For a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating avoidable blindness across the globe, every dollar saved on operational overhead is a dollar that can be redirected to life-changing medical procedures. The Fred Hollows Foundation, with its extensive humanitarian footprint, found itself at a critical crossroads where its aging, on-premises IT infrastructure was becoming a significant impediment to its mission. The inflexibility and high cost of maintaining this legacy system posed a direct challenge to the organization’s core principle of maximizing the impact of every donation. To overcome this, the Foundation embarked on a strategic, multi-stage cloud adoption journey, partnering with DXC Technology to build a modern, scalable, and cost-effective technology backbone. This strategic shift, culminating in a comprehensive migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS), was not merely a technical upgrade but a fundamental realignment of its resources to better serve its ultimate goal: restoring sight to those in need.
A Global Mission Weighed Down by Old Technology
Since its inception, The Fred Hollows Foundation has made a monumental impact, supporting over one million eye operations and treatments, training tens of thousands of eye health professionals, and operating in 25 countries. This rapid global expansion, however, placed immense strain on an IT environment that was never designed for such scale or complexity. The organization was encumbered by on-premises applications and a fixed, rigid infrastructure that could not adequately support a diverse and highly mobile international workforce. Staff operating in challenging environments within developing nations faced inconsistent and unreliable access to critical services. Complicating matters further was the Foundation’s steadfast refusal to channel its “precious donations” into expensive, proprietary international networks or capital-intensive IT hardware. The central challenge became clear: finding a modern IT solution that could conquer operational complexity and deliver robust, consistent services while adhering to the strictest principles of financial stewardship.
To move forward, the Foundation defined a clear set of requirements for a new operating model that would replace its outdated on-site systems. It needed an external provider capable of delivering a far more flexible, responsive, and affordable alternative. The new solution had to be inherently scalable to support future growth and the expansion of humanitarian programs into new territories. A critical financial requirement was a flexible, operational expenditure (OPEX)-based pricing structure, which would eliminate the need for large, upfront capital investments in hardware. Furthermore, the system needed to maintain the highest levels of security to protect sensitive patient and operational data, ensuring this information was both secure and appropriately available to staff across all its global locations. These criteria set the stage for a strategic shift away from owning and managing physical infrastructure toward a more agile, service-oriented approach that could align technology costs directly with organizational activity and impact.
The Journey to Modernization Through the Cloud
In its quest for a modern IT framework, the Foundation engaged DXC Technology, leveraging the company’s expertise in Hybrid Cloud and migration services to chart a new course. The initial phase of this partnership involved a successful three-month project to move the Foundation’s core business applications from the restrictive on-premises environment to a more agile and OPEX-based virtual private cloud. This carefully managed migration represented the organization’s first significant step away from the limitations of legacy hardware. It was a foundational move that transitioned the Foundation toward a more contemporary, service-based IT model, providing immediate relief from the pressures of managing physical servers and offering a glimpse into the operational efficiencies that modern cloud infrastructure could provide. This initial success built confidence and laid the groundwork for a more ambitious technological evolution in the years to come.
As the Foundation continued to upgrade its business systems and expand its overseas operations, its leadership sought to remain at the forefront of technological advancements. The maturation of public cloud platforms presented a compelling opportunity to achieve even greater benefits in price, performance, and reliability. The goal was to fully capitalize on these advantages to support the mission without increasing overall IT expenditures. This next phase was guided by an unwavering commitment to the organization’s financial principles. As David Tait, an executive at DXC Technology, noted, the ability of The Fred Hollows Foundation to restore a person’s eyesight for just $25 framed every decision. This powerful metric mandated that any technology solution must deliver the absolute best value and generate ongoing savings, as every dollar preserved could directly translate into another person’s sight being restored. This philosophy transformed the conversation from one of simple IT upgrades to one of strategic investment in the mission itself.
Executing a Seamless Transition to AWS
Recognizing the need for expert guidance, the Foundation once again turned to DXC’s cloud consulting services to orchestrate the next critical phase of its journey. As a Premier AWS Partner with certified competencies in large-scale migrations, DXC was uniquely positioned to develop a comprehensive business case for transitioning the Foundation’s entire IT environment from the existing private cloud to the public cloud on Amazon Web Services. The scope of this ambitious project was holistic, involving not only the intricate migration of all systems but also the adoption of DXC’s Public Cloud managed services for AWS. This managed service offering was crucial, providing critical ongoing support for the operating system and implementing advanced infrastructure security services. This approach ensured that the Foundation would benefit from a complete, end-to-end solution, encompassing both the complex transition and the long-term, expert management of the new environment.
The execution of the migration was a masterclass in efficiency and careful planning. DXC meticulously managed the numerous complexities and interdependencies inherent in such a large-scale platform transition, successfully minimizing any business impact or disruption to the Foundation’s vital daily operations around the world. The process began with a successful pilot migration, a crucial step that allowed the team to test and refine the technical solution, tools, and processes in a controlled setting before the full-scale rollout. Following this preparatory phase, the entire migration of the Foundation’s IT landscape was completed in just two months. This remarkably swift and seamless execution ensured that the organization’s global teams could continue their sight-saving work without interruption, underscoring the value of expert-led planning and a well-defined migration strategy.
A Vision for a More Effective Future
The completed public cloud migration proved to be a transformative success for The Fred Hollows Foundation, delivering significant and measurable value across several key areas. The move to AWS provided the scalable, flexible, responsive, and affordable solution with high levels of IT security that the organization had initially required. Luke van Leeuwen, Director of Information and Management Technology at The Foundation, confirmed that all main on-premises business applications were successfully migrated into AWS with minimal business impact and noticeable gains in performance. He expressed confidence that the change would yield real benefits in resilience, cost, and accessibility across the global organization. The Foundation now possessed the considerable peace of mind that came with knowing its core IT services were expertly managed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the combined expertise of DXC and AWS. This strategic evolution, from a private cloud to the public cloud, created a technologically advanced and financially sustainable infrastructure that allowed the organization to focus its resources more effectively than ever on its life-changing mission.
