The future of mining: How cloud technology is enabling faster decisions through automation and collaboration

as software providers transition their technology into the cloud and businesses transition their IT infrastructure into the cloud. We asked 4 of the top mining cloud software providers to join us in a discussion about how cloud technology can benefit the mining industry and what the future of mining looks like in the cloud.​

Overview

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(digital music)

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<v ->A warm welcome to everyone today.</v>

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Today’s session we’re talking about The Future of Mining,

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how cloud technology is enabling faster decisions

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through automation and collaboration.

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And today I have a panel of experts in the field

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and we’re going to have a discussion on cloud technology.

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And so Federico over to you,

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would you like to introduce yourself?

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<v ->Thank you, Penny.</v>

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Yeah, I’m Federico Arboleda, I’m the Founder of Imago,

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but now 30 days ago we were acquired by Seequent,

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so I’m now the Director of Imago Sales

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based at the Phoenix, Arizona.

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<v ->David.</v>

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<v ->Hi, my name’s David Peres.</v>

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I’m a Co-founder and CEO of Minalytix.

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Our company has developed the world’s first software

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as a service product for the management of drilling

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and sample data.

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<v ->Thank you.</v>

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Alex.

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<v ->Hi, my name is Alex Pienaar and I’m the Director of Sales</v>

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for Bentley Systems Infrastructure, IoT Department

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based here in San Diego, California.

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<v ->Thanks Alex, and Jody.</v>

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<v ->Hi, I’m Jody Conrad,</v>

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the Founder and CEO of Krux Analytics

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based in Calgary, Alberta.

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<v ->Great, thanks everyone.</v>

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And to kick off the discussion today,

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let’s talk about what cloud native means to you.

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So, David, what does cloud native mean to you?

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<v ->So I think to me, cloud native means applications</v>

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that are designed to exist in the cloud

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and that take advantage of, you know,

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the benefits that the cloud offers.

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Typically the architecture of these applications

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is that they’re made up of a group of microservices

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that are built into containers

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and then each microservice

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would kind of accomplish an individual task, if you will.

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So it’s a way of segregating these various tasks

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so that the impact of an error in one task

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doesn’t necessarily diminish the performance

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of the overall system.

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These characteristics

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also allow you to work on these various microservices

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segregated from others, so that, you know,

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it promotes a continuous integration,

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continuous improvement sort of platform

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that allows providers of these types of applications

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to put out new updates and fixes to a large audience

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on a very rapid and continuous basis.

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<v ->That’s great.</v>

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And how does that differ other types

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of cloud native environments?

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<v ->Sorry can I, I missed it?</v>

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<v ->Oh, how does cloud native,</v>

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how does that differ to other types of cloud environments?

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<v ->Sure, so cloud native</v>

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would mean that everything that you’re using and building

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sits in the cloud, whereas,

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you know, sometimes you might have a sort of hybrid approach

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where you’ve got some desktop software

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that may be pushing data into a database

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or a data store that sits on the cloud.

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A cloud native would have every application

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sitting on the cloud

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and make use of things like APIs, for example,

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to speak with other cloud applications

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so that customers who use these types of things

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might be able to build entire workflows in the cloud

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without a reliance on any kind of a desktop software.

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<v ->Okay, great.</v>

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Federico did you have something to add to that?

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<v ->Yeah, I guess it’s important to know that traditionally,</v>

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when we were kind of making a decision

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to start an organization or a company

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to serve the mining industry,

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we were forced because of history to say, well,

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are you going to be a desktop application

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and work within the ecosystem of the company

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or are you going to go cloud?

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Now, it’s really hard to do this hybrid approach.

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And it was a really hard decision for us initially,

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five years to say, well,

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are we going to take the bet and go cloud only

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because the future of mining

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and the future of all industries is cloud,

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or do we try to appease the current status quo

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which was this hybrid environment or this local environment

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where, you know,

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the mining organizations wanted their data stored locally.

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And we took the risk and I think it’s paid off,

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but it is a really hard decision to make

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from the onset organization.

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And that means that traditional organizations

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will have been desktop based,

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it’s a hard transition for them to make as well.

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And to be really cloud native is a difficult thing

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because that decision has to be made

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and it just affects the entire architecture going forward.

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<v ->I can add to that as well.</v>

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With cloud native, you know,

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it’s sometimes hard to believe

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that your data is in the cloud,

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but you can still with a cloud application,

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get your data into those local databases.

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So it doesn’t mean it has to live in breathe there,

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you can still take it out of the cloud.

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The other thing

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that’s really as an advantage for us building new software

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with a truly cloud native product

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allows us to spin up servers in new locations

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and leverage other networks that already exist

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to ensure speed and the customer experience

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is consistent regardless of where they are.

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<v ->Great, thanks.</v>

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Alex, what are the different forms of cloud services?

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<v ->Penny, so that’s a great question.</v>

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And that leads off so well from the previous comments

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made by my fellow panelists.

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I’m going to answer it from an IoT perspective,

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but every cloud deployment abstracts, pools

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and shares scalable computing resources across a network,

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and that’s commonly referred to as cloud computing.

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And every deployment

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is created using a unique mix of technologies

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which almost always includes an operating system,

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some form of management platform

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and an application programming interfaces or APIs.

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But when you look at the different types of cloud services

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from an IoT perspective,

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there are two main services of interest.

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The first is infrastructure as a service or IaaS

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which means a cloud service provider

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manages the actual infrastructure on your behalf.

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So the servers, the network,

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the data storage, processing power provision

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all of that infrastructure

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is all provided to the user as a service.

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The second type is software as a service

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or SaaS as it’s more commonly known.

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And this is where the software application itself,

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which the provider manages, is delivered to the users.

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Typically SaaS apps are web or mobile applications

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that users can access via a web browser.

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So software updates, bug fixes

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and all other general maintenance of that application

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are taken care of for the user by the provider.

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Essentially,

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this eliminates the need to install an application locally

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and allows for greater methods of group or team access

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to the actual software.

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<v ->Okay, so if all of that data</v>

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is being managed by the cloud provider,

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what does that mean for your data security?

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Is this a risk for our customers?

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Is it just a perceived risk?

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Jody, do you want to take a stab at that.

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<v ->If you don’t mind,</v>

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maybe I can just touch a little bit on Alex’s question.

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If you don’t mind I just wanted to mention

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that one of the things that I really I’m encouraged by,

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and I think will happen

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is that a lot of providers in our industry

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will become API as a service.

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So what they’ll do is they won’t have like a front end,

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but I think that one of the things that will happen

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is that you’ll be like a processing engine.

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So you might get a file,

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you do something with that file and then you return it,

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but there’s no real interface to that end customer.

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So this whole ecosystem of cloud services

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will evolve to the point that people will just be able

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to kind of use these providers

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without having a physical interface there.

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It’s just like a service

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that will begin to be offered as well.

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And I’m really excited about this API as a service

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and what that can bring to the industry.

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<v ->Hmm, and it’s about connecting the data in the cloud</v>

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between the different providers as well, isn’t it?

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<v ->That’s exactly.</v>

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Yeah, that I think is going to be the key

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is like, look at us here, you know,

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we’re four different technologies

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that can actually interact very easily and seamlessly

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because of the services that are now available.

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<v ->And I just even echo that a little bit.</v>

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I think what it does is it lends itself towards automation

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and watching data flow through these sort of pipelines

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without having to interact as Federico has said.

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<v ->Yeah, absolutely.</v>

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So then data security.

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So Jody, in your view, is there a risk around data security

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for having all of this data

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flowing through different providers in the cloud?

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Yeah, or are there risks?

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<v ->Penny, it’s a great question.</v>

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And at the end of the day, whether you’re using your own

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internal on-prem desktop application

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or you’re using a SaaS piece software,

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you have to trust the person

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that is managing that software for you.

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So you need to trust the company that you’re going with,

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that’s providing you that SaaS software

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because they are handling that infrastructure

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on the backend.

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One of the key ways

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to know that companies are taking that seriously

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is very similar, there’s an ISO standard,

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there’s SOC 2 certifications.

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And really what that means

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is that that company is entering a contract with you

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to provide you with software.

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And what they state in there is actually the service

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and the level of security that they provide

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and they’re being audited against that.

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And so I think there’s a huge advantage going with SaaS.

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And when we talk about the IaaS component

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for infrastructure as a service,

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most SaaS companies, Krux included,

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is using Microsoft Azure,

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some people are using Amazon web services, but these clients

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probably have a more sophisticated data security

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and infrastructure services

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than you can provide locally yourself.

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<v ->I also think that there’s two components</v>

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that are not fully discussed

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when we talk about security in the cloud.

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Well, one is what type of data is it that you’re handling,

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like your cyber security teams review

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and say, well, if it is maybe I’ll just imagery

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because that’s what we manage.

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Maybe a picture that doesn’t have that much security risk

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as perhaps coordinates or an asset.

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So that’s another part of the conversation

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when we’re talking about cyber security protocols.

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And then the other aspect that I think is quite important

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is that a lot of times the conversation focuses on risk

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of the data,

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but what about the risk of not using these technologies

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and falling behind?

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What about the risk

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of not being able to harness the power of the cloud

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and the power of what we’re doing today?

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So it’s kind of like saying to us,

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well, it’s too risky to be doing this video together here

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in this conversation because people can see it.

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But the other risk is that we can’t share this video

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and what is more risky?

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<v ->So Federico you talk about the benefits</v>

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of putting data in the cloud

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above the risk of not doing it.

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David what is the benefits

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of using applications in the cloud for our customers?

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<v ->Right, so I think we’ve touched</v>

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on a couple of these things already.

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You know, we’ve spoken a little bit

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about the integration capabilities

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and the fact that if, you know,

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if you’re putting your data in the cloud

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it then affords you the ability to link that data

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and use it with various cloud providers

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to achieve a greater solution set

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than if you’re sort of doing things independently

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on a desktop sort of

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or network distributed type of solution.

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One of the big benefits

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and so as a sort of a cloud-first provider, you know,

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Minalytix as a company from day one

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we’ve taken the cloud first approach

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in terms of the vendors that we use.

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So as a small business,

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we were able to go and make use of products

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across the various parts of our business accounting,

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human resources and so on

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to stitch together a really incredible solution

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that’s all integrated and allows, you know,

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from our small perspective,

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it allowed our company to sort of accelerate really quickly

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without needing to hire an entire IT staff,

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without having to buy servers.

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You know, we’re a software vendor

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and we don’t own a server, you know,

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and this is something that could not have been possible

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prior to the cloud.

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You know, it really allowed us to accelerate.

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And if you think about the scale of a large scale company,

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obviously all of these things translate there as well

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and can make that a much better experience there too.

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<v ->Yeah, just to add to that, David.</v>

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You know, one of those benefits

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of using cloud-based technology or SaaS companies as well,

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is that reduced overhead for your organization.

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I mean, how many times are you going to field,

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you have a local data center

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and you have how many people managing that equipment

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that can all be taken away by using some SaaS softwares.

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And we similarly have used most SaaS based applications

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to run our business

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which has helped keep our overhead low

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and have more focus on the development in our software.

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<v ->That’s good, so lots of benefits for our customers,</v>

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but what about for us in terms of software development?

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How does cloud-based technologies enable you

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to deliver better solutions to your clients?

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Alex, did you want to take that one?

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<v ->Yeah, thanks Penny.</v>

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And again, another great question.

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And it leads on so nicely from all of the other comments

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that we’ve had up to this point.

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But, I was at a customer site not too long ago

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and during my visit, the IT Department,

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they were running all over the site

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trying to find old Windows machines,

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trying to load a patch or some update that was identified

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or needed because of the vulnerability.

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And that just reminded me, as Jody said of the overhead

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that is associated with on-premise systems

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and maintaining all of these legacy systems

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and all of these old servers

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that are needed to run these sensor networks

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because these, you know,

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some of the sensor technology is 30 years old.

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And I think that through the cloud

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we are able to innovate faster,

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we’re able to roll out new features faster.

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we’re able to globally roll out patches and fixes

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within hours after the need has been identified.

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And if that fix is applied, it’s rolled out universally.

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Customers no longer have to worry about compatibility

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and an upgrade dependencies

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because that’s all taken care of through the cloud.

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In effect, I’m seeing that our customer base, you know,

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they’re really jumping that S-curve

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in terms of efficiency and productivity.

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<v ->You know, one thing that is also very interesting to add</v>

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is our customers are in very remote locations.

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You know, they could be out in the middle of Africa

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or up in the middle of Finland and they’re connecting

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via very, very low bandwidth satellite communications.

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And everybody thinks, oh, no, no,

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the cloud is not appropriate because they’re so remote.

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But what about the difficulty of establishing a network

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under those conditions of bringing in people and specialists

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to maintain that hardware and those servers

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under those conditions?

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So, as we know, technology and bandwidth

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is improving that cellular communications

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and really it’s no longer an issue.

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So the challenge is like saying,

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well, is it harder for that customer

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to maintain that hardware infrastructure,

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that IT infrastructure locally under servers,

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or is it easier for them to get bandwidth communication?

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And I think that’s something

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that is becoming easier and easier to understand

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that you can deliver those level of service

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much easier to these remote locations as well,

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than in the past and that we can do the continuous upgrades

[00:17:01.930]
and the patches that you were actually mentioning.

[00:17:04.110]
So it’s kind of like a win-win.

[00:17:10.990]
<v ->Absolutely.</v>

[00:17:12.726]
What about the adoption curve of cloud technology

[00:17:15.770]
in the mining sector?

[00:17:18.640]
Federico, have you seen a change

[00:17:21.770]
in a shift towards the cloud in the mining sector?

[00:17:26.400]
<v ->Yeah, I think that, you know,</v>

[00:17:28.230]
before it was kind of like everyone

[00:17:30.340]
who was coming out of school would ask the question

[00:17:32.870]
why aren’t we using cloud,

[00:17:33.730]
why isn’t it as simple as with our digital devices?

[00:17:38.840]
Like, why isn’t it as easy to connect with people

[00:17:41.020]
and do the jobs that we’re doing as we do in our iPhones

[00:17:44.030]
in our current schools, students were asking that.

[00:17:46.270]
Now I see that it’s the managers

[00:17:48.990]
and the people who have been there for awhile

[00:17:50.470]
who are beginning to ask that same questions.

[00:17:52.640]
So I definitely,

[00:17:54.070]
in seeing that adoption curve getting easier,

[00:17:56.870]
especially nowadays with COVID

[00:18:00.608]
it has actually gotten much, much, much simpler.

[00:18:04.560]
Actually as well,

[00:18:05.970]
the technology makes it run faster as well, right.

[00:18:09.870]
Because I used to work for another company

[00:18:12.700]
that was a desktop based store.

[00:18:14.370]
And I remember having to deploy that technology

[00:18:16.840]
and having to send people to site for 20 days

[00:18:19.680]
to prepare the infrastructure, to train the people,

[00:18:21.840]
to do all these things that we needed to do

[00:18:23.670]
to get them going.

[00:18:24.990]
And so the fact that we can,

[00:18:26.790]
all of us here on this conversation

[00:18:28.280]
can now deploy in hours versus weeks,

[00:18:31.610]
means that that technology adoption is happening faster,

[00:18:34.610]
is actually fostering faster

[00:18:36.500]
because the technology allows that to happen.

[00:18:42.490]
<v ->And if I could just add onto that,</v>

[00:18:45.400]
I think earlier in the conversation,

[00:18:47.990]
Federico said that as cloud provider,

[00:18:50.940]
cloud first providers or cloud native providers,

[00:18:53.910]
we had to make a decision

[00:18:55.080]
whether we would go all cloud at the beginning, you know,

[00:18:57.800]
when we started these companies and built these products,

[00:19:00.750]
and I can say it was a tough decision

[00:19:02.730]
and at the time we were discussing like hybrid

[00:19:06.010]
because, you know, six, seven years ago,

[00:19:09.560]
people were still a little bit nervous about the cloud

[00:19:11.886]
and a number of companies that we spoke to early on

[00:19:15.090]
said, oh, we’ll never adopt the cloud.

[00:19:17.260]
Well, I’m happy to say that some of them are now customers.

[00:19:20.600]
So you’re seeing a definite change.

[00:19:26.970]
<v ->Yeah, for sure we’re seeing that at Seequent as well.</v>

[00:19:30.069]
definitely a shift of industry.

[00:19:34.400]
Let’s talk about the future.

[00:19:35.793]
Jody, what opportunities within the mining industry

[00:19:39.473]
do you see in the future with cloud-based technology?

[00:19:45.621]
<v ->That’s a great question, Penny.</v>

[00:19:48.980]
It really is limitless of where we can go.

[00:19:51.640]
I mean, I look back to my days in the oil and gas industry

[00:19:54.870]
and we used to go out and install satellite dishes

[00:19:58.100]
on every rig so that we could have real live streaming data.

[00:20:02.130]
Well, with the new stuff,

[00:20:03.820]
coming out with the new satellite internet,

[00:20:05.956]
the better connectivity just across the world,

[00:20:09.827]
the opportunities are growing every day.

[00:20:14.023]
and that connectivity,

[00:20:15.604]
the ability to get items into remote locations.

[00:20:19.730]
So I’m excited for what’s happening.

[00:20:22.670]
I mean, some of the data

[00:20:24.850]
and the ability to get live data out of the field

[00:20:28.810]
has existed in other industries for a period of time,

[00:20:32.500]
but it’s only going to get easier,

[00:20:33.850]
which is going to make that adoption

[00:20:36.610]
easier for mining to take on.

[00:20:42.156]
<v ->Yeah, that’s a great comment, Jody.</v>

[00:20:44.830]
And one of the things that excite me about the future

[00:20:47.390]
is the interoperability.

[00:20:50.190]
And I think Federico mentioned that, but just sharing data,

[00:20:54.340]
I mean, data move through applications via APIs

[00:20:57.310]
is the exciting part to me.

[00:20:59.132]
Today we can move data

[00:21:01.270]
from sensemetrics to Seequent flawlessly

[00:21:05.430]
that was a very manual process in the past,

[00:21:09.040]
required USB drives and Excel spreadsheets

[00:21:12.160]
and a lot of data wrangling to enable that connection.

[00:21:15.950]
And today all of that is possible

[00:21:17.860]
through the power of APIs.

[00:21:22.568]
<v ->Yeah, also I think I’ll add,</v>

[00:21:25.640]
sorry, just to add to that, Alex.

[00:21:27.870]
I agree with that completely.

[00:21:29.750]
And the other piece about it

[00:21:32.260]
is I’ve always said you should use the right tool

[00:21:34.820]
or the right software for the job.

[00:21:36.920]
Each software has a specific purpose and provides value,

[00:21:41.120]
but the data as a whole

[00:21:42.520]
is still required to run your operation.

[00:21:44.960]
You’ll see a huge shift

[00:21:46.670]
for many companies that used to use ERP systems

[00:21:49.750]
that are now looking for more cloud based SaaS applications

[00:21:53.040]
that they can bring it back

[00:21:54.310]
to one central reporting platform

[00:21:56.350]
and APIs are going to allow us to do that.

[00:22:00.796]
<v ->What I find really neat and interesting</v>

[00:22:04.250]
is that before, what the industry was trying to do

[00:22:07.710]
was build like one single system that did everything.

[00:22:11.130]
So it did mine planning, it did geology,

[00:22:13.130]
it did environmental, it did database

[00:22:15.330]
and they kind of had a monopoly on that site

[00:22:18.280]
of all the tools that were available.

[00:22:20.810]
What the cloud is enabling for me

[00:22:23.120]
is kind of like these little niche specialists come into play.

[00:22:26.630]
And because these niche specialists

[00:22:27.980]
can now talk to each other,

[00:22:29.700]
it means,

[00:22:30.533]
that you can actually have best of breed technologies

[00:22:31.960]
in this little segment

[00:22:33.660]
and then you can begin to offer a better value proposition

[00:22:37.870]
than the larger all encompassing system

[00:22:41.150]
that does everything, but it does it mediocrely, right.

[00:22:43.630]
So now a lot of providers

[00:22:44.930]
can do these little niche activities,

[00:22:47.274]
but do it very, very well

[00:22:49.270]
and therefore we can compete as a whole,

[00:22:52.780]
as a whole ecosystem with the traditional players.

[00:22:58.290]
And that means as well,

[00:22:59.530]
that it’s better for the customer, right.

[00:23:01.170]
Because the customer now is not monopolized, I guess,

[00:23:06.869]
has more opportunity for innovation

[00:23:08.934]
and insights to new tools

[00:23:11.070]
because of this new ecosystem that the cloud enables.

[00:23:17.650]
<v ->Yeah, and for me, it’s all about the outcome.</v>

[00:23:20.950]
So what’s the outcome of it?

[00:23:22.120]
So we’re connecting all this data in the cloud,

[00:23:24.360]
we’re being able to bring it together,

[00:23:25.630]
you’re able to use niche applications

[00:23:27.560]
to do the job that you want to be able to do.

[00:23:29.740]
And the outcome for the customer

[00:23:31.070]
is being able to make better decisions in a faster way.

[00:23:34.420]
So David talked about the power of the cloud,

[00:23:37.000]
enabling automation.

[00:23:38.770]
And the reason why we want to automate things

[00:23:41.350]
and remove those manual processes

[00:23:43.245]
is because they take months in order to get to a decision.

[00:23:47.870]
And so by automating data,

[00:23:49.740]
having data flow through the cloud

[00:23:51.794]
in a connected way across all of the different applications

[00:23:56.040]
that do a specific task,

[00:23:58.300]
means that ultimately at the end of the day

[00:24:01.390]
is that there’s communication, there’s collaboration

[00:24:05.250]
and there’s better decision-making internally on data

[00:24:09.970]
which is known and a decision can be made.

[00:24:17.210]
<v ->I also think that with the automation</v>

[00:24:19.560]
and removal of some of the menial data management tasks

[00:24:22.560]
and pushing files here and there,

[00:24:24.460]
you’re allowing your highly educated professional workforce

[00:24:28.410]
to spend more time innovating

[00:24:30.100]
and thinking of the next way to solve a problem

[00:24:32.870]
or a better way to solve a problem than just pushing paper.

[00:24:39.530]
<v ->Yeah, exactly.</v>

[00:24:40.680]
Or using Excel to manipulate data (laughing).

[00:24:43.230]
<v ->Correct (laughing).</v>

[00:24:44.970]
<v ->Which, you know, I wonder what’s going to happen, right?</v>

[00:24:47.460]
Because I wonder if now that you can do these work,

[00:24:51.530]
these types of jobs remotely,

[00:24:53.000]
we’ll begin to have like specialists teams

[00:24:55.140]
now that you can maybe outsource these tasks

[00:24:59.352]
to compile that group of work

[00:25:01.426]
and do it maybe in a remote location.

[00:25:02.890]
So a large mining organization can then say,

[00:25:05.230]
have like a geotechnical team and that’s all they do,

[00:25:08.190]
and they do it from a central location,

[00:25:10.190]
I don’t know, in Brisbane,

[00:25:11.023]
that’s the name of nice city of the world,

[00:25:12.940]
and therefore you don’t have to have a distributor,

[00:25:16.050]
you can actually begin to centralize

[00:25:17.310]
and bring those efficiencies.

[00:25:19.600]
<v ->Absolutely.</v>

[00:25:20.580]
And you think about the potential cost savings

[00:25:22.700]
for fly in fly out operations.

[00:25:24.480]
When, you know, sensor technology

[00:25:26.580]
continues to get better

[00:25:27.870]
and imagery continues to get better in video

[00:25:30.698]
and keeping people at home with their families

[00:25:34.010]
and giving them the ability to work in remote locations

[00:25:36.858]
from these nice spots is going to attract, you know,

[00:25:40.070]
talent into the mining industry.

[00:25:42.050]
A lot of talent didn’t show up at the mining industry

[00:25:44.440]
because they didn’t want to fly away for three weeks

[00:25:47.260]
and leave their families behind

[00:25:48.595]
or have to go work in some of these remote locations

[00:25:51.560]
that may be, you know, in the case where I live in Canada,

[00:25:54.290]
could be minus 45, minus 50, you know.

[00:25:57.380]
So I think that there’s some really neat opportunities

[00:25:59.690]
coming down the pipe for the, you know,

[00:26:02.530]
the people that are going to be graduating

[00:26:03.880]
and coming into this space.

[00:26:08.588]
<v ->Yeah, that’s an excellent point.</v>

[00:26:09.560]
And it’s something really to think about it

[00:26:11.260]
’cause we’re seeing it in other areas of specialty

[00:26:13.940]
is like companies who do adopt cloud technology

[00:26:16.770]
and make it easier for people to work from home

[00:26:20.100]
or work in other locations

[00:26:22.387]
are going to be the ones that attract those resources

[00:26:25.730]
more than companies that require you

[00:26:27.990]
to be working in a minus 45 degree weather,

[00:26:32.310]
somewhere in the middle of nowhere (laughing).

[00:26:39.600]
What about COVID, has COVID changed that situation at all?

[00:26:42.440]
Or has it brought light onto the subject

[00:26:44.470]
or have we seen a difference in adoption because of COVID,

[00:26:48.080]
how’s COVID affected the way people use

[00:26:52.150]
and view the cloud, Federico?

[00:26:55.950]
<v ->Well, I guess I can share my personal experience.</v>

[00:26:59.079]
I don’t know if the others can comment,

[00:27:00.470]
but from our experience is since January,

[00:27:03.830]
we kind of duplicated insides

[00:27:06.360]
and it’s very sad that it was because of COVID, you know,

[00:27:08.850]
that actually made this happen,

[00:27:10.600]
but I think it does show what the future entails, right.

[00:27:13.890]
I think that remote working

[00:27:16.050]
is going to continue to be the trend

[00:27:19.303]
and we’ll continue to do that.

[00:27:21.730]
So these types of technologies enable remote working

[00:27:25.340]
and they’re here to stay.

[00:27:27.940]
So COVID has actually helped the adoption of our solution,

[00:27:31.740]
for sure.

[00:27:32.630]
I wonder what do you…

[00:27:33.463]
Was it the same for the others in the group?

[00:27:37.740]
<v ->I can say that absolutely we saw a similar sort of rise</v>

[00:27:42.010]
in customer base based on COVID, you know,

[00:27:45.140]
which again, you know,

[00:27:46.050]
it’s a really sad thing to have happened, obviously.

[00:27:48.230]
And I think it just put a light on the fact that, you know,

[00:27:52.170]
it’s important to be able to work in this fashion.

[00:27:54.845]
And I’ll say that in the exploration industry,

[00:27:57.625]
people needed this anyway, you know,

[00:28:00.480]
if you look at the typical exploration project,

[00:28:03.300]
you’ve got some people at site, maybe logging core,

[00:28:06.450]
you’ve got a project geo running it

[00:28:08.190]
from say a Vancouver head office.

[00:28:10.170]
You might have somebody looking at the QA/QC

[00:28:12.739]
on assay data from somewhere in Australia,

[00:28:16.330]
they were already working like this.

[00:28:18.120]
I think this just sort of hit the fast forward button

[00:28:21.850]
on things a little bit.

[00:28:25.490]
<v ->Yeah, just to, you know, to add onto that,</v>

[00:28:28.150]
there was a great joke that made the rounds

[00:28:30.840]
about what inspired or what drove you

[00:28:33.120]
or your digital transformation strategy,

[00:28:35.130]
was it the CTO, was it the CEO, or was the COVID?

[00:28:38.744]
And then the answer (chuckles) was COVID.

[00:28:41.240]
So, you know, we’re seeing in our space

[00:28:45.220]
something practical as, as you know,

[00:28:47.420]
the number of seats that can be occupied in the truck

[00:28:49.570]
to go out to the field and take a measurement

[00:28:51.795]
and take a reading.

[00:28:52.900]
In the past, you know, four seats,

[00:28:55.660]
now two, sometimes one,

[00:28:57.490]
and just that limit on resources

[00:28:59.080]
is something that you don’t always think about

[00:29:01.101]
but it certainly impacts your time to getting that data

[00:29:04.127]
and your time to decision making.

[00:29:08.010]
<v ->Yeah, similar to everyone else here, we grew,</v>

[00:29:11.960]
we doubled almost tripled in size in the last year.

[00:29:14.520]
So again, COVID for us actually drove more adoption

[00:29:18.310]
and it actually brought more collaboration

[00:29:20.360]
and I’m sure everyone else had the same experience.

[00:29:23.460]
But there’s geologists sitting at home now

[00:29:26.530]
that at the end of the day

[00:29:28.660]
can see how many meters were drilled on site yesterday

[00:29:31.100]
and what happened, which they couldn’t do before

[00:29:33.890]
unless they were physically on site

[00:29:35.420]
or call someone to get an answer.

[00:29:37.110]
So it’s definitely driven the adoption

[00:29:39.990]
and there’s that need for it.

[00:29:42.560]
So yeah, it is definitely helped push that along.

[00:29:50.010]
<v ->Yeah, we certainly saw an uptake</v>

[00:29:52.280]
in the use of cloud technology at Seequent as well, so.

[00:29:57.844]
<v ->Let me-</v>
<v ->One last question,</v>

[00:29:58.921]
oh, sorry, go ahead.

[00:30:01.710]
<v ->I was just kind of questioning, right.</v>

[00:30:04.020]
Like we know, if you’ve heard on LinkedIn

[00:30:07.870]
or read on LinkedIn

[00:30:08.703]
that maybe minerals are the new oil, right.

[00:30:11.187]
And so the economy is going to transition

[00:30:12.980]
that we’re going to require more and more metals for evolution.

[00:30:19.066]
And how is that going to happen without efficiencies, right?

[00:30:23.450]
So if we continue driving the same systems

[00:30:26.860]
that you’ve been driving historically,

[00:30:29.830]
I don’t think that the level of growth

[00:30:33.789]
will get us there.

[00:30:35.780]
However, you know, the adoption of these new technologies

[00:30:38.260]
like the digitalization of these workflows

[00:30:43.170]
to these cloud technologies is showing to be the answer,

[00:30:46.740]
not just because of COVID,

[00:30:47.840]
but I think it is the answer to be cut

[00:30:49.770]
to bring these efficiencies to this science.

[00:30:52.710]
<v ->Hmm, yeah, that’s a really good, good point</v>

[00:30:57.290]
that you raised, Federico.

[00:31:01.030]
I have one last question I was going to ask,

[00:31:03.450]
and it really just comes back

[00:31:04.920]
to what advice we can give companies

[00:31:07.784]
who maybe aren’t using the cloud yet

[00:31:11.450]
or maybe are starting to look at cloud technologies,

[00:31:14.002]
how do they get started?

[00:31:16.940]
And just any kind of tips for them.

[00:31:23.850]
David, did you want to answer first?

[00:31:25.640]
<v ->Sure, I can.</v>

[00:31:26.520]
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:27.620]
So I think one thing to keep in mind

[00:31:30.200]
is that the barrier to entry with a cloud native application

[00:31:35.710]
is quite a bit less than say something that’s on prem.

[00:31:38.490]
There’s no, like Federico mentioned earlier,

[00:31:40.700]
you don’t have to hire a consultant to come to your site,

[00:31:44.200]
spend some time analyzing what you do

[00:31:46.390]
and then fitting the solution

[00:31:47.980]
and making sure that you have the infrastructure in place

[00:31:49.880]
and everything like that.

[00:31:50.713]
And then that doesn’t become something

[00:31:51.780]
that you have to maintain.

[00:31:53.110]
So in terms of trying out something, you can get in

[00:31:58.100]
and you can try all these types of software quite easily

[00:32:01.280]
with fairly minimal effort.

[00:32:03.510]
And then you can start to see outcomes pretty quickly

[00:32:07.670]
and determine how that’s going to impact your business

[00:32:10.780]
or benefit your business

[00:32:11.818]
without turning it into a six month long project

[00:32:16.170]
or anything like that.

[00:32:20.359]
<v ->I kind of, your question brought a conversation</v>

[00:32:24.134]
I recently had with a colleague after our acquisition,

[00:32:27.454]
which may not specifically

[00:32:29.140]
be how to get started with the cloud,

[00:32:31.070]
but her comment was, you know,

[00:32:34.097]
“now that Imago is part of a larger organization,

[00:32:39.440]
how will it transform”?

[00:32:42.690]
And I guess what this change means

[00:32:45.850]
is that we can get to a larger audience quicker,

[00:32:52.790]
but it’s also important

[00:32:53.910]
for these companies that are getting started

[00:32:55.780]
is that they support all the smaller organizations

[00:32:59.490]
that are getting started as well.

[00:33:02.060]
So I think one important thing to get started with cloud

[00:33:04.310]
as well is just make sure

[00:33:05.760]
that you give everyone who’s in cloud chance,

[00:33:08.108]
not just the larger players, right,

[00:33:10.500]
because the richer the ecosystem

[00:33:12.020]
the better we’re all going to be.

[00:33:17.838]
<v ->I can add to that as well.</v>

[00:33:20.610]
You know, like David’s point

[00:33:22.250]
is a lot of cloud technologies are easy to trial,

[00:33:24.740]
they don’t take a month to implement,

[00:33:26.370]
you can have the software up and running

[00:33:28.470]
and run a couple of reports

[00:33:29.830]
and see if the system works for you or not.

[00:33:32.350]
It’s the best to just get in there and try it out.

[00:33:36.290]
Again, touching to my point, you know,

[00:33:38.058]
with the risks of cloud based technologies

[00:33:40.710]
and people’s fear of data security, again, it’s trust.

[00:33:44.580]
And to Federico’s point,

[00:33:45.690]
some of these small companies getting started

[00:33:47.800]
they’re not going to have all of the infrastructure

[00:33:50.930]
or some of the, you know, audit capabilities yet,

[00:33:55.110]
but if you trust them

[00:33:56.310]
and they tell you that they’re securing your data,

[00:33:59.730]
that it’s encrypted at rest, you have to trust these guys,

[00:34:04.130]
you have to trust people and experience the software

[00:34:07.080]
because that’s where the benefit is going to come for you.

[00:34:10.030]
And again, also judge on what data needs to be protected

[00:34:13.830]
and what level of protection you need.

[00:34:21.209]
<v ->That’s good.</v>

[00:34:22.850]
Thank you everyone for being here today.

[00:34:25.291]
Before, we kind of close out,

[00:34:27.410]
did anyone have any closing comments

[00:34:28.930]
or anything to add to the discussion

[00:34:31.340]
that I haven’t asked questions about

[00:34:34.130]
or any last pieces of information?

[00:34:42.560]
Nope, all good, okay.

[00:34:43.693]
(all laughing)
Great.

[00:34:46.327]
Well, thank you to our panelists for being here today

[00:34:49.460]
for the great discussion

[00:34:51.050]
and for our audience, thank you for joining us.

[00:34:55.530]
And we look forward to seeing you

[00:34:59.370]
for the rest of the Lyceum sessions.

[00:35:03.340]
(digital music)