Ferhan Hamid is CEO of INADEV and an attorney by training with 13 years of experience in state and local government for operations and management. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the DePaul University College of Law.
Hamid spoke with WashingtonExec about his role at INADEV, big data, cloud computing, and mobility, BYOD, securing data, and more.
WashingtonExec: Can you tell us a bit more about your background and how you got to your current role as CEO at INADEV?
Ferhan Hamid: I grew up in Chicago and spent most of my career in operations and management of city government, eventually becoming the Managing Deputy Comptroller for the City of Chicago. My responsibilities in that position were to streamline and modernize finance operations as well as develop and leverage public/private partnerships.
In 2009, I connected with the now COO and CTO of INADEV, Jitesh Sachdev and Vikrant Binjrajka. We created a company which later acquired INADEV with the vision to provide commercial businesses and government agencies with custom, cost effective and large-scale mobile solutions at a higher quality and faster than any other company. When we came together it was apparent from the start that we each had complimentary skill sets and had worked in large organizations, but had a desire to succeed as entrepreneurs in our own right. We were fascinated with how mobile technologies were enabling enterprise productivity and we knew we wanted to make a difference in that space.
WashingtonExec: Do you think big data, cloud computing, and mobility are connected?
Ferhan Hamid: For government to deliver services, those are not really connected. For example, an agency can utilize mobile technologies without worrying about cloud or big data strategies. Mobile also provides agencies the ability to reach a broad spectrum of citizens through digital services in a highly cost effective manner using the existing agency infrastructure. Cloud and big data are important but in no way essential to achieving that core objective.
WashingtonExec: What are your thoughts on BYOD?
Ferhan Hamid: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies make sense not just from a fiscal standpoint, but also from a user standpoint. People are more efficient and comfortable with their own device’s operating system and they don’t want to juggle multiple devices.
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An important facet with BYOD policies is that they need to be part of a larger mobile strategy. Many agencies are starting to adopt an overarching strategy, which takes into account mobile device management (MDM) policy, security, application development and access, testing, integration and release management.”
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The challenge with BYOD for an agency revolves around security from employees accessing the agency network from their personal devices and the cost that it can take to purchase and deploy a commercial-off-the-shelf MDM product. Most of these products are not customizable and include costly per user per month charges. Many agency officials that I have spoken with are looking to deploy a custom solution that fits the agency’s specific needs and costs less.
WashingtonExec: Can you talk more about transactional applications in extending government services?
Ferhan Hamid: The vast majority of citizen facing government applications are informational and simply present information to the user. There is the ability to do so much more with transactional applications that interface with back end systems.
Internal transactional applications can be designed specific to an agency or even an individual’s workflow. For example, the government has many people out in the field who have to gather information. What was previously done on 15 pages of paper and re-entered by another employee can now be entered and uploaded instantaneously on a tablet. These types of applications improve productivity, reduce error and automate repetitive tasks.
Externally, transactional applications are vital to extending government services to citizens. For example, we helped develop a transactional application for FEMA that didn’t just give citizens information on how to respond to specific disaster events, but it allowed them to enter disaster assistance requests as well. This is an instance of a mobile application speeding up the disaster recovery process for thousands of people—a central component of FEMA’s mission.
WashingtonExec: Following on this, what do you think are some safeguard measures to take in securing data?
Ferhan Hamid: Effective safeguard measures include not leaving data on the device (no data at rest), encrypting data in motion either partially or completely; having an offline mode; building secure private application stores; building in authentication and authorization; and having the ability to wipe sensitive data remotely.
Entering data into a mobile device is just as secure as entering it through a website. For example, we developed an application for the Social Security Administration (SSA) where users enter sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) such as social security numbers. No data is saved in the application or on the device and it is completey secure behind the SSA’s firewall.
WashingtonExec: Do you have a favorite app, and if so, what is it?
Ferhan Hamid: One of my favorite apps is Google Currents. I use it on my Nexus 7 Tablet and it’s a great way to consume magazine articles on all of my favorite topics. If I find something particularly interesting, I like to share it via Twitter directly from the app.
WashingtonExec: Have you noticed any trends in mobility over the years?
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Ferhan Hamid: Tablet devices have penetrated the consumer market and I think we will see the same on the government side in 2013. Tablets are a very useful tool to view performance data and for mobilizing the workflows of field workers.”
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Another related trend is responsive web design. Soon everyone will be using a laptop, smartphone and tablet. It will be important to have a consistent look and feel for whatever way users choose to access your information. Responsive web design is about adopting a more flexible, device agnostic approach to app design that incorporates mobile phones, tablets and desktops. It enhances the user experience no matter where or what device you use.
