Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Cultural presentations @ FPD

Last week, the Pedagogical coordinator requested Jas and myself to do cultural presentations for the students at Pensamento Digital centre.  

We put together some slides on China and Australia and we were told that we had about 2 hours to present our countries/ cultures to the students. We were going to have two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

I rushed and put together about 10 slides on Australian animals, Famous Australian people,  Australian Food, Australian Football, Australian Sights and the symbols of the Australia. We had our lovely friends from AISEC – Irina and Gisele – translate for us while we presented. The kids were all so fascinated by the information we gave them and they had so many questions to ask me about the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the population of Australia and Vegemite. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any vegemite for them to try. That would have been interesting. We also had some t-shirts to give away to the children as prizes. I asked them if they knew any Famous Australians… and apparently, the most famous Australian to come out of Australia according to Porto Alegrans is .. wait for it… Kangaroo Jack ! Both groups of students came out with the same response.  Other answers I got were..  George Clooney and Jim Carey. No one has heard of Kylie Minogue out here :o)

#ibmcsc #brazil #brazil10






Friday, July 22, 2011

Iguazu Falls weekend

The Iguazu Falls are one of the most awesome of the world's natural wonders, Iguazu Falls is an experience of a lifetime.  Located primarily in Argentina, the falls are in a semi-tropical jungle ecosystem.  These majestically powerful cascades are considerably higher and much wider than Niagara Falls. We were informed that there are actually around 240 falls all together but the number varies with time of the year and season.

Eleven of us left on Friday afternoon on the trip that was planned months ago to the majestic Iguazu Falls. For Saturday, the plan was cross over to the Argentina side to view the falls. We set off early morning and got to Foz du Iguazu at around 9:30am. Our first stop on this side of the falls was to view Garganta del Diablo - the Devils throat. We were advised that 20% of this waterfall belongs to Brazil and the rest to Argentina. We took a train to the start of the trail to get to the falls and from there it was a 1 kilometer walk. The weather was perfect and when we got to the falls, the views were spectacular ! We arrived right at the top of the Devils Throat and took in the sights and the thundering roar of the falls. We spent about an hour at this lookout elbowing people out of the way to get photos of this amazing natural wonder. The photos do not do this justice.. so view the video as well to get a feel for what we saw.


 



Our next stop was the Upper Circuit to see the San Martin, Mbigua and Bernabe Mendez falls. From here, we got panoramic views of the Falls from the Upper Iguazu river.


After a quick bite for lunch (some of which we shared with the local inhabitants- the Quatis) we walked the lower circuit for views of the falls from a lower vantage point.

We woke up on Sunday to the most rain I've ever seen ! We spent a fair bit of the morning debating our agenda for the day as it was really REALLY wet outside. Daniel was trying to organise an activity for the group at the hotels tourist office and suddenly came running out and goes, there's a Copa America game between Paraguay and Brazil.. its 10 minutes from here.. lets go ! So, we all made a split second decision, jumped into cabs and went to the game. When we got there, we found out it wasn't actually Copa America.. but it was a International Futsol League game between Paraguay and Brazil. None the less... it was indoors, and we had a chance to get out of the rain, so we decided to go anyway. Our next challenge was getting into the arena as we didn't have tickets to the game. So after much talking in English, wild gesturing and pretending to be ignorant foreigners, we got let in to the game for free ! It ended up being quite an experience as apparently Futsol is pretty big here too... the stadium was packed with fans and we muscled our way down to the very front and cheered on the Brazil team who won the game 1-0.



In the afternoon, despite the rain and cold, we decided to make our way to view the falls from the Brazil side. We walked the 600 meter trail while it rained and poured non-stop for 3 hours. The views from the Brazil side were even more spectacular than those from Argentina. The vantage points were amazing ... there was a pier of sorts that went out to the very edge of the falls where we got even more soaked from the water from the falls (as if the rain itself wasn't enough) and another point were we could view the falls from the very top. All in all, I think we had a pretty unique experience walking around in the rain and cold and getting a rainy day view of the falls.. and still managed to get some pretty decent pictures when I finally took my camera out.



#ibmcsc #brazil #brazil10

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Captains Log- Week Two on IBM CSC Assignment

Monday, 11th July
We started the week off doing more interviews with the staff and educators at Fundação Pensamento Digital to gain some insight into how things operate at the centre and how their processes could be streamlined and improved. Our first interview was with Fernanda who is the Pedagogical coordinator at the centre and we spent most of the day talking to her to understand the student courses, curriculum and evaluation. Fernanda also requested myself and Jasmine to give the students a cultural presentation on our countries. So, that's another one for the agenda for next week.

In the evening, the local IBM offices hosted a bbq for the IBM CSCers at one of the local yacht clubs.

Tuesday, 12th July
More interviews with the Digital Education Teachers at the FPD centre. In the evening, we had our weekly team meeting, celebrated Michele D's birthday and did some group activities as part of some research that the Harvard Business School is doing on the success and outcomes of the #ibmcsc program.





Wednesday, 13th July
Found out in the morning that Marta was expecting some visitors to the FPD centre from the Local Government offices. They invited us to sit in on their meeting and listen in. Luckily we had our lovely translator Irina with us and we were able to get the gist of what the meeting was about. One of the Governor's Secretaries personally thanked us and IBM for coming all the way out here and for the work we are doing with FPD. They can see the improvements in the children at the centre since its initiation 1.5 years ago and are really keen to see the outcome of our assignment and its benefits to the centre. They posted an article on theie website about our work.. http://www.stds.rs.gov.br/conteudo.php?cod_conteudo=2494&modo=impressao. We even managed to score an invite to visit their offices next week. 

Thursday, 14th July
Jasmine and myself spent all day holed up working on our deliverables. We have started drafting up documents to put together the "Education Model" that FPD uses at their centre and are working on a strategy to use this as a replicable social technology model to partner with other NGOs as well as to the FPD stakeholders whose main aim is to improve the standards of education in underserved communities in and around Porto Alegre. 

Friday, 15th July
Jas and myself spent some more time on our deliverables and in the afternoon started prepping for our weekend trip to Iguazu falls.

#brazil #brazil10

Friday, July 15, 2011

National League Football game in Brazil

Football is the game that unites this country and stirs up a passion within everyone young and old. Everywhere I go, people ask me who I support - Gremio or Inter. They are the two big local teams in Porto Alegre. I've chosen Gremio as that's the team Marta (my local client) supports and she was kind enough to invite us to watch a game live with her and her family. Having heard and seen so much about Brazilian Football, I could not leave here without experiencing a live game .. and boy was it an experience ! I can now tick this one off my list of things to do.

The game was between one of the local soccer clubs- Gremio and a club from a neighbouring state (don't remember the name). The ambience was amazing ... all through the game there was constant singing, dancing, bouncing, chanting, abusing and tears of joy.

The blue team - Gremio won 2-0. Here's a few videos of what we experienced...

Gremio Fans at the start of the game

Some Gremio football action

Gremio Fans going nuts in the cage..

Gremio scored a goal and the fans in the cage all avalanched down to the front

#ibmcsc #brazil #brazil10

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A day at Pensamento Digital


5 July

Today, our plan was to spend some time at the Social Educational Center at Vila Cruzeiro and learn more about the centre, their plans and our project in more detail. We spent a good part of the previous day and the morning with Marta and getting all the background information.

We found out that the centre was created in response to the limited number of educational programs catered to youths between 13 and 17 years old in underserved communities. Before launching the program in 2010, FPD had noticed a considerable amount of after school programs for children ages 6 to 12 offered through local NGOS and community centers and a number of professional training centers catered to 18 years and older.  However, it was noticeable that the age group of 13-17 had limited educational options to supplement their school program. Youth in this age group were offered only 4 hour shifts in public school. As a result, they had a great amount of free time, which they spent in the streets. This situation was negatively impacting their school performance and leading to social vulnerability.

To address this concern, FPD established in 2010 a partnership with the Rio Grande do Sul State government to run a social educational center for 200 youth (ages 13 and 17) in the low income community of Vila Cruzeiro in Porto Alegre. All youth enrolled in this program commit to 20 hours per week (either morning or afternoon shifts) and are required to attend the “academic development” module which aims to support their educational curriculum in their regular public school program. Parallel to the academic development program, FPD offers activities with focus on 21st century skills development, of which the most popular activities are the ICT related classes (e.g. ICT for the job, social media, computer maintenance and assembly, etc). All educational activities are intertwined with an ICT component.While receiving academic support, for example, students are encouraged to embrace technology in their courses whenever possible. Therefore, the center functions as an incubator for youth to learn about basic ICT skills and to become interested in developing a career in the technology sector.

What is unique about FPD is that youth develop their own educational program and classes are generally more project oriented. Instead of asking them to follow a regular syllabus, they design their own according to their motivation and personal interests.

Initial results from this program have been impressive. The Social Educational Center, which in previous years was often empty, is now being used to its full capacity and is considered a symbol of pride for the community. Participating youth have become highly engaged in all the center’s activities and as a result, they have increased their maturity, independence, creativity, critical thinking, confidence, and self esteem.

The Social Educational Center is a 5 year program funded by Rio Grande do Sul state and FPD hopes this funding can be renewed to replicate its education model to other municipalities in Brazil. To accomplish this goal, FPD still has a long way to go and will need assistance in systematizing its educational services so that educators, other schools and public agencies can better understand and adopt the model in their communities.

From our talk with Marta, we understand that a common challenge facing FPD is that new educators working at its center often struggle to understand FPD’s teaching methodology, which focuses on letting the students to take the initiative to develop their own educational activities. Most new educators are still strongly influenced by a traditional education system, which provides students with a fixed school curriculum. Part of the problem has to do with FPD’s failure to adequately structure and systematize its educational services as a model that could be easily transported  to other communities and cities in Brazil.

A little later in the morning, we also sat in on a meeting with the IT educators to try get a view of the problems they have. It appears that biggest problems the educators are currently facing is the lack of consistent software in the classrooms (some computers run Linux, some run Windows), old software, some old computers and continuous disruption to the internet during the classes. We hope to be able to enlist the help of some local IBMers to help sort out some of the network/ internet issues the centre is having.

We were then invited to lunch with the children as some of them have their meals at the centre either before or after their sessions for the day. As part of the funding that FPD receives from the government, they provide a meal and snacks to the children. A nutritionist plans the menu for the week/ month to ensure that they are well catered for.
Lunch was a yummy menu of rice, grilled chicken, lentils, polenta and salad.


In the afternoon, we requested to be allowed to sit in on a Digital Education class. The topic for the day was "dangers of the internet". The teacher showed a number of videos to the children on spam, anti-virus software, trojans/ worms etc and at the end of each video asked them a list of questions to judge their attentiveness and comprehension of the subject. Unfortunately, our being in the classroom was more disruptive to them as they were more interested in listening to us talk in English (with our translator) and we left soon after.

 Our plan for the next few days to refine our scope of work based on the information we've collected so far, conduct more interviews with the educators and the administrative personnel and then start doing a deep dive from next week.

#ibmcsc #brazil #brazil10

Friday, July 8, 2011

Introducing IBM CSC Brazil team 10 and the NGOs

From Left to Right:  Kentaroh, Xian, Art, Nazli, Daniel, Hernando, Jackie, Oliver, Jana, Jasmine, Joohee, me and Michele D (missing- Michele R)

Pão dos Pobres
The Pão dos Pobres de Santo Antônio (Saint Anthony’s Bread of the Poor) Foundation is a well known nonprofit in Porto Alegre that was founded by Catholic Priest Marcelino Bittencourt with the objective of providing social support to the widows and orphan children affected by the Federalist Revolution War of 1892-1894. In 1916, the Foundation changed its governance to a new Christian Congregation (The Lassalistas). Since then, it has been assisting children and adolescents (from 6 to 17 years) who live in absolute poverty and are at social risk. Their mission is to initiate solidarity and development of children and adolescents through socio-educational programs.
Jackie (Consolidation Manager from China), Hernando (Account Manager from Venezula) and Nazli (Business Consultant from Turkey) will be designing a financial model for one of the schools of Pão dos Pobres to help them sustain their training courses in the long run.

Fundação Pensamento Digital 
Fundação Pensamento Digital (FPD) is an non-profit organization based in Porto Alegre that provides educational skills (with a focus on ICT skills) to underserved groups, with the mission of fully developing them as human beings and engaging them as critical citizens in the greater ICT community. FPD’s vision for 2020 is to become a global reference for ICT learning methodologies catered to disadvantaged youth groups with the goal of helping this population to increase their access to education and economic opportunities presented in the ICT community.
Jasmine (Supply Chain Mgmt Specialist from China) and myself (Project Manager from Australia) will be working with FPD to thoroughly assess their educational services in Vila Cruzeiro and systemize them so they can be presented as a social technology model to educators, schools and government agencies interested in improving education in underserved communities.

Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement (JA) is an international educational association located in 124 countries with the mission of educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs. JA programs help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Students put these lessons into action and learn the value of contributing to their communities
Joohee (Strategy and Comms Manager from South Korea), Kentaroh (Application Architect from Japan) and Jana (Integrated Supply Chain Mgr from Slovakia) will be working with JA to develop a volunteer recruitment strategy that will secure volunteers interested in embracing their programs and its teaching methodology on a more sustainable basis.

Instituto Venturi
The Venturi Institute is a non profit organization that aims to disseminate economically viable solutions on socio-environmental issues to businesses, governments and local communities in Rio Grande do Sul state. It does so by compiling technical and scientific studies, conducting research, producing educational materials and organizing workshops on several sustainability-related topics. Their vision is to create a sustainable world where environmental management and business management practices are congruent.
Daniel (Web Media Director from Canada) and Michele D (Technical Architect from France) will work with the Institute to develop a web-based platform that will disseminate the Venturi Institute’s knowledge and services to its target audience. The proposed solution will aim at collecting and sharing technical knowledge, helping local governments to manage solid waste more efficiently, promoting educational programs and events and fostering new partnerships, donations and sponsorships.

Rede Marista
The Institute of the Marist Brothers is an educational institution that was founded in 1817 by Marcellin Champagnat, a young Catholic priest from a rural parish in southern France committed to improving education. Since its inception, the Marist Brothers institute has spread its operations globallywith the mission of educating and providing social assistance to disadvantaged groups.In Brazil, the institute began its operations in 1897 in the south of Brazil and is now present in 24 states, forming a group of 59 schools, 4 universities, and over 100 social centers (The Marist Social Centers) that provide assistance to approximately 100,000 people free of charge.
Art (Server Development Program Manager from USA) and Oliver (IT Specialist from Switzerland) will be helping the Marist Social Center of Porto Alegre to structure the Free Software Factory program by assessing the program’s strategy, content (proposed free software packages), and methodology as well as by setting up a project management framework for program implementation.

IMAMA
The Breast Health Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (IMAMA) is a non-profit organization that has been operating for 18 years with the mission of promoting, maintaining and re-establishing breast health for people in Rio Grande do Sul state. The Institute was formed by a group of health professionals and breast cancer survivors with the mission of sharing their knowledge and experience with the local community. Its vision is to eradicate breast cancer as a life threatening disease among women.
Xian (Workforce Research Consultant from China) and Michele R(Procurement Manager from Australia) will be working with them to develop a system or a macro-project to better match the profiles and abilities of IMAMA’s employees and volunteers, and to maximize the output in their assigned tasks and projects.

#ibmcsc #brazil

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Kick-offs at the IBM Offices

4th July

After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we all piled into taxis and were driven to the IBM offices in Porto Alegre. Once we were verified and tagged, we went up to one of the meeting rooms where we were greeted by various IBM execs, NGOs and members of the OnDemand community from IBM POA.

Ruth who is the Corporate Citizenship lead in Brazil gave a introduction on the work that we're doing and the reason for our 1 month visit there. This was followed by all "project team introductions". The NGO representatives provided an introduction on their work, mission and expectations and all of us IBMers introduced ourselves with a brief background. It was very inspiring to listen to the NGO's and see how passionate they are about the work they do and to see how much they appreciate the involvement of IBM and the work us volunteers have come to do.
Group picture of #ibmcsc #Brazil team 10, NGO's and IBM executives

This was followed by additional presentation for NGOs about IBM initiatives. As this was in portuguese, we  skipped it and held a quick photo session (it took about an hour) in the offices upstairs. 
IBM CSC Brazil Team 10 (minus Michele from Australia)

View from IBM Porto Alegre offices

In the afternoon, Jasmine and myself were picked up and driven to the Fundação Pensamento Digital (FPD) where we did the rounds and Marta (our co-ordinator and FPD Director) introduced us to all the staff and teachers at the center. It was an interesting afternoon seeing the kids at the after-school program and the work that FPD does to help them improve their school performance and decrease the negative impact of social vulnerability. Marta is very passionate about the work she does and spoke to us a lot about the students, the program, the center and its mission (I will write more about this in future blogs).
Jasmine (from IBM China) and myself who will be working together with FPD

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Oi Porto Alegre !

After an uneventful 6 hours at Dallas Fort Worth airport and much anticipation about whether my Buenos Aires flight would depart or not, it did. I have to say.. American Airlines is the worst airline ever. Who still operates 767 aircrafts on long haul flights ? American Airlines! The meals were crappy and no individual tv screens on the 10 hour flight left me grumpy and bored. But hey, at least I got there.


We landed in Buenos Aires to a very chilly 2 degrees and I had to make the trip across town to the next airport to catch my connecting flight to the final destination. After sitting around for a few hours (without wifi ) and waiting for the check-ins to open, I was FINALLY on my way to Porto Alegre.


Landed in Porto Alegre around 4:30pm local time and was picked up at the airport and brought to the hotel. First impressions of PA - it reminds me a little bit of Mumbai.. just a cleaner and much colder city. I think its got to do with the look and feel of the buildings here. I didn't get to take any pictures as I got in at dusk and the driver didn't seem to be following the road rules (much like they do in Mumbai) and I was concentrating on holding on.


By the time I got to the hotel, I had already missed out on the days activities which included a tour of the city and team building, but I got to meet and greet everyone before they split up for the day. It was good to finally be able to put faces to the names that I've been talking to for the past three months. After brief introductions and a recap of my exciting round the world trip, we decided to meet up for dinner later in the evening and went down to a local cafe. They had the biggest meals and gigantic beers. I ordered a beer thinking it would it help me sleep better at night ... but, the jet lag still had me up and wired at 3am. Perhaps I ought to drink more beer next time ?


Tomorrow, we go to the IBM offices to kick-off #ibmcsc #brazil team 10 with the NGO's we are working with. Excited !!!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Scenic Route to Brazil

So, with less than 24 hours to go to my departure, I get an sms from Qantas on Friday morning advising that my flight has been delayed by a day and would be departing on Sunday morning instead of Saturday morning due to ash from the Volcano in Chile.


Michele (a fellow #ibmcsc participant) who was scheduled to leave 4 days before me, was still having her flights rescheduled daily and had not yet departed Australia.


Taking this as precedent for flights going to Buenos Aires and the likelihood of getting to Brazil about a week late, I contacted Qantas and inquired about alternative routes going via Santiago or LA. After much to-ing and fro-ing and a lot of pleading on the phone, I finally managed to talk them into re-booking me on a flight to Dallas and then onward to Buenos Aires. This would put me at my final destination of Porto Alegre only about 24 hours late instead of 1 week late. 
My flight path now being Melbourne> Sydney> Dallas> Buenos Aires> Porto Alegre.


I am at the halfway point right now... sitting in the airport at Dallas, waiting for my connecting to Buenos Aires and then onward to #Brazil. Hoping that that volcano has taken its last breath and the airport at Buenos Aires has reopened. 
Still have another 24 hours or so of travel time left .. so wish me luck !