Employees

Chief Information Officer

Employee Name:

Dave Nikolejsin

Title:

Chief Information Officer

Ministry:

Ministry of Citizens' Services

Background:

Education: Diploma, Electronics Engineering Technology (Saskatchewan Technical Institute)
A member of the BC Public Service since: 1989

My Role: I am the chief technology and information strategist for the entire provincial government, so I am responsible for strategy, architecture, standards and policies in the technology and information management space. We look at everything from security, to information sharing, to privacy, to technology itself. We support ministry strategies and help ministries apply technology to their big business problems. We also support major IT initiatives; my office negotiated the agreement with Microsoft for advanced collaboration. My office is accountable for the integrated case management project in the social sector, which brings integrated case management studies across the public sector. We act as the trusted, neutral third party to lead various ministries through their projects.

Career Path:

I've been a Chief Information Officer for just over three years. I started as a junior technical analyst in network operations of BC Systems and eventually became manager of D-Net network operations. I've also been head of engineering, head of planning, director for all of the networks and executive director for all of BC Systems' services. I then transitioned into leading the Digital Divide project for the government.

What I Like Best:

I think the best part of my job is that we have permission and are encouraged to be innovative. Risk taking isn't just tolerated; it's encouraged, which makes my job very interesting. An important part of why I've stayed in government is the great work environment and the fact that I get to do a lot of different things; it's constantly stimulating. That's worth a lot.

Ideas At Work:

I think that in the IT space, we are the solution to a lot of problems that are happening in the environmental sector. If you look at some of the problems with sustainability, technology is often a large part of the solution. We help to give British Columbians access to a wide range of services, such as E-health. We get visibility into all of those key policy issues. One of the largest projects I was a part of was Digital Divide, where we brought broadband internet connectivity to a huge part of the province; people who once couldn't access information online now have the ability to do so. Based on the success of this project, we plan to have the entire province covered.

Advice:

You have to have a passion for innovation and for making a difference. You need to bring that creativity to work and communicate your enthusiasm. If you can rally people to a cause, this is the perfect spot to be. The more typically successful people in this area have a basic technology background, but you have to want to learn, because whatever education you come into, it's obsolete a year later. It's important that you are interested in continuous learning and keep yourself on the front end of that curve.