... 9 days to go

It's amazing how positive, interested and appreciative the reaction of my customers and colleagues is, when I tell them about my business plans for the next six weeks. By and by everybody should be informed now about my absence.
To do's for the next days: getting prescription drugs, buying small presents and doing the laundry :-)

20ibmcsc india

Countdown: 10 days to go...

Gica, my IBM-colleague from czech republic, finalized the IBM Team introduction to our indian colleagues. So these are my wonderful colleagues:

Greetings from IBM Team



Yesterday we had our first conference call with the ESSAR team. And although we had some trouble with the dial-in and an sometimes unstable telephone connection, it worked out. So exciting...

20ibmcsc india

What to pack?

Getting a "what-to-pack-list" is a very useful and an indispensable thing in preparation of my india trip. So I am quite lucky on the one hand, but I also realized there are many things I still do not have...multi tool, plug adapters, extension cord with multiple plugs...but still, I'll manage.

Even more difficult to find (and I still didn't) are some souvenirs and little presents for the indian team. I should be somehow typical german, small, not too heavy and still impressive.
If somebody has an idea - please let me know!!! :-)

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...sooo exciting...

Stuttgart - Germany: July 2013

After 3 month of pre-work and preparation, it seems like the india experience is getting real. Last week I got the logistics guide and now everythings what was very abstract in the beginning is getting more&more precise.
I will fly to Mumbai on August 9th, where I'm gonna meet my international IBM colleagues. We will be a team of 11 people, coming from 9 countries, working on 3 different projects within four weeks in Jamnagar, North India.
-Wow- Isn't this exciting?! :-)

My IBM colleagues Malcom (Australia),Claudia (Mexico) and Anton (Slovakia) will work for the Farmers Producers Organization (FPO) at Jamnagar. Keith (Canada), Emily (USA) and Peter (also from Germany) will develop a five year strategy plan to expand and develop 60 “Happy Children Center” for deprived slum children in Jamnagar city.

The project I will work for is a public school project to improve the english learning and teaching. As far as I know are there about 17 school in the Jamnagar region - each with similar difficulties. So Elyse (USA), Nina (UK), Paula (Brazil), Gica (Czech Republic) and me will try to analyze what their strengths and weaknesses are right now and how we can support them on their way to an excellent english education.
Our customer therefore are not the schools itself. Our client is ESSAR group (http://www.essar.com) which is one India's largest companies in engineering, procurement and construction. So our project team will be completed by Awadhesh, Deependra and Diti, our indian colleagues from ESSAR. 

To establish a strong communication platform, we are currently doing some video introductions, to get to know each other.
This is the Jamnagar ESSAR team:

This is Gica:
gica's video introduction
This is Elyse:
Elyse's video introduction

...and this is me :-)

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