Johnny Serrano, CIO of GroundProbe, Australian mining protection specialists, has been fascinated with how things work, from his first Sony Walkman to the growing number of games that suddenly became available to children.
“I knew I was looking to get paid to create games. That was my motivation,” Serrano told CIO Australia.
But it wasn’t until the CIO50 alumnus finished high school that he seriously began a career in technology.
A year later, after taking the first step towards a degree in software engineering, Serrano discovered the inspiration to pursue a bachelor’s degree in data technology and e-commerce at queensland University of Technology.
“I was very lucky to study this career in business informatics. I was coding in one elegance and then reading business and economics in another; it gave me a holistic view of business,” Serrano says. His first genuine task in generation would soon be to divulge it to this and more.
While applying for Brisbane-based budget databases in 2006, he headed to Innisfail, 260km north of his hometown of Townsville, which had been devastated by Cyclone Larry, then the hardest that had ever hit Australia, causing $1. 5 billion in damage.
With thousands of others looking to make insurance claims for broken or destroyed homes, cars and other property, Serrano led a team to establish a new network and systems to help control the outbreak. the point in fact lives.
“I have to be on the ground, helping other people and helping to rebuild the city, which in retrospect was significant,” Serrano says. Back in painting in Brisbane, Serrano, who is also director of knowledge at GroundProbe, has resumed his side work. activity in the nightclub scene through helping DJs sort through their music archives and systems for shows.
He then landed at the American defense firm Raytheon, which had recently established an Australian in Brisbane. And for the eternal gadget addict, it opened up a whole new world of technological wonders.
“I visited military bases all over Australia and was exposed to some pretty interesting things,” Serrano says. In particular, he worked on the creation and dismantling of infrastructure for Super Hornets and F-111 fighters. He also helped flight simulators, inadvertently fulfilling his dream of being paid to create games.
“In my five years at Raytheon, I can say that my technological learnings, and my career in general, have accelerated. I worked with other highly technical people who volunteered their time and reveled in an intelligent young employee like me who was willing to take credit and listen,” Serrano says.
These early mentors influenced him more by helping him adopt a “calmer, more holistic attitude about how to handle incidents, which was reassuring and confidence-building. “
He often dealt with very sensitive operations, which included creating critical projects in general civilian buildings disguised so as not to appear displaced. “The wisdom I gained in the defense industry and the security controls in place remain part of my thinking to this day. “He says.
Arriving in Australia as a refugee from war-torn El Salvador in the 1980s, Serrano has had a strong sense of social justice. And now, with many years of high-level technological delight under his belt, he has embarked on a primary career turning point, passing the GAMSAT frontal medical exam with the aim of one day joining Médecine Sans Frontières.
Needing to supplement his source of income as a mature student and new parent, Serrano accepted a position as a technical business analyst in GroundProbe’s IT department, hoping to stay there for about a year.
Needless to say, life came along the way, for it was at this time that he and his wife welcomed their first child, now the oldest of four, into the world.
Fast forward to today, Serrano has spent five years as the company’s CIO and CDO, where he oversees an 11-person team that has helped identify it as a true leader in virtual transformation in the mining industry.
While there has been significant progress in protection over the years, few would say that much remains to be done, especially in emerging economies where mining injuries remain tragically common, resulting in loss of life and serious injuries, devastating families and communities.
Since its inception in 2001, GroundProbe has been developing virtual software and sensors designed to make mine operators and personnel more alert and responsive to the many hazards that may arise, while also gathering site knowledge for a smarter allocation design.
Like so many generation leaders, Serrano and his team have faced many disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic, adding to the inability of GroundProbe engineers to physically stop at consumers due to travel and other COVID-19-related restrictions.
This was highlighted when a visitor in Bolivia was stopped by one of his radars at a mining site. In response, Serrano and his team worked temporarily to create a solution that combined augmented truth (AR), smart glasses, and video that proved transformative.
“Thanks to AR, we could get everything up and running in less than an hour,” he says.
Mining operators were required to connect to the formula and get detailed, real-time commands from GroundProbe’s service groups via AR headsets, helping them keep the company’s products up and running to stumble upon damaging wall movements.
With this verification case shown, he and his team temporarily mobilized to make the generation be held in the 30 countries in which GroundProbe operates, covering Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and the United States.
Serrano boasts that while many of GroundProbe’s competitors struggled to find tactics to maintain service levels, the company, with a bit of luck, introduced a marketing crusade with the slogan “We’re still up and running. “”Our machines save lives around the world globally and we are proud to be able to keep them running through augmented reality,” he says.
In many ways, it is an opportunity for him to draw on all his experiences beyond professionals, combining crisis control and solving challenges on the ground.
Perhaps most importantly, it helped him hone valuable leadership skills, whether in managing his own team, or working with senior executives in a mission-critical capacity.
Serrano had in the past led the global launch of a new ERP formula for GroundProbe and introduced a major technical debt repayment program, but it was different.
He notes that leading his team to achieve a successful generation reaction to COVID-19 has helped reshape the “defensive” perceptions entrenched among GroundProbe’s control that IT is just a “fixed expense. “make, a feeling that it is an essential component of the business, as well as a greater appreciation of the other people involved in its implementation.
“Implementing the generation is a journey, but it’s about other people at the end of the day,” he says.
Serrano believes that gaining control of this vision is the biggest challenge many CIOs face today, especially when they are under increased pressure to speak out and implement virtual innovation methods that produce tangible business results.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, GroundProbe has focused on the visitor experience, which, according to Serrano, underscores the importance of giving its technical team as much freedom as possible.
But it’s also making sure they’re loose to fail.
“They tell us we have no right to fail, but that will happen when you are a manager. But it’s about reducing the risk, which comes down to trust,” Serrano says.
Implementing an emerging generation like AR on a global scale is a risky resolution for him and his team, and he admits it may have gone in either direction.
Still, he’s careful to inspire young members of his team to have self-confidence in their concepts and worry about failure, invoking the words of American actress Stella Adler: “You’ll only be informed if you’re informed through failure. “
David Binning is editor of the IOC Australia.
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