The HALO Trust uses Microsoft technology to transform global demining

Centralizing Microsoft licensing unlocks funding, visibility, and operational scale

In one of the most legendary images of princess Diana, she is walking through a minefield in Angola, cleared by the specialist deminers of The HALO Trust.

HALO – short for Hazardous Area Life-support Organization – began its important work in 1988 in Afghanistan, where it is still active today alongside more than 30 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

Many of the mines and weapons cleared by HALO are the legacy of old conflicts, such as the civil wars in Angola and Cambodia. But HALO is also on the frontline of more recent conflicts such as Gaza and Ukraine, where it has removed over 42,700 explosives since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Despite global disruptions to foreign aid funding, HALO is pressing ahead with an ambitious program of investments into technologies such as information systems, mine location, and extraction technologies. HALO’s primary focus for its information management strategy is to ensure efficient data flow between the field and its central operations, enabling informed decision-making during minefield operations.

Dan Dickinson joined HALO in 2025 as Director of Information Systems.  “A key part of our strategy involves centralizing IT management,” he says.  “Previously, IT operations were highly federated throughout HALO. With our presence in over 30 countries, consolidating IT oversight within the central team has substantially increased our ability to oversee and manage technological assets.”

The first step was to consolidate HALO’s Microsoft licensing estate.

“When I joined HALO, the organization’s Microsoft licensing estate was fragmented. A lot of it was provisioned through SoftwareOne, and we also bought directly from Microsoft,” he adds.

This fragmentation obscured the true level of HALO’s investment, making it difficult for Microsoft to recognize the trust’s overall value as a partner. The decision was made to consolidate and streamline all aspects of Microsoft licensing through SoftwareOne. 

Dickinson continues: “SoftwareOne didn’t just sell us the licenses but provided expert recommendations on which licenses would best meet the compliance needs and deliver the desired functionalities. For each choice, SoftwareOne selected the most advantageous purchasing agreements and licensing models.”

Cost optimization was particularly important in light of the rapid growth in HALO’s headcount.

“As of now, the organization has reached a total of 2,200 seats,” explains Dickinson. “There are ambitious plans to increase this number, with targets set at 3,000 by the end of 2026, and 3,500 seats by the end of 2027. This expansion reflects significant growth, as in the beginning of 2025, the seat count stood at 1,500.”

He adds: “We bought more licenses to support our expansion but thanks to SoftwareOne, they were the right licenses with the optimal contractual conditions.”

The biggest single advantage of the license consolidation was enrolment onto Microsoft’s list as a directly managed account. “This change has had a substantial impact,” says Dickinson. “Through collaboration with SoftwareOne, we have already unlocked in excess of £100,000 in supported funding from Microsoft [through its Elevate program].”

Dickinson goes on to highlight a conflict zone where the partnership with SoftwareOne is making a difference on the ground.

“We purchased Power Apps through [[SoftwareOne]] and this lowered costs in Ukraine by about two-thirds because they’d been buying them independently. This cost reduction enabled the deployment of a greater number of applications, enhancing operational capacity without increasing expenditure. As a result, teams in Ukraine have expanded their use of Power Apps to cover functions such as fuel management, fleet management, and training.”

Unified data platform gives granular insight into global demining workforce

The second pillar of the partnership with SoftwareOne was the adoption of Microsoft Fabric, an all-in-one, AI-powered SaaS analytics platform that unifies data engineering, warehousing, data science, real-time intelligence, and PowerBI into a single, cohesive experience.

Funding for this project came from the Microsoft Elevate scheme.

“Fabric has proven to be a significant asset for our organization, particularly in the area of workforce management,” says Dickinson. “Most recently, we have used Fabric to consolidate and analyze staffing information across the entire organization – a capability we previously lacked.”

HALO employs considerably more people than the 2,300 employees using its Microsoft services; the bulk of its workforce consists of 8,500 deminers who are not active users of the organization’s technological systems. Their identities and key details are maintained within HALO’s systems, but they themselves do not directly interact with the technology.

“Fabric provides essential insight into our workforce by accurately recording who the deminers are, their deployment locations, and which donors are funding their activities,” Dickinson explains.

“A core aspect of my role involves ensuring that we deliver precise and meaningful information back to our donors, demonstrating the tangible impact of their support. Donors – typically state actors – often require very detailed reports, sometimes down to specifying which deminer worked in which specific minefield and the number of landmines cleared.

“For example, we report to entities such as donors, providing granular data about personnel deployment, minefield clearance, and timelines. This level of detail is particularly noteworthy given the scale of our operations, with activities taking place in approximately 30 countries worldwide.