different machine learning approaches are also undertaken.
Data is key. The Public Service Transformation 2030 Strategy promises to deliver digitally enabled and effective human-centred policies, functions and services designed with evidence and insights from our public and from our data and research.
My vision is that the department’s data has consistency, is securely accessible, understood and trusted, and used in a meaningful manner to increase interoperability, reliability and inform decision-making across both the department and the wider public service. We are now moving towards democratising data and analytics across the enterprise and making insights accessible to everyone.
Economic uncertainty and inflation are straining resources. In an ever-changing economic climate, it is critical to balance efficiency with achieving business objectives. Attracting talent is a challenge across the globe with IT skills crisis trend set to continue.
There is no surprise that AI skills are currently the most in-demand skills with a variety of cloud skills, data management and analytics among the most sought-after skills. Getting the right people with the right skills into the right roles is incredibly difficult. As the trend of IT skills shortages widens and the arrival of modern technology accelerates, I have had to find creative ways to hire, train and upskill my team.
Fostering a culture of learning is critical for success. To overcome the skills challenge and to generate ‘learning’ excitement and to promote the department as an attractive workplace for IT professionals, I have deployed several training strategies, including the department’s first hackathon, this year.
What are your thoughts on digital transformation?
Technology is changing one of Ireland’s oldest industries. The agriculture sector is going through digital change. Digitalisation has the potential to transform the industry, promote efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness.
Ireland’s farms are going digital for smarter farming. New government plans such as Food Wise 2025, the National Digital Strategy, and ‘Harnessing Digital – The Digital Ireland Framework’ can help Ireland become climate-neutral and sustainable.
From a technology perspective, the department is using ‘containers’ for applications. The leading technology is called Kubernetes and Red Hat’s OpenShift is the product name for enterprise Kubernetes. This offers Kubernetes wrapped up with security, certification, compliance and the tools for good governance. It is a significant shift not just in technology use, but in development culture, as teams have much more responsibility trust on them to ensure an application is completely and correctly functional.
One of our first services delivered to production was the SmartText solution, a machine learning text analysis platform that scans documents for sensitive information and prevents unauthorised access to personal data.
We won a Red Hat innovation award in 2021 for the SmartText solution. The National Fertiliser Database system won the Public Sector Digital Transformation Awards in 2023 in the green-tech category, further validating our choice of technology.
What are your thoughts on how sustainability can be addressed from an IT perspective?
The issue of sustainability is multifaceted. As CIO, I need to manage the quest for net zero, while balancing technological expansion with environmental responsibility. The need to drive the digital transformation agenda while keeping ‘green’ requires developing effective strategies and requires investment.
The department’s enterprise Kubernetes platform, OpenShift, helps enable our goals by providing the tools and capabilities to optimise resource utilisation, providing the technology to orchestrate and automate, and to ensure applications stay healthy, always available and that IT services scale to respond to customer demands.
What big tech trends do you believe are changing the world?
IoT devices are changing the way farms are managed by giving real-time access to data, enabling better decision-making. I am most excited about data-driven farming as it brings many benefits. It boosts productivity, sustainability and resource use and are changing farming in Ireland.
From a sector perspective, AI too can help agriculture in several ways, providing valuable solutions and improving overall efficiency. It enables precision farming by analysing data from sensors, satellites and drones, leading to optimised resource usage, increased crop yield and reduced environmental impact. Additionally, AI can assist in automating tasks like harvesting and sorting, enhancing efficiency and reducing labour costs.
How can we address the security challenges currently facing your industry?
Smart farming is the adoption of advanced technologies and data-driven farm operations to optimise and improve sustainability in agricultural processes. Technologies used for smart farming include AI, automation (robotics) and IoT.
These technologies provide capabilities and solutions to keep, store and analyse the massive data generated by components. However, smart farming is still emerging and has a low level of security features.
While it is not feasible for every farmer to be an expert at technology and cybersecurity threats in agriculture, there are some cybersafe behaviours farmers can adopt to reduce the security risk.
These include secure passwords, 2FA and regularly updating software when advised. In addition, cybersecurity awareness training, avoiding suspicious emails, links etc, and not saving personal information on browsers.
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