‘ICT means more than technology here’

Laura has been working for exactly 7 months for the IND as a data scientist and soon had an interesting project: contributing a case to a hackathon at Delft University of Technology. 'Back to my former school',  she says. 'The University of Technology organised this hackathon and we participated in it together with I-Partnership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We wanted to see if we as  an immigration service could be inspired by students with a fresh perspective on  asylum flows. We prepared a case  for them to work on in groups for 24 hours.  We asked the students whether they were able to visualise and predict the influx of asylum seekers on the basis of public geodata. Such geodata can be anything. From weather reports to political developments, or escape routes discussed on social media.'

Working to deliver something important

Data Services of the Immigration Service is a young and innovative department that has not yet existed for a long time. Laura´s studies and work experience however proved to be perfectly in line with it. She concluded her study programme Technical Informatics at the university in Delft with a Master’s  degree in Data Science, so she could then start working as a consultant at a large organisation for business consultancy. ‘I was often involved in legislation and its implementation’ she says. ‘About a year ago the work started to pall on me. It was dry as dust. But that was not even the biggest problem. It felt as if I was working just to work. I do not want that. I want to work to deliver something important. Something that matters.'

Predicting the unforeseen

The ICT expert herself did not immediately think of the IND when she went job-hunting. 'It was a recruiter who approached me and made me enthusiastic about the Data Services Department. I instantly envisaged what I could do there. Now I know that I have made the right choice. The IND is a large organisation and deals with many complex cases. Data science can help to make predictions on the basis of unstructured historical data or trend analyses – developments which the IND almost always has to deal with.' Responsiveness is the term that the IND uses for this internally: the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to developments in the outside world. Laura: 'Such predictions would not easily be possible without data science. Then you would miss the insights that enable you to respond quickly to unforeseen circumstances. And the  latter is what is constantly demanded of the IND.'

New insights gained

As hoped, the hackathon in Delft provided Laura and her co-workers with several insights. 'The IND is always faced with peak busy periods. Major incidents in the world come over and above the ‘normal’ peaks and troughs – which for example can depend on the seasons. If war breaks out somewhere, it is to be expected that more people will come to the Netherlands.' During the hackathon, the students appeared to focus mainly on quantifying those expectations.' Then exactly how many people will come? And when will they come? Laura: 'One group came up with a map of the whole world. Others came up with a list of countries from which a high or low influx was expected. In the time to come, we will begin to work with their insights. Really cool to be  doing this!'

Using smart search algorithms

Meanwhile Laura has become involved in more projects. 'Another project  I am participating in is about client channels. Many people  try to contact the IND about their asylum applications. They do so in different ways and via different channels. Our team uses smart search algorithms to clarify those questions so that we can make the work of our co-workers easier and more efficient. For example, can we improve the list of Frequently Asked Questions if it becomes evident that many chat questions are about the same  topic? With these types of insights we will even be able to make many more improvements or recommendations.'

Do not leave people too long in uncertainty

There is another project Laura is very enthusiastic about. 'That is still in the experimental stage. But we want to learn to predict approximately how long an individual asylum application will take. We will do so on the basis of different aspects, such as the country of origin and the type of application. Then we want to use those data to  be more transparent towards the applicant. To indicate more precisely about how long they need to wait for the IND to decide, instead of only mentioning the statutory decision period. That is after all a bit more customer-friendly for people who often have to live in uncertainty for a long time.'

Contribution with technical knowledge

According to Laura the outside world expects the IND to be very flexible. 'I see that reflected within the organisation. I have not worked here that long, but within the IND there are opportunities to experiment. To try. We also actively contact many co-workers within the organisation. What are they faced with in practice? What are they dealing with in  the workplace? And how can we use ICT and data to help to improve this? I feel that we are going to gain a lot of efficiency in the years to come with all the new insights and innovations. It makes me very happy that I can contribute to this with my technical knowledge.'