2022 has been one of our strongest yet as a company. Full credit to our amazing team and customers for giving us so many reasons to celebrate! Our CEO Visay shares some personal highlights

I am incredibly proud of the hard work and commitment our team has shown, and what we have achieved with our clients and partners. Some personal team and company growth highlights for me at the end of this year are:

Projects and Partners

Together with our parent and sister companies, we have expanded into the US market, co-delivering technical solutions that serve communities with hundreds and thousands of users.

We have successfully brought to fruition a long-term strategy of delivering more "ICT for Development" or "ICT4D" projects. ICT4D is about creating technical solutions that help people in need and equip the individuals and organizations working to support them. At the end of 2022, a large percentage of the work we do falls into this category, with an ever-increasing number of partnerships with government departments, NGOs and local representatives. The ICT4D solutions we have contributed to this year span health, environment, social protection and education - building a legacy in Cambodia and beyond that our whole team can be proud of!

Our team celebrate the launch of the new IDPoor system along with around 200 other attendees at the event

We have celebrated impressive client milestones, such as the October launch of the new web system for the IDPoor nationwide social protection project, and recognition of OpenTeleRehab - the open source, multidisciplinary, telerehabilitation software solution we helped develop for International NGO Humanity & Inclusion - as a "Digital Public Good" - find out more about that here on HI's website.

We are going into next year with many long-term support customers, who continue to trust us year after year to keep their digital products and systems running. 

And what's even more impressive for me about the above projects? They are returning customers. At our Christmas party next week I will be raising a glass to this and our fantastic team: every contract renewal is a testament to the good work they do.

Sustainable Technology

Of the many technologies we have trialed, adopted or dropped this year, deepening and expanding our Java expertise has been particularly rewarding. Frontend wise, we honed our skills in React and Vue JS and took on more mobile projects in ReactNative. These popular open source technologies are sustainable choices for our ICT4D clients, where the solution often needs to be maintained long-term by an inhouse team. They are also popular with our own team and valuable for their personal professional development plans - win win!

I continue to be inspired by our DevOps infrastructure, tools and techniques. Web Essentials has been leading the way in Cambodia with continuous deployment and microservices architecture for years, and I firmly believe our small-but-mighty DevOps Team outpaces large corporations with infra teams many times their size. With increasing expertise in Azure, and new team members onboard, we are scaling up and excited about bringing even more DevOps efficiencies and automation to our clients and internal projects next year.

Both our technical devices and office environment have got an upgrade this year

Amazing Team

Last but not least, I am proud of our people. We have a rock solid team, an ambitious project portfolio, and I see we are now able to onboard and integrate new members in a relatively short space of time, so they also get to feel the satisfaction of contributing as soon as possible.

We have been able to advance our social mission of "developing people", welcoming some junior team members into a sustainable structure without unbalancing the team and project output.

At the end of 2022 our team is also 90% Cambodian, a high statistic I think is also important to celebrate. I am proud to be a Cambodian CEO of a Swiss-founded, US-Cambodian owned, Cambodian-led, social entrepreneurship success story. We have demonstrated how to effectively collaborate with local and international experts and clients to create solutions that change the way people live and work together.

Having fun in the rain on our trip to Sihanoukville

And after all this success, we have been able to take some time to celebrate! As well as the return of birthdays and after work parties, the first post-Covid annual trip to Sihanoukville in June this year was a big highlight for me, and a well-deserved thank you for all of the hard work everyone has put in over the year.

What's coming in 2023

What an exceptional year 2022 has been. Next year, I can't wait to get stuck into new projects and partnerships, to improve and build on the products we have already delivered, and welcome new team members to be a part of our story.

Are you looking for a tech job in Phnom Penh? International expert looking for a rewarding sabbatical opportunity in Cambodia? Customer interested to hear more about our recent projects and ICT4D experience? Contact our team and we'll be happy to help you further

Visay Keo

Visay Keo

Our CEO Visay is an avid technologist with over 15 years experience in software development, web applications, IT infrastructure automation, quality assurance and leadership. He has had many roles within Web Essentials including Senior Developer, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Quality Manager and DevOps Manager. A key skill is his ability to bridge the communication gap between technical and non-technical people.