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A hotly-contested municipal election in Ontario, Canada was extended for a day after a computer glitch caused delays and errors. Voters who attempted to cast a ballot in the Oro-Medonte Township mayoral election found themselves unable to vote, or could not locate their chosen candidate on the electronic ballot.

Voter Urs Buechin reported multiple failed attempts to vote online. "We tried to use the computer at home, but it wasn't working," he said. "We kept trying a few more times, but there was no connection."

Another resident, Dr Sandra Johnson, said that several of her acquaintances had difficulty voting, with at least two stating that candidates were missing from their ballots. Dr Johnson made numerous attempts to vote by phone before giving up and heading to the township office. "There have been a number of things. I had phoned four or five times. I just decided to come here before voting closed," she said.

While Oro-Medonte Township residents were able to vote in person with paper ballots, online and telephone voting was not working properly throughout the day on election day, October 22nd. Many voters showed up late to the township office to vote in person after being unable to successfully vote from home, prompting officials to make the decision to keep the polls open late and extend voting through Tuesday, October 23rd.

"This is not an Oro-Medonte issue," said township clerk Karen Way, addressing the voters still waiting in line shortly before the polls were scheduled to close. "This is a province-wide issue. We will stay open until midnight, at least."

The towns of Collingwood, Bradford West Gwillimbury, Springwater, and Innisfil extended their elections as well.

According to Dominion Voting Systems, the company that provides electronic voting services for the affected municipalities, the glitch was caused by a colocation provider limiting bandwidth on election night, causing slowdowns and time-outs for voters attempting to access their site.

Way defended the current voting system, saying: "We've had thousands of people successfully vote online this time around, and I think that's a great turnout. That system was functioning fully except for those two hours on election night. Whether you have online or internet voting, or paper ballot voting or touch-screen voting, there's always a margin of error for something to happen that is outside of your control. There's always an element of risk when running any kind of election."

With voting extended, the results were delayed as well. Ultimately, incumbent Harry Hughes was reelected as mayor of Oro-Medonte with 3,011 votes.

In this day and age, we tend to forget where traditional software development came from.  It's concepts were originally based on physical engineering and assembly line manufacturing methods. This is why traditional methods, like Waterfall, place testing at the end of development, just as quality assurance occurred when the physical product came off the end of the line.  

However, much has changed since the days when data processing took place exclusively in data processing departments. That type of processing belongs to the era  when hard drives came in stacks and were larger than phonograph records. Data is now processed ad hoc and on the fly, by whoever needs the information. Gone are the days when software churned away in the bowels of organizations and rarely touched those outside with anything more than a printout or a bill in the mail. Everyone now uses software of one kind or another, for business and pleasure.

IT continues to expand and the demand for digital products perpetually increases, generating less time to market and demanding that more be done with less.  The number of digital platforms is also growing, as the speed of software release continues to grow.  There are now more devices using more operating systems which require more operating system updates which make for more testing requirements and so the need to test has greatly increased over time.  It is no longer possible to cram sufficient testing into the end of the development cycle.  Instead, testing and development must operate concurrently.

Our modern world is very different.  We now live in an era of big expectations.  Software is expected to do more and more.  Every industry is undergoing some form of digital transformation and, as digital technology spreads and increasingly interacts with the public, the expectation that digital products will produce quality results continues to rise.

Software testing has also had to deal with certain outmoded business ideas.  One of these is that only salespeople are competitive.  The idea that software testers would be willing to compete to find bugs is quite new. Even so, gamification continues to grow as an important new element in software testing.

The old idea of software testing being confined to only technical staff has long been outmoded.  User experience testing is now a vital part of the software testing process.  In fact, the end user has become a vital contributor and stakeholder.

There is still a tug of war between those who favor automation and those who favor human based testing.  The reality is that while automation can contribute greatly to speed of delivery, there is still no substitute for a fresh set of human eyes, and this will be true for the foreseeable future.  The presence of integrated software development teams, using both automated and manual testing, who are able to check each other's work, is rapidly becoming the new normal.

Today, we live in a new world. It is a world that is becoming ever more dependent on digital technology and IT itself continues to evolve at an ever increasing rate. This new world continues to challenge traditional software testing concepts. We are entering an age when testing and development will become one, as various agile teams support one another in the race to do more in less time.

The software is named One Warranty Solution (OWS) and early trials show that Business Process Management (BPM) software like this will help identify repair trends that could point to design or manufacturing defects. This will enable Ford to correct these problems early, while they still affect only a small number of vehicles.

This new system not only improves build quality, but has other benefits for dealerships as well. It will provide dealerships with the ability to track each claim as it is processed. The software will also enable dealerships to communicate directly with Ford engineers regarding difficult repairs.

The biggest single problem with the old system, aside from the fact that it was written in Cobol,  was that it was designed for a time when information processing was more difficult and expensive. So, it would crop "nonessential" information when reports were passed up lines. This meant that Ford was getting only a fraction of the technical information on each repair, and a tremendous amount of important information was lost. There wasn't even a way of knowing how long a given vehicle had been in the shop for repairs. All this has been corrected. Not only will detailed information reach engineers, but they can communicate directly with technicians during repair cycles.

The new software is also flexible enough to manage the digital and analog nature of modern vehicles. It can handle software updates and take into account the differences in regulations between countries.

While there are still a number of challenges to overcome, such as completely different parts numbering systems between America, Asia and Europe, Ford intends to have the new system completely rolled out by 2018. When in place, hopefully after significant software testing is completed, the new system will provide massive cost savings from the assembly line all the way to the consumer and will put Ford on the leading edge of warranty fulfillment and customer service and hopefully reduce the number of major recalls due to software and design flaws.

Digital technology has also changed the way we interact with everything from telephones to cars and promises to remake society in ways yet unimagined.

Now, a new study by Accenture Strategy and Oxford Economics has substantiated a link between the growth of digital technology and the increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to their joint study, the increased use of digital technology will add 1.36 trillion dollars to the GDP of the world’s ten largest economies, by the year 2020. That’s 2.3% more than original baseline forecasts.

The report not only demonstrates how digital technology is increasing GDP, but also breaks the influence of IT down into specific categories that can be tested, measured and predicted. This is the Digital Density Index, which measures four important categories of digital influence. These categories are Making Markets, Sourcing Inputs, Running Enterprises and Fostering Enablers.

Making Markets addresses the fact that markets are becoming more digital all the time and that digital technology is constantly bringing new markets into existence. It is especially concerned with how government’s attitude toward digital technology can either help or hinder further growth.

Sourcing Inputs measures those factors that are sourced using digital technology and how IT changes the lifecycle of these factors with regard to business operations.

Running Enterprises relates to the degree that businesses are accepting and using digital technology in various aspects such as strategy, procurement, supply chain and research and development. And Fostering Enablers looks at the social, economic and cultural environment and how friendly it may or may not be toward digital technology.

Together, these four factors present various patterns that can be integrated to enable an accurate understanding of how a business, groups or even a country relates to digital technology.

The Digital Density Index gives us a marvelous tool for prediction and a clearer understanding of just how digital technology relates to different circumstances and how to best utilise that technology for further growth.

We’ll be taking a close look at each of these categories in future articles.

The NAB and Bugwolf News Short Version

• NAB has partnered with Melbourne-based technology startup Bugwolf in a new way of testing out projects in the development phase.
• Bugwolf is a web-based service that uses gamification to test a company's website, apps and online products for service errors or bugs before launch.
• Bugwolf’s gamification process involves releasing digital services or products to a group of technology experts in the form of a game.
• Testers work to try and find service improvements, being rewarded for each bug or usability problem they find.

The Bugwolf and NAB Media Coverage 

NAB Banks On Bug-Buster Start-up (Paywall) 
Rick Wallace - The Australian
“NAB and Bugwolf are tight lipped about the exact products they are working on, and on the..” Preview

NAB partners with Bugwolf to test mobile services
Hamish Barwick - CIO
"National Australian Bank (NAB) has partnered with Melbourne tech startup Bugwolf to test..."

Full text of news release from NAB

NAB teams up with Australian start up Bugwolf

02 December 2014

NAB has partnered with Melbourne-based technology startup Bugwolf in a new way of testing out projects in the development phase, while deepening its ties to the local startup scene.

Bugwolf is a web-based service that uses gamification to test a company’s website, apps and online products for service errors or bugs before launch.

NAB Chief Information Officer, David Boyle said partnering with Bugwolf has helped NAB to forge deeper relationships with the startup community while providing support and guidance to Bugwolf founder Ash Conway.

“NAB is one of the country’s largest technology employers, so it’s important we support and foster the local industry,” he said.

“There is a growing local technology scene and many great ideas are being developed on home soil. We have provided Bugwolf with new contacts and industry knowledge, while continuing to work on improving our products in the process.”

Founder Ash Conway explained that startups are eager to work with foundation clients to prove their concepts. “There are a range of early-stage funding sources in Australia for ideas, what the scene needs more of is corporations willing to be clients of start ups,” said Conway.

“This requires patience and deep collaboration, but the outcomes are a win for both sides.” Bugwolf’s gamification process involves releasing digital services or products to a group of technology experts in the form of a game. These testers work to try and find service improvements, being rewarded for each ‘bug’ they find. Rewards can range from peer recognition to cash incentives.

Mr Boyle said some of NAB has worked with Bugwolf to develop new ways of improving the customer experience.

“Bugwolf has given us an exciting alternative in testing our services, complementing our agenda to provide the best possible products for our customers.”

Source NAB teams up with Australian start up Bugwolf news release.

The Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC) hosts regular events held at various locations around Australia with the country's best leaders attending. The AICC attracts guest speakers from some of Australia's leading companies, startups, government officials, and entrepreneurs from around Australia.

The CEO from National Australia Bank, Andrew Thorburn, was invited to attend the AICC and talk specifically about NAB customer led innovation. The audience consisted of 330 of Australia's business leaders and executives and a range of press and media representatives from Australian Financial Review, The Australian and live telecast via Sky News.

NAB has been leading the customer experience led space in the banking sector with Todd Copeland releasing a new website resulting in a staggering 187% increase to the Mobile team’s NPS. By investing close to a year interviewing and understanding customer behaviours, the website featured the redesign and enhanced content on more than 2500 pages to better engage consumers.

Bugwolf has been partnering with NAB for over 18 months. We were very excited to hear that Andrew announced our partnership at such an important event. It's an absolute pleasure and honour for the CEO of Australia's largest bank to talk about our company in front of such a prestigious line up of Australian executives.

Andrew’s speech provides some great insights into how NAB is leading the banking space with customer innovation and digital with a number of real examples and results of their success to date. It’s well worth watching the entire 30 minutes.

Thank you to Andrew and the NAB team for your ongoing support and partnership. Australian startups could do with many more organisations like NAB getting behind the Australian startup ecosystem.

MWC Barcelona will be taking place from February 25 through the 28th at Fira Gran Via and Fira Montjuïc, bringing in representatives from over 2,400 companies for seminars, summits, partner-led programmes, and other events. The organizers expect more than a hundred thousand industry decision-makers to attend the 2019 conference.

MWC Barcelona brings together thought leaders, executives, vendors, content creators, and innovators in the mobile technology field for what has become the world’s largest mobile industry exhibition. They’ve rebranded themselves this year to emphasise the fact that the ever-widening scope of communications technology now encompasses more than just mobile devices, keeping the familiar acronym but dropping “mobile” from the official name.

Attendees can look forward to conferences with industry leaders and visionaries, covering many of the most important and influential topics in the field. One highlight of MWC Barcelona is the GSMA Innovation City, an exhibition that immerses visitors in cutting-edge, experimental tech that showcases 5G, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things devices developed by Google, Huawei, Sierra Wireless, and other notable companies.

Some of the pavilions visitors will be able to explore include Digital Planet, featuring apps and technologies designed to improve users’ daily lives; the Graphene Pavilion, which will show how graphene can be put to use in the mobile industry; NEXTech Hall, which will have demonstrations and presentations of drones, robotics, virtual/augmented reality, and other advanced technology; and the Wearables Pavilion.

Fourteen keynote speakers will be addressing the conference, including:

• Matts Granryd, Director General of the GSMA
• Anastasia Leng, Founder and CEO of Picasso Labs 
• Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei 
• Nick Read, CEO of Vodaphone Group 
• Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo 
• Cher Wang, Founder and CEO of HTC 
• Rich Williams, CEO of Groupon

MWC Barcelona will also feature the 2019 Global Mobile Awards, the 4 Years From Now Startup Event, topic-focused tours, Women4Tech discussions and activities, and partner programmes from Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, IBM, Visa, ZTE, and other sponsoring companies.

Passes are on sale now, at varying pricing and access levels.

There seems to be a big push from startups to move into this space but I feel the real opportunity is not in disrupting them. They are big, and although many continue to be slow to move, many such as NAB, are starting to shift quickly digital with a customer-led innovation focus. It’s not going to take them anywhere near as long as you might think to start making traction. Sure, some might stagger but very few will fall.

Which brings me to my conclusion. There are so many more opportunities for startups to partner and build strategic alliances with banks as opposed to only focusing on disrupting them. Disrupting head on is not the only option when building a fintech startup. A number of banks, superannuation companies and credit unions are willing and very open to looking outside their organisations for innovation.

Moula has done exactly that.

At Bugwolf we have been working with some of the largest banks for a number of years. From day one, we addressed a challenge inside their organisation by providing accelerated services and products which enable them to deliver customer-led innovation so much more efficiently than in the past. We realised that partnering, as opposed to disrupting, makes heaps more sense - from ours, theirs and the end user’s perspective.

The purpose of configuration management is to maintain control and minimize risk by keeping track of the entire development life cycle. Maintaining an ongoing inventory of the build system enables components to be identified and tracked and lowers the risk of time consuming failures that might require several build cycles to solve.

CM consists of defining system elements and monitoring interactions between various components, while recording changes and maintaining communication between the various stakeholders.

Recordkeeping is an important part of configuration management. Modern CM keeps records of changes that go far beyond the source code, to include such things as tools, user environment, third party binaries and machine configurations. Reports are made and archives maintained so that the entire history of the development cycle and its environment can be reconstructed at any time.

Transparency is an important part of configuration management. The demands of modern software development and testing have caused the various teams that once operated in relative isolation to come together and function as a mega-team through the use of handoffs. Collaboration now takes place in real time and requires access to a consistently updated central data archive.

A detailed data archive will then make it easier to keep feature development and problem fixing separate. Bugs and user problems can be easily tracked and kept separate for regression testing while still maintaining communication between the different individuals involved. It also makes change control possible. Changes can be packaged and assigned to proper stakeholders while requirements can be maintained under version control.

Centralized data storage enables rapid communication, facilitating ownership of requirements while keeping change under control by improving communication between the various team and individuals involved.

Configuration management minimizes risk by keeping memory sharp within the development environment, enabling those involved to know what they are doing and why they are doing it, at all times.

When the printing press arrived, knowledge that was once confined to extremely expensive handwritten books was suddenly available in relatively cheap printed editions. Knowledge, that had been difficult to gain, became easily available. This meant that it was now possible to fact check the experts on any given subject.  Once that started, it never stopped. Long standing ideas about the world came crashing down and our highly technical, scientifically literate civilization rose from the ashes.

But books are limited. It isn’t always possible to find what you are looking for in a particular book. The information may be in another book you’ve never heard of. And how long does it take to find a book you don’t know exists? A simple fact check can turn into a research project. Nevertheless, the printing press changed the world by making knowledge far more accessible than it had ever been before.

That same change is happening again, and it is the millennials who are at the point of the spear. They are the first truly digital generation. They have never known a world without the Internet and the Internet is capable of fact checking at the speed of light. Which is why millennials are the least trusting generation. While the young have always had a healthy sense of doubt, millennials now have the ability to determine the truth or falsity of what they are told. They have reality at their fingertips.

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