I’m often asked by others how McAfee chooses the types of initiatives we support around the world. While we have certain guidelines for eligibility and a weighting to organizations in our local communities, there are two other important criteria: the opportunity for partnerships and use of technology.

Earlier this week, McAfee, together with the government of Canada, announced our joining of the Digital Inclusion Partnership in Canada. This public-private partnership is focused on reducing and preventing homelessness by ensuring that homeless shelters across Canada have access to the technology resources they need to collect and share essential information on homelessness in Canada. As part of our role, McAfee is contributing security products and expertise to the 450+ homeless shelters across Canada that participate in the shelter network.

Member of Parliament Gary Goodyear welcomes McAfee partnership

To celebrate this news, we joined government and shelter officials at an announcement event hosted at the Cambridge Shelter in Cambridge, Ontario, just a few kilometers from our Waterloo office. The Cambridge Shelter, which opened in recent years, includes a 40 bed shelter, 3 family shelter units and 20 units of affordable housing for homeless people in Cambridge. Our Canadian General Manager, Danielle Fournier, joined with the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Member of Parliament for Waterloo, and Anne Tinker, Executive Director of Cambridge Shelter, for the event.

From left to right: Goodyear, Tinker, Fournier

By bringing together the resources and expertise of government, the shelter network, community organizations and industry, each organization brings its strengths and resources to the partnership. The Canadian government provides essential funding, strategies and bridge-building; shelters bring their core expertise of providing essential services to homeless individuals and families; and McAfee brings our security products, services and expertise.

Anne Tinker of Cambridge Shelter demonstrates HIFIS and McAfee protection to MP Goodyear and Danielle Fournier, McAfee Canadian General Manager

We also were inspired by the opportunity to leverage the power of technology. As part of its national strategy to address homelessness, the Canadian government has rolled out the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) to shelters across Canada. Providing shelters with the HIFIS technology and additional IT resources from the Digital Inclusion Partnership has allowed these shelters to gain access to critical IT resources while building networks to share knowledge and better understand homelessness in Canada. To address the risk of this sensitive information falling victim to cyber threats and attacks, McAfee stepped in with our donation of products and services to the 450 shelters.

As Anne Tinker of the Cambridge Shelter mentioned in her remarks, the value of industry support such as this lies in the fact that it allows those organizations with very limited resources, time and energy to focus on where they are needed: providing direct services to those in need.