Pierre de Muelenaere, President & CEO I.R.I.S. Group; Mikel Irizar, SVP Marketing Scytl; Jean-Pierre Marcelle, COO Wallonia Foreign Trade and Investment
I.R.I.S., member of the Canon Group and provider of ‘Content to Process’ technologies, is pleased to announce its partnership with Scytl Secure Electronic Voting S.A.. With the successful delivery of election projects in Ecuador and Honduras, the two companies continue planning further collaboration during 2014.
Scytl is the leading provider of election management and online voting solutions that ensure transparent, secure, accessible and auditable elections. I.R.I.S. specializes in automated document classification and data extraction – to make relevant information available for following processes. Partnering with I.R.I.S., Scytl can further automate election processes to ensure the results are quickly available. The partnership between I.R.I.S. and Scytl started with a challenging project that was realized within a short period of time. Scytl looked for a company that could prove efficient extraction technology to complement their offering for the Ecuadorian elections 2013. The request encompassed supporting the election specific process where: the voting slips were gathered in the polling stations and grouped into reports. These were then scanned and processed in a decentralized scenario in 105 scanning centers. With I.R.I.S.’ advanced extraction technologies, Scytl was able to capture the election results from the reports automatically.
Pablo Sarrias, EVP Corporate Development, Scytl: “We were impressed not only by the excellent extraction technology provided by IRISXtract™ for Documents, but also by I.R.I.S.’ commitment. Our partnership started under extremely challenging conditions – we had two months to deploy 105 scanning centers and to train more than 1,500 people working with the solution. It was challenging, but in the end a resounding success.”
For the Ecuadorian election, the two companies designed a holistic solution which optimized the entire election process. I.R.I.S. state-of-the-art Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) technology and the extraction capabilities of the XContext engine were the missing pieces to Scytl’s end-to-end integrated e-Election Platform. Thanks to the easy integration of I.R.I.S. technologies into subsequent information systems the solution design was very efficient.
I.R.I.S.’ XContext engine is a full-text recognition technology that searches the text for key information based on rule sets – so relevant data can be extracted easily and automatically. Scytl’s e-Election Platform, on the other hand, automates the election process and the counting of votes while ensuring maximum security, transparency, accessibility and auditability. The platform incorporates patented and unique election-specific cryptographic security technology. As regards the Ecuadorian election 2013, the reports were electronically snipped and an audit trail was used for the entire processing of the reports to make sure the results could not be manipulated. All data transfer was recorded and encrypted. For full auditability, employees involved in the processing needed to be authenticated. The data extracted from the reports, as well as any metadata, could then be gathered, subsumed in a data base, and evaluated to check if the results were correct and plausible, and no rigging had been done.
With four elections being handled simultaneously in Ecuador, not only was sophisticated technology key, but also excellent organizational skills were required. Scytl took over the entire election management from start to finish. Manfred Traeger, Sales Director Outsourcing Services, I.R.I.S. AG acknowledges: “We are grateful for partnering with Scytl in this global and demanding environment. They have a strong expertise in election management which coupled with our technology, allows them to carry out elections more efficiently. The election in Ecuador was an exceptional project that made full use of both of our technological capabilities. Automatically processing the reports allowed for the data to be quickly available and to give parties and the community regular reports on the status of the election results.“
Gerard Cervelló Garcia, VP Sales Operations, Scytl: “Working in such a complex market with different country-specific requirements, calls for business partners who are competent, flexible and committed. I.R.I.S. has proven to be such a partner. The project went as specified, not only because we were able to design this excellent solution, but also thanks to the performance of the I.R.I.S. teams before, during and after the election.”
After the successful implementation and joint collaboration supporting the elections in Ecuador and Honduras, Scytl and I.R.I.S. are looking forward to ongoing partnering opportunities across the globe. In recognition of the successful implementation of the joint project in Ecuador, Scytl was recently named the “Best Performing BPO” during the IRISLink 2014 awards ceremony.
About I.R.I.S.
Image Recognition Integrated Systems (I.R.I.S.) is member of the Canon Group and a leading provider of “Content to Process” technologies. I.R.I.S. offers solutions for automatic invoice and order processing, HR and supplier records as well as case management in legal, healthcare, and finance sectors. I.R.I.S. provides technologies and solutions that capture data and information contained in documents, which are relevant to business processes. The goal is to make the data easily available while reducing operating costs.
I.R.I.S. has a headcount of more than 600 employees working in Louvain-la-Neuve and Brussels (Belgium), Aachen (Germany), Orly (France), Windhof (Luxembourg), Amsterdam and Maastricht (The Netherlands), Delray Beach (Florida/USA), Hong-Kong (China), Oslo (Norway), Hellerup (Denmark) and London (UK). The company with the headquarters being located in Belgium was founded in 1987.
The division Products & Technologies is responsible for developing and selling solutions for document classification and data extraction. These solutions are based on the award-winning solution platform IRISXtract™ for Documents. Particularly, in the area of automatic invoice processing I.R.I.S. established a leading position in the market.
About Scytl
Scytl is the global leader in secure election management and electronic voting solutions. Specializing in election modernization technologies, Scytl offers the first end-to-end election management and voting platform, providing the highest security and transparency standards currently available. Scytl has capitalized on its more than 18 years of research to develop election-specific cryptographic security technology protected by more than 40 international patents and patent applications, positioning Scytl as the company with the largest patent portfolio of the industry. Scytl’s solutions have been successfully used in more than 30 countries throughout the world over the last 10 years, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, France, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UAE, India and Australia. Scytl is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain with strategic offices in Canada, the United States, Peru and Greece as well as field offices in the UK, Ukraine, Australia, Malaysia, India and Brazil.
