As the pandemic continues to affect our daily lives, 2021 has taught us that maybe we are more resilient than we knew. Here at Maven Wave, it’s certain that nobody could have predicted how the past year would unfold. But our dedicated Mavens made this year one to remember and celebrate, despite its unpredictable nature. From helping clients address pandemic-related needs, to growing our team’s skills through specializations and a notable acquisition, to opening our new headquarters, we have plenty to be excited about. As we prepare to take on 2022, let’s first take a moment to reflect back on how far we’ve come with our 2021 highlights.
Being Named Google Cloud Social Impact Partner of the Year
One big accomplishment to celebrate as we look back on the year is our first-time win, alongside Atos, of Google Cloud’s Social Impact Partner of the Year award. Earned from our work on four very impactful projects, this award is especially meaningful in the current global climate, as it highlights vital initiatives that have made a notable difference in the world during the pandemic.
In case you missed our blog highlighting these initiatives, here’s a quick overview on the four contributing projects:
1. Boosting Telehealth Adoption During the Pandemic with Google Meet
Through a partnership with Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), we deployed the first telehealth services via Google Meet and Epic that support HIPAA compliance. Maven Wave launched compliant Google Meet video conferencing capabilities integrated with Epic in a few short weeks to help CHA serve patients throughout COVID-19 and into the future.
2. Combating the Opioid Crisis with Data
Few people realize that the ongoing opioid crisis worsened in severity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the reporting problem with the crisis, Maven Wave, in conjunction with the University of Texas at Austin, built a digital platform for overdose reporting and tracking, hosted on Google Cloud. The goal of the platform was to provide a resource to look at real-time data visualizations so that geographic hot spots could be identified and life-saving medications could be directed to locations that need them most.
The University of Texas at Austin was also recognized with a Google Cloud Customer Award in the Education category this year for this groundbreaking project.
3. Ushering in Economic Recovery with Virtual Career Centers
Observing the alarming number of Rhode Islanders who were losing their jobs during the pandemic, Governor Gina Raimondo took action to find a way to alleviate the unemployment benefit filings by finding a way to get people back to work using advanced technologies. Governor Raimondo, the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training and Google Cloud began developing an innovative, data-driven, user-friendly online platform known as the Virtual Career Center.
Maven Wave helped design the platform, which is powered by Google Cloud, to leverage innovative technologies that would help Rhode Islanders get back to work. With the completion of the project, Maven Wave built and delivered the first and most innovative workforce development program of its kind in the U.S.
4. Fighting Climate Change with Net Zero Commitment
Atos became a trend setter in 2020 for what we feel is one of the most impactful commitments that could’ve been made: setting out to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2035. By doing so, Atos established one of the highest sustainability-related standards for our industry, and ambitiously pledged to achieve that benchmark 15 years ahead of the U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change.
Through this commitment, Atos will reduce the emissions under its direct control by half by 2025 and achieve the same reduction for its remaining emissions by 2030. For all emissions under its control, Atos will offset 100% of its residual emissions through certified carbon offsetting projects.
Maven Wave, in conjunction with Atos, is proud to be an innovative, consultative force for enterprises during this unpredictable time. We couldn’t be more proud to be honored by Google for these initiatives with the Social Impact Partner of the Year award.
Taking Data Analytics to New Heights with Visual BI
The way we use and embrace technology and data changed dramatically during the pandemic, and it certainly will continue on this trajectory as we recover and move forward. We recognized this organization-wide, so much so that our cloud operations were further bolstered by Atos’ recent acquisition of Visual BI over the summer.
Visual BI, one of the leading and fastest-growing firms focusing exclusively on cloud data analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) in the U.S., will advance Atos’ and Maven Wave’s mission to deliver data cloud transformations at scale.
“Atos has made it its mission to help businesses easily and safely mobilize and leverage data from multiple sources to fuel decision making. With the acquisition of Visual BI, we gain access to a broader set of analytics capabilities and tools, greatly enhancing our customers’ ability to tackle their most complex business challenges using data,” said Wim Los, SVP Cloud Enterprise Solutions at Atos. “This strategic acquisition allows us to further accelerate our global leadership in data-driven transformation, in line with the recent launch of our Atos Digital Hub initiative.”
If you missed our previous blog that explained this exciting new partnership in-depth, check it out here.
Partnering with CommonSpirit Health on its Google Workspace Migration
During the height of the pandemic, CommonSpirit Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit healthcare systems, embarked on a tricky mission: migrating employees nationwide to Google Workspace. CommonSpirit Health’s migration to Google Workspace represents the largest Google Workspace migration by a healthcare company to date at 165,000 employees, spread across more than 1,000 care sites in 21 states.
Starting in August 2020, the hospital system partnered with Google Cloud and Maven Wave on one massive collaboration platform migration. Over the eight months that followed:
- 70,000 clinicians and business users were trained.
- 217,000 mailboxes were migrated.
- 801 million emails were migrated.
- 417 training sessions were delivered.
By all accounts, the project to enable remote collaboration and care during a global pandemic was a success. Read our blog post to learn more about the challenges CommonSpirit faced and the details of the migration.
Earning the Google Cloud SAP Specialization
In 2021, we continued to prove our value to our clients by achieving our 11th specialization in the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program. This latest specialization, for SAP on Google Cloud, demonstrates that Maven Wave and Atos have developed solutions that integrate with and accelerate deployment of customer SAP solutions running on Google Cloud infrastructure.
Through Google Cloud and SAP, one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, Maven Wave and Atos centralize and accelerate enterprises’ data management systems. With Google Cloud as the foundation for SAP, enterprises are driving agility, efficiency, and innovation on a secure cloud with advanced reliability, network, and uptime performance.
Read more about the full details of the specialization here.
Being Recognized as a Great Place to Work™
Our people are at the heart of everything we do here at Maven Wave, so we could not be more thrilled to have secured, for the fifth year in a row, our certification as a Great Place to Work®. According to Maven Wave’s Great Place to Work profile, 95% of Maven Wave’s employees say it’s a great workplace “compared to 59% of employees at a typical U.S.-based company.”
According to John Cipolla, Head of Cloud Enterprise Solutions, North America & Emerging Markets, our cultural element is critically important. As he puts it, “The people are the company, and the company brings out the best in the people.” Ultimately, a strong team culture culminates in meaningful work and an unwavering commitment to Maven Wave’s company values and, by extension, going above and beyond for our clients.
And for the fourth year in a row, Maven Wave has secured a spot (#14) on the Great Place to Work-Certified™ Best Workplaces in Chicago™ 2021 list, also based on employee feedback.
Maven Wave employees told Great Place to Work-Certified™, “Our culture dictates that we work hard, but also that we respect each other, are open to new ideas, and work together to achieve new and exciting business goals for our clients.”
Opening Our New Chicago HQ
In a year where we mainly stayed connected digitally, another huge milestone for Maven Wave actually came in physical form. We opened our new headquarters office in Chicago with only a few weeks left in the year. A celebration for our employees gave them a chance to check out the new space, catch up with coworkers in person over good food and drinks, and give back to the community by assembling newborn kits for local families in need. Check out the photo gallery below for some pictures from the celebration!
As we close the chapter on another year unlike any before, we are eternally grateful for our team, our fearless leaders, and our partnerships with other like-minded and innovation-forward companies continuing to raise the bar for what we can accomplish together.
We hope you have a healthy, joyful holiday season! We look forward to partnering on new innovations in 2022.
CULTURE
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