Assignment Over, but a lifetime of memories still being built

Its been three weeks since we played  Andrea Bocelli's  "Time to Say GoodBye" as each of us left for the airport in Sofia. The Bulgaria 1 CSC team's assignment in Sofia is over. But this is just the beginning of a life long friendship for us, the "Young and Crazy" #CSCBul1 team. We are busy making plans for a reunion in Tokyo in 2020 with us staking claim to different corners in Shiori's small apartment in Tokyo. Poor Shiori is not being given a chance to say no. Naveen said it well "We worked together as friends, and lived like a family" during our month long stay in Hilton, Sofia.

People ask me, "Why do you think CSC is such a great program?" and I have to say, I still can't bottle up and articulate the reason why I am so bright eyed and bushy tailed since coming back from my assignment. Was it the work I did with the Bulgarian Agency for Transplantation, in developing a roadmap for them to make intelligent use of the data they were gathering so that more transplants can be facilitated and lives saved in Bulgaria? Was it the knowledge I gained from my colleagues about areas that each of them is an expert it - Design Thinking tips from Neha, Ricardo and Shiori; Powerpoint skills from Ricardo; Excel, Business Intelligence solutions and Python scripts to massage data to extract patterns from Gilberto, Tao and Alex; photography skills from Shiori; story telling tips from the Caro, the master story teller; professorial presentation skills from Naveen; Marketing tips from Jason and Josephine? Or was it just the feeling of being outside my comfort zone and spending most of my waking hours having fun with folks from seven different countries I had not met before  for one whole month without the distraction of daily life? How can I forget our local guardian, Angel Spasov, from Pyxera Global who was charged with looking after us. Each and every person we interacted with from the people at the Non Profit Organizations we worked at, to the local IBMers, were warm and welcoming.

There are people all over the world who are working hard to make a social impact in their society. Each of us has the power to make a difference and political and cultural boundaries fade away when we all join hands in community service.

I am very thankful to IBM for providing me this opportunity to leave my day job behind and experience this month long philanthropic immersion in a foreign country. I am also thankful to my management chain and teammates for picking up the slack when I was away. And I am thankful to my family for supporting me as I embarked on this trip.

It may have been "Time to Say Goodbye" to my CSC family, but rest assured, we have many more collective memories to be built.

Gathering Requirements and Designing a Solution

Meeting external clients, listening to their requirement and designing a solution has been a great learning experience for me. Different stakeholders come with their own agendas and stories keep changing. Its like a detective work to figure out what will actually bring value to the client. While we did not use formal design thinking methods in our project, we used concepts like empathy map to think of questions to ask the stakeholders.

Tomorrow we get to deliver the final presentation to the client, fingers crossed that it has what they are looking for.

Personally, besides gaining experience as a technical consultant, I also learned some powerpoint, image editing and design thinking techniques from my other CSC teammates. I also got exposure to the healthcare field and challenges faced by doctors and hospital administrators. And while this was not a "planned" visit, I also got to see the inside of the ER in a hospital here as a patient!!! And thanks to the "connections" at the client site,  Dr Semyonova , the CEO of agency for transplantation sent a driver and an assistant with me to the hospital.

Feeling accomplished

Today we conducted a basic excel workshop for the data entry folks at the agency for transplantation. The workshop started off on a dismal note, the attendees filed in looking disinterested and bored. Our opening question was to ask them to write down any excel problems they have. Am sure you can guess the answer .. it was a lackluster murmur of "no we don't have any problems".

But half way through our presentation, there was lively conversation in Bulgarian and judging by their body language and the sparkle in their eyes, we knew that we were being effective.
Laughter soon ensued when we put one of them on the spot and asked her to come and demonstrate a tip we had just taught and the lady happily came and showed the others and posed for pictures.

Think we may have put main IT person ( the only guy in the room) in a bind as we kept telling the others to go to him if they need help! Our idea was to convey the message that repetitive tasks in excel can be automated and that people to should seek the help of the IT person . Think we succeeded in our efforts.

Hotel Life

Another first for me on this trip of a lifetime - spending a month in a hotel. Makes me appreciate people with a travelling job. Hilton, Sofia is conveniently located near a metro station and is a fifteen minute walk from the City Center. Its been interesting observing the folks coming to stay in the hotel - glittzy events, tour buses full of folks all chattering and trooping in, befriending waiters in the lounge, playing cards and chess with teammates, dancing, singing , washing clothes by hand and line drying, towel animals, sleeping on "not my own" bed, missing spending events at home - Diwali, birthday and much more. The last week is here and its almost time to bid this place adieu.

But the best part of this month at the hotel has been to get to know my "young and crazy" CSC Bulgaria 1 teammates.

The latest guests are the team from the US who are here to compete in the Trampoline World Championships in Sofia ,Bulgaria. Myself and Alex are posing for pictures with some of the competitors.

Busy CSCBul1 Teams

Kickoff was just yesterday. But the amount of information each of our teams has gathered is mind boggling. SOWs are being revised, client interviews are being done and we are having fun too.

Time to get to work

Kick-off is tomorrow morning and then we get to work on our projects! I'm really excited about my project - we get to help with an organ donor agency here in Bulgaria with their database. For more details, see the video.

First full day in Sofia

It has been a full day of activities in Sofia. The best part was to meet the other eleven team members from different parts of the world and also contacts from Pyxera Global (yes you too, Angel Spasov 😀). Sofia is a quiet place in the foothills of a mountain. My room has a beautiful view of the mountains. Jet lag has been hard but nothing beats all the laughter and camaraderie that I have experienced since landing in Sofia. I  can not wait to interact with our local client here and get started on making a difference in this community. 

T- 1 Almost ready for takeoff

Tomorrow is the day for me to set off on my trip of a lifetime. I owe a great thanks to IBM for this opportunity through the Corporraye Service Cora program. This program has been in existence for ten years! IBM truly empowers its employees to be active participants in the community. Most of my friends can not believe that a company would sponsor its employees for amonth to a foreign country solely for a philanthropic purpose! I'm proud to be a IBMer.

See https://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/ to learn more about CSC.

So not ready, but yes I can!

Less than a week to D day. And I feel like I'm not ready at all. Why is that? I have completed all my pre-work education - I learned about cultural adaptability, about consulting skills, connected with the non-profit agency that I will be working with. But can not shake the feeling of not being prepared enough. Its a mixture of anticipation and the feeling of being in an area away from the comfort zone that is contributing to this state! Well, this uncertainty is what's going to fuel my growth as I embark on this journey of a lifetime.

Sofia - Can not wait to see you.

Assignment Notification

The moment was here — the email inviting me to join a CSC team. Hands tingling with excitement, I opened the email to find out that I have been assigned to the Bulgaria team. No word on who my teammates were or what we would be doing. First thing I did was to locate Bulgaria on a map ( sad state of my geography knowledge!). Once the news began to sink in, along with my excitement came nervousness — tasks I need to complete at work, things to take care of at home, security concerns, and million other small worries. But the paramount feeling was one of standing at the bottom of the hill and having been given a ticket to embark on this fantastic journey.

I am a software engineer at IBM and I want to capture all the moments in this once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps teams.