Success!

Our hard work, dedication, and excellent team collaboration really paid off!

On Wednesday, October 5th, sub team 1 successfully delivered a one and a half hour presentation and presented the Tanzanian Post Master General with a 60 page document detailing our recommendations-- including some steps TPC can take today to receive immediate results in their journey to successfully becoming a multi-agent service provider and to fulfill their social obligation to the citizens of Tanzania.

Our final deliverable was well received by TPC, our local NGO-- Digital Opportunity Trust, and IBM management! I will greatly miss my IBM teammates, the representatives from DOT, my IBM Tanzanian colleagues, and of course, all of the amazing people we met at TPC and during our travels in Tanzania.

Wearing our TPC hats

Saying good bye to our TPC friends from Morogoro

#IBMCSC
#Tanzania

Some portraits from Amani center

A Child called Nema

Nema, learning to walk

This is Nema. She’s 3 years old going on 4 and she's spastic. She's one of some 500 disabled persons that the Amani centre helps. The Amani centre in Morogoro was started in 1992 under a mango tree by a woman with a disabled child. It has come a long way since then, with 3 branch offices. The main branch has a few buildings erected with the help of foreign governments. It is run by a fulltime staff of 15 people under a Director, and volunteers help out.

 Nema's mother lives far away but she is staying for 2 weeks at the center with a younger child to learn how to care for Nema. The single qualified physiotherapist at the centre is helping Nema to walk. She's made good progress, according to the physiotherapist, who rattles off a long list of disabilities that the centre handles.

Benjamin, 15, is a paraplegic

Some 20 students are resident at the centre, but most students are day-care. The centre takes care of them so their parents can earn a living and also tries to rehabilitate those who respond to physiotherapy. And of course, they get to play with other children.

Disabled or not, these kids can dance! 

The CSC team visited Amani centre on Sept 30, bringing gifts for the children. We met the Director, toured the facilities and met the children. They ranged in age and disability: the Amani centre accepts all kinds of mental and physical disabilities.

An IBM balloon gets the squeeze

The IBM balloons were an instant ice-breaker between the children and the team. It became quickly apparent that kids are kids – they love a good time, they love toys, they love a little affection and they have lots of energy. What started out as community service became full-time play, subdued only at lunch which the IBMers hosted for the school – pilaf rice, beans, beef curry & vegetables.

Aremi administers a little TLC 

No less important were the ‘computer lessons’ for the staff and volunteers after lunch. Aenna had done a great job assembling a slide deck with pictures from all the countries the CSC team came from. Many of the staff seemed to have never had a hands-on session on a PC.

Aenna runs an impromptu computer class

It was a satisfying day for the CSC team – although our time was limited, it was well worth the effort for the reward of brightening up some children’s lives for a day.

Lee Yu Kit, Subteam 3

A Day of Polishing and Perfecting

Sub-Team 3 spent the day refining, revising and refurbishing our final report to our hosts. Each of us took charge of a different section and utilized our various skill sets - all of which couldn't be more diverse. We will come together later to standardize our formats - both linguistically and technologically. (I never realized that Word comes in an "Asian Version" with characters I've never seen before until I edited some of Yu Kit's text.) We will have to align all our inputs to come up with a unified whole but that shouldn't be a problem. We have learned so much about e-Learning in the short time we've been here that each of the five of us could probably teach a course on the intricacies and pitfalls of e-Learning policies and guidelines. As we head into the final stretch, we also have some additional activities planned in the outside world. Tomorrow we head to SUA University to give a presentation on IBM, the Corporate Service Corps and some of our Smarter Planet offerings. Friday we are going to do community service work for most of the day at the Amani Center, an orphanage about 15 minutes from Morogoro. More on our experiences later...

-Debra

The Mid-Term review on Sept 26 at Dar Es Salaam

The whole CSC team returned to Dar on Sept 25 in preparation for the mid-term review on Sept 26 with their respective hosts. COSTECH hosted us to a traditional dinner at an African cultural center, and invited some of the students from their incubation programme.

The students were bright and personable, young men with a shared vision for a better Tanzania. Their projects were varied, ranging from mobile phone data backup to online sites for selling native craft.

On Sept 26, Subteam 3's mid-term review went off more smoothly than we'd hoped, but it was a packed day with a couple of interviews thrown in.

The CSC team were impatient to leave Dar at 4pm for what we now consider 'home' - Morogoro. The journey tool 4.5 hours, thanks to the traffic leaving Dar, and rain along the way, but a cheer went up for the bus driver when we finally turned into the driveway of the Arc hotel - and the cool and quiet, fresh air of Morogoro.

The hotel staff were as happy to us as we were them. And the next day, Chef Arnold organised a buffet lunch which we enjoyed at our favourite spot, in the open verandah of the restaurant, the inspiring sight of the Uluguru looming in the background.

Life is good.
Lee Yu Kit, Subteam 3.

A Firefinch this morning ...

I first saw this bird on a morning walk with Raghu, Yu Kit & Taek. From then on I was looking forward to a chance to capture this little beauty. I made my first successful attempt this morning & was able to get close to this bird after almost 30-40 minutes of following up.

The Red-billed Firefinch is 8-10 cm in length. The adult male has entirely scarlet plumage apart from brown wings. The bill is pink, and there is a yellowish eye-ring. Females have uniformly brown upper-parts and buff underparts. There is a small red patch in front of both eyes, and the bill is pink.

Surrounding areas around our Arc Hotel is full of avian life. There is so much to see, enjoy and capture.

-Munish Kaushik

We are on the same page, will keep you 'posted'

We, Subteam 1, have just 'delivered' our midterm presentation to the Tanzania Posts Corporation. In an 'envelope' ... It was an absolutely 'registered' success!

Subteam 1 is going from strength to strength, the client executives excpressed their appreciation of our work and said:

'we are impressed with a job well done so far',

'The methodology the IBM team is following made it possible to identify the real issues, the behind facts and findings in such a concise and clear manner, we look forward for the recommendations'

At this stage we confirmed we are on the same page with the client, we are ready to start working on the recommendations.

We got the 'stamp' of success!

Hassan

#CSC
#IBM Tanzania