eCommerce Transactions, Network Security

The Client

More than one billion people live in extreme poverty—that is, they try to live on less than one dollar per day. Through a unique network of 134 country offices, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) helps poor people in 174 countries and territories. The UNDP focuses on eliminating poverty, regenerating the environment, creating jobs, and advancing women in society. In support of these goals, UNDP is frequently asked to help promote sound governance and market development, and to support rebuilding societies in the aftermath of war and humanitarian emergencies.

The Challenge

In a new approach to supporting and funding its activities, UNDP and Cisco Systems—as the primary sponsor and underwriter—conceived a project to bring together leaders in technology, entertainment, and social change. In an unprecedented event, UNDP combined the power of the Internet, the reach of television and radio, and the energy and impact of world-class artists to fight extreme poverty. Netaid.org, the Web site that UNDP envisioned, was created and built to handle large volumes of traffic driven by webcast concerts. It had to support complex, distributed environments (multi-site and multi-server configurations) and seamlessly integrate television and Web media. And the site had to be designed with the flexibility to include more diverse content, including chat rooms, classified ads that match resources and needs, portal functions that link people with leading anti-poverty organizations around the world, and more.

The Solution

Acting as a key sponsor, BearingPoint developed one of the largest websites ever created—capable of handling 60 million hits per hour and up to 1,000 eCommerce transactions per second—in an unprecedented 90 days. Using best-of-breed eCommerce security applications, BearingPoint developed the payment gateway, the credit card data repository, and an intelligent front-end form for donors to use to enter their transactions on the Netaid site. As a result, the site was capable of securely processing a high volume of credit card donations while detecting fraudulent or invalid transactions.

The consulting team also designed and deployed a content management system that uses standard templates to enable different content providers to maintain a common look and feel across all media. The content management system functions in real time, and is capable of making global changes across all media on the fly. BearingPoint also implemented an Internet-based resource matching system that used two linked databases to match volunteer services and donations of goods and funds to the needs of nonprofit organizations.

The Benefits

In its first major event—a webcast of three concerts held simultaneously in New York, London, and Geneva—Netaid set a world record for the largest Internet broadcast event for a single day. More than 40 millions hits from people in 160 countries were recorded on the Netaid site. Nearly 2.5 million streams of the Netaid concerts were seen by visitors to the site. Subsequently, Netaid was able to award grants totaling $1.7 million to nongovernmental organizations involved in the fight against extreme poverty in Africa and Kosovo. "Netaid already has succeeded, as never before, in engaging vast numbers of people and connecting them with the world’s leading anti-poverty organizations and agencies," said Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of UNDP.

Visit Netaid.org