Bishop Museum to Increase Access to Resources, Collections with the Help of Booz Allen Hamilton

Bishop Museum's Digital Futures Initiative aims to modernize the Museum's IT infrastructure and expand its digital operations with the goal to dramatically increase digital access to its knowledge and collections

*Honolulu, Hawaiʻi* — Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum has embarked on a Digital Futures Initiative to modernize its IT infrastructure, build on its long digital legacy, and enable its future in Informatics. The goal is to make dramatically more accessible the Museum's knowledge and resources on Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, which includes over 25 million collection items and natural science specimens. A comprehensive consultation from Booz Allen Hamilton will provide guidance for the initiative, which aims to create a globally linked infrastructure that allows the Museum to digitize, database, and expand the accessibility of its collections data.

"Museums are caretakers of the world's primary source material, and Bishop Museum is the largest caretaker of the cultural and natural heritage of Hawai'i and the Pacific," said Melanie Ide, president & CEO of Bishop Museum. "This initiative is our roadmap and commitment to make this priceless knowledge and data accessible to the world through digital means. It will be a long journey, but the team at Booz Allen Hamilton has brought the depth and range of their expertise to bear in ensuring that we have a plan that will lead us to our intended destination."

The initiative officially launched at the end of 2020 with Booz Allen Hamilton's Honolulu office working closely with the firm's corporate Community Impact + Philanthropy team to provide consultation services to Bishop Museum. The comprehensive, cross-disciplined consultation assessed the current state of Bishop Museum's IT organization including cybersecurity and change management. Booz Allen Hamilton then provided a summary of their findings to assist the Museum with creating a roadmap to modernization, and identified areas of high priority to update first.

The end goal of the initiative is a globally linked infrastructure that will dramatically increase access to collections data, of which less than five percent is currently accessible to the general public. Beyond access, the modernization will make the data more secure, efficient, and flexible, while opening the possibility of more robust virtual tours, immersive experiences, and data analytics for researchers in a time when the COVID‐19 pandemic has made digital access to resources essential.

"Booz Allen Hamilton's recommendations will help us create a technical and organizational roadmap for this initiative, but they made it clear that this transition is not just about technology," said Melissa Tulig, Bishop Museum director of informatics. "Our human resources are essential to the process and we must also focus on training and empowering all our staff to be part of our digital future."

"Booz Allen takes immense pride in our philanthropic efforts within the communities we serve and live. Our collaboration with Bishop Museum to help them modernize into a digital future is the perfect example of how we bring our best and brightest to our community partners," said Ed Barnabas, principal in Booz Allen's Strategic Innovation Group and a leader of the firm's Honolulu office. "Booz Allen has a long history and presence in Hawaiʻi, and the opportunity to work with the Museum, one with such historical and regional significance, is truly an honor. We look forward to being part of this journey that has so much impact on the island and future generations."

"With updated, secured, and globally accessible digital resources, Bishop Museum will better be able to answer novel questions at the interface of science and society," said Ide. "Booz Allen Hamilton has given us confidence that the decisions being made today, and over the next several years, will provide a strong foundation upon which we can build and share our knowledge surrounding the cultural heritage and natural history of Hawai'i and the Pacific."