Innovating Across Borders with Lawrence Eta

Speaker A: Welcome to the Innovators of Things podcast, a profile series about the builders and leaders of connected devices powered by hologram. Today's guest is Lawrence Etta, uh, a leader in AI and digital transformation with over 23 years of experience. And now to our host, Jillian Kaplan.

Speaker B: My name is Gillian Kaplan and welcome to Innovators of Things. I'm here with Lawrence eta.

Speaker C: Thank you, Gillian. Great to be here.

Speaker B: Yeah, super excited to have you here today and take us a little bit through your background and how you became an innovator.

Speaker C: Well, my name is Lawrence Etter. As I said, I was born in Nigeria, West Africa, most populous country in Africa up till about 11 years old. And then I moved to the United Kingdom where I went up to undergraduate degree that I have a Bachelor of Science in Technology Management. From there I moved to Canada as I thought it would be time to sort of continue. Travel is always a big essential, uh, part. I moved to Canada and it was really my first job after graduating in terms of really coming into the technology industry. And at that time I moved there in 1997. So a lot of the innovation we have today wasn't there, but pretty much walked up through the industry from the physical layers of technology, pulling cables all the way in terms of building applications, et cetera. So I work for a company that we're doing a manufacturing in terms of. If you actually go in, uh, some of the stores within North America, you'll see a lot of the pooling systems. I worked on building local area network, wide area networks, a lot of network engineering. In 2000, I moved to California. At the time of the dot com area, depending on the age of your audience, it was certainly a very big pivot. Um, the Internet was sort of founded in 95 and so you'll go in 97, 2000, and walked with a company that had five data centers across different, uh, parts of the globe. And we were building what we would call private network. So if you actually go and buy a Sony PlayStation online, I led building the network engineering from the routers to the switches, et cetera, and allowing sort of company to communicate privately as what you would call now the cloud. I was there from 2000 to 2003 in San Francisco, moved back to Winnipeg, uh, Canada, and then walked with a series of different companies, um, pension plan, telecommunications. A lot of the telecommunications were moving into the television space. And at that stage I started architecting and really building and then offed it. So I moved from there being very technical, hands on. You started moving to say, you know, what's the vision? The vision is growth. Let's get more people on a telecom network because we're moving away from regular phones. And it was the time when a technology would be called pppoe, point to point protocol over Ethernet and it was allowing cables to allow data as well as voice audits. So that was, you know, where I spent a little bit of time. And then also I walked at uh, various different organizations, moving over from a client server environment to sort of multiple, we would call it go online as what we will call digitized now. And then I worked for a company called out in Vancouver, an industrial Internet of things. They were providing solutions to uh, the mining sector as well as to cruise ships. They were allowing you to get very low bandwidth on their software to essentially bring data back and using sensors and IoT sensors to locate at these really remote destinations. So that was a really good experience. And then I moved to become the Deputy Chief Information Officer at the City of Toronto, which was another big pivot point in terms of my career. The fourth largest city in North America, which responded for the infrastructure, dealt a lot with moving to the cloud. The strategy to do that, leading a very large team of colleagues and really looking about how do we essentially move government in terms of a service ties way and better experience. And then we changed the title from CIO to cto. The CIO left. I became the first inaugural Chief Technology Officer of the City of Toronto. A few months later, two months Covid hit. So it was the CTO of Toronto at that time. In Toronto during the pandemic, only about 1,000. There were 44,000 in terms of all employees, 11,000 of those walked in the office and only a thousand really, we were dialing in or remotely coming into that piece. And we transitioned to 11,000 people walking in six weeks. That's from the hardware to the software to everything. And that was real innovation in terms of how do you now get the office staff to move when everybody was at home? Um, sort of planned. So from a telecommunications from the right bandwidth to the right infrastructure to the right hardware to scaling it to redundancy to digitizing it. It was probably one of the most highlights of my career. Then I was approached in 2021 by Headhunter with opportunities in the Middle East. I'd been to Saudi Arabia, uh, I'd been to Dubai in 2019 just before the pandemic, because I worked with colleagues on an innovative way to look at the root cause of homeless. And at the time it was machine learning in 2019, AI from a commercial standpoint was really machine learning. So essentially that's when I moved. Middle east came into my purview and then Saudi Arabia came. They were looking at this Vivian 2030 greenfield, brownfield, really looking at the dignitization. And in 2023, physically moved to Saudi Arabia to walk on one of the mega projects looking to digitize the city because Saudi Arabia were looking to diversify oil. And I've been in the Middle east since now in a role where I'm advising to help them as they continue to transform their country. So that's been my journey. A, uh, combination of five countries and seeing technology and innovation now in all different ways and at speed.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I love when you were like, I worked on the cloud before it was the cloud. Right. Like, I feel like we've all had those moments where especially if we've been in technology a long time, we work on things and we don't really know what they're going to be. Right. And it's like, oh, wow, this is what, at the moment we were just inventing the technology. But like, here we are and this is what it is today. And it's become such a massive part of everything we do. Right. Cloud infrastructure. And I, you know, obviously the climate from Toronto to Saudi Arabia is a little bit different.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So you've been all over. And one thing about having all these global roles where you've been on so many different continents and countries and cities, is it really inspires more innovation. The more you get to see in sort of the more worldly. So how has that helped you in your career? And as you began to innovate, especially with the projects you were talking about where Covid hit and you had to do it right on a dime, essentially. Right. Like super fast. How has this travel inspired your innovation and your inner innovator?

Speaker C: What it has done is that I think the technology globally is there. I mean, technology continues evolved and I know we're out in AI, different versions of AI, but, uh, what has been really interesting is that specifically the innovation that is now really critical is data. Without data, uh, it's very difficult to innovate. Prototype test, lessons learned, failed. And moving here is really inspired that it's not the technology as stuff, but it's really what you see in terms of how you can get that single source of truth. So when the private and the public sector and really government creates policies whereby still meeting privacy and security, that's a given, um, it allows you to be able to actually ensure that the data can m. Be shared. For example, I've seen when government is mandated, all government ministries need to share data. Uh, all government ministries need to ensure that the data is being shared in the right way with the right controls. But what it does is it changes a citizen, a resident, a business experience. What is the experience of the city? What is unemployment within unemployment? You know, what are the jobs created for men and women? Is there inclusive aspects to that? How do we attract the private sector to come and build incubator hubs? Um, how do we ensure the service delivery if I want to get a doctor? So in terms of innovation, what has been just quite fascinating for me is that when you create certain ministries or certain government entities whose mandate is to really break the silos and really say you must share data and you make it in some ways a bit of a competitive aspect that um, through that, you know, government, you need to share data. The private sector then has that data that can use it anonymized. So the tech is there, the technology has been there. And I've seen things from digital identity. I have it on my phone now. That is on a different level. I can pick my healthcare provider, pick my doctor, pick the appointments right from even if you get a parking ticket, it's registered to your bank. Getting and it's falls all under the security otp, one time passwords, triple authentication, face id. That's very much of a given. So what it's really struck me is that it's the policies, it's the governance, it's the federated module that can be difficult in certain environments and it's ensuring that you build public trust, which means that then the private sector has some level of confidence that there's clarity. So within that I've really found it really comes to how are you sharing the data, Is the data acceptable and is the data building new economies? And in this case the digital economy, which is driven by AI, is the way to do that, to build jobs, to create social, economic. And it cannot start if the data is in siloed area and not unlocked within national privacy and local privacy rules. But it needs to be modernized.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's very cool like to see that global perspective because we just haven't had many guests on the podcast that have really seen it from so many different countries and so many different governance. Right. To be able to see the impact that the world can have on each other. As we're growing in the technology space and as we start to look at like how innovation can benefit human society. One of the Things you touched on quickly was that you worked on a project in Dubai, I think you said, about homelessness and like the root cause of that. Right. So are there ways that you feel like as we continue to innovate as society, especially from a global perspective, that we can create more technology for good? Because sometimes I think especially like with the AI, boom, it gets a bad rap. But there's so many amazing things that we can do with technology to make people's lives better and keep people alive longer. Right. Like really make sure that we're using it for a good purpose.

Speaker C: Dubai invited me in to come and speak of the research we were doing in Toronto. So, okay. Homelessness as we know, is a big issue in different areas. When I was in Toronto, we were keen with various other colleagues in the city of Toronto to understand the root cause. I met an AI company in Toronto, this is in 2017, that was focused on machine learning. Because at that stage machine learning was the version of AI, right? Yeah. But what really got me was the military. In terms of the Canadian military, uh, we're looking at AI at that time to figure out with what is the right people to be in the front line. So if we look at all the data and say that Gillian or Lawrence, are we suited based on all the data and you know, certainly the medical data, etc. To be in the front lines, which would affect if we came back after war with ptsd.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: So it spurred something in me to say that there are many causes of homelessness. People, sometimes a two page gets away to be homeless, sometimes it could be a divorce. There are many aspects. As the deputy cio, I sat on terabytes of data. The medical officer who was in the health area was curious and the head of the person who looked up the housing. And so we got together, got some experts and consultants together to help us at least start to mine the data. Uh, if we want to make changes in society, it's the root cause we need to find which then affects how we change government policies, which then predicts their in terms. Because there's often this notion that it's just about money and there isn't enough. There is amples, um, of resources financially in the system. The key is that how we spend in it. And I think that from that if we can start to target the right programs, the right benefits, the right policies that will change certain behaviors or at least deal with that, it ensures that in certain societies we're having evidence based discussions which hopefully can lead into solutions from the private sector. Working with governments in a private public TPP partnership that can really solve it. And with AI and with some of the things I found especially in trying to build different solutions, we have to move from the prototype stage to the state of scale. Because if we are, you know, there's lots of fear when I walked in cities and governments, there's POCs, but group of concepts, et cetera. How do you scale? And how you scale is by ensuring that you get hold of the data, uh, you look at the root board and then you bring various different AI models. That starts to accelerate is what you want to do is predict. So if the root cause is X, I make these policies or if I made these changes or if I put this investment, what is the probability that is going to trans into a better human aspect? Is it going to resolve homelessness? Is it going to remove transportation systems in terms of it can make it more accessible traffic jams and those things. And so to me it all starts with the data and then it allows you to ensure that you're looking at the root cause as opposed to spending large capital or operational investment. And in Toronto, what we did when I was there is that we were keen on not calling it regulation. We built and your audience can go and look at a framework called BISF Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework. We wanted to give the private sector a framework guidance that anything you're doing in technology and AI has to ensure that it is providing social, economic and environmental benefits, has to have privacy and security. Some intellectual property needs to stay in the public sector because there is an investment of taxpayers dollars that are going into that. It's got to have cybersecurity and privacy. It's got to ensure that it's really making a society aspect. The role we felt was that it wasn't that we didn't want to work with government, but we wanted to data landscape so that the public could have trust and confidence that their data was being utilized in a way that was going to be for public good. And that's what coming into the public service really evolved me from the private sector with the role of what is the role of government and with AI now it's really ensuring that those discussions are occurring to say where is the data kept? How is it going to be used? Making sure it's not being used for certain reasons that are not about providing good social and economic benefits.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And I love when you talked about root cause and finding the root cause and actually fixing the problem instead of just putting a band aid on it. Because a lot of times when we talk about spending, it's like, okay, we'll just put a band aid on it and fix it with this amount of money, but if there's enough resources, we could redistribute that money and maybe fix. And I think that's a really key, um, aspect of people that are innovators and thinkers is that they don't just want to put a band aid on something, they want to actually fix it and find out why the problem is happening. So I found that to be like a common theme among our guests is that they're, they're interested in learning about things and finding why things work or don't work. And another thing you talked about was kind of proof of concepts going to scale. And I think even worse than not doing a proof of concept is people just talking about things. Like some people don't even get to proof of concept, right? It's like sits on a PowerPoint for years, it's okay, well, you have to actually. Does this actually work in the real world? So how do you get people that maybe don't think the same way you do in that sort of innovation to m. Move from on a piece of paper to PoC to scale? Is there something you do as a leader of these massive teams to, uh, bring everyone along with you?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm a big one sort of methodologies, and I have certain key methodologies. So the first one that I'm very big on is S E S T. Because in any organization, especially in a big organization, you have to mobilize people, convince people. That's what the PowerPoints are about. The first P is political, and I don't mean that in terms of politician standpoint. I mean it's understanding the social norms in your organizational culture that can give you influence in the ability to take it from PowerPoint to that POC. Who are the stakeholders I would look at, who are the influencers, who's speaking, who are, who are the people who are silent? It's not based by title. And then try to get to know them, understand their pain points, understand their values, understand where they're from, and try to see if there's common ground. We need to start the conversations with what can we both agree on? And to do that, you need to get to know people. And that means investment in time. The next thing is, economically, everybody wants to know that there's going to be some return on investment, weighted average cost of capital, whatever your financial model is that demonstrates that you can invest a, uh, certain amount of capital. Let me show you what it can produce and hopefully build a run. So that's the E. The next thing, of course, as I've mentioned, is linked to the political, is the social aspects of getting to know. We want to work with people that will give us energy, we will give back energy. We have a good vibe. I mean, that's just human. We are in AI, but still we're humans. There's eq, there is sensitivity. So that piece and then the tech, um, so the pest is something that I use to try to bridge conversations. The next thing I did, because I wrote the book called Bridging World Technology Leadership in the Public Sector, is that when I was in Toronto in the pandemic and I had responsibilities for 800 people, the people that were my team, and then a whole city and 11,000 workers. And I remember the day, no pressure, everybody just sort of m North America. I know how we go into. People are at home. So I came up with this 5s principle because what in the innovation, if you're not from the tech scene, it's we are. We have a DNA that says we try, we fail, it breaks, we try again. But sometimes the stakeholders or the people who are writing the approving the funding, they, depending on your industry, they come with a different DNA. So I. The five principles, for me was the first S, which was whatever we're trying to do in that innovation, we need to demonstrate that there will be stability. So even if we're doing a poc, we need to say, here is the proof of concepts, here's the pilot. With further investment, it will meet the first S of stability. Right? Because we don't want to take technology out the public, especially in government or even in the private sector. If you're in certain industries, you don't want to be on, uh, an aircraft and the technology isn't working. That's not good. So the first S was really stability. The second S was ability to ensure that the solution will be integrated. And during the pandemic I had lots of really great ideas. But at the end of the day, I felt the pandemic would end, like, hopefully. And we have to ensure we can't have technology debt or silos. So the second S is that can it really have a solution integration. Then the third S will it scale? And then from the fourth S is that we ensure that it's secure. And then the fifth S is stability. So I find with those frameworks and those ideas, it galvanizes people. Because you as a leader, you cannot or an innovator. You can be in every room, every conversation. Uh, you need to give people a toolbox. And that 5s and the S became a rally force. Certainly when I was in Toronto as a way that whatever level. So the junior person, I wasn't seeing him anymore because he was, you know, my round, I would do a month where I would meet with my senior leaders, then I would meet with the directors, I would meet with the deputies. By six months I'd done a sort of 360 meeting. Everybody knew the 5s principles and the S. They were able to utilize it in their day job, which hopefully would lead into being innovative and creative in the way for them to see how they could actually achieve their task better because they knew better than I did. So in terms of the day to day, I had a colleague who was dealing with the desktop, the computer environments had 100 staff and responsible use. The 5s make the right decisions and if you feel those are innovative decisions to achieve the outcome, um, you have full authority to go ahead and do what you have to do. So that's just the way that I found has been effective for me in my career.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And I think it's so important to note, like, especially when you have such a massive team, you can't be in every conversation, you can't be in every room. So being able to create these frameworks and create other people who are going to kind of innovate and I don't want to say be your spokesperson, but be on your team. Right. And what you're trying to accomplish is incredibly important. Have you written a book about these frameworks? I feel like you should.

Speaker C: I have, I have. It's called. It's on. Available on Amazon. Bridging Worlds Technology Leadership in the Public Sector. I do have a public.

Speaker B: I was going to say you should write a book, but apparently you did.

Speaker C: Yes. And each captor actually has takeaways for the. I always wrote it in the view of what would a younger Lawrence look like if I was having mentors, you know, and in our industry. It speaks about initially my start in Nigeria and how I became the cto. But I really wanted the book for the next generation, the leaders of society, to have a playbook based on let philanthropy.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's amazing. I will pick up a copy after this because that was um, like I love the framework conversation. I thought that was fascinating to create frameworks like that. I want to thank you so much for joining us. This was an amazing conversation. Getting to know you and kind of your journey as an innovator. So looking forward to see what you do next and where you go next, I should say physically.

Speaker C: Thank you so much, Elian. And thank you to yourself and, uh, Jonathan and all of the team of people that have made this happen. It's been a wonderful conversation. Well appreciated.

Speaker B: Yes, thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you to our guest, Lawrence Etta. To learn more about Lawrence and to purchase his book, please visit LawRenceta.com if you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to follow Innovators of Things wherever you get your podcasts and share it with someone who's ready to think differently about growth and innovation. Until next time,