Dear friends, family and colleagues,
At the moment of writing this blog I am
flying with United Airlines flight 125Y from Amsterdam to Washington Dulles airport at a
height of about 30.000 feet. After I have landed in the USA, I will have a stop over and then continue
my flight towards my final flight destination of Mexico City. ETA 9pm Mexican time.
If you don´t believe me, check out this
picture:
Today August 3rd 2012 my IBM
Corporate Service Corps (CSC) assignment has finally kicked-off. After a 12
weeks pre-assignment period of conference calls and online training, the real
fun is about to commence in the coming 4 weeks I will be in Queretaro, Mexico.
Before I start talking about my actual CSC
assignment I would like to briefly tell you something about the IBM CSC program
and the city I am located at during my assignment, Queretaro. The information with regard to
the IBM CSC program I will provide you with in this blog is derived from the
IBM Corporate Social Responsibility report 2009. This will save me some time
and it’s probably better explained as well ;). With regard to Queretaro I will take the pencil myself.
So what is the IBM Corporate Service
Corps?
The Corporate Service Corps (CSC), often called a “business version
of the Peace Corps,” is a philanthropic program that deploys IBMers to help solve complex
problems in developing countries. For host countries, it is a chance to benefit
from IBM’s expertise in working on economic, social and environmental
sustainability challenges. For IBMers, it is a leadership development
opportunity like no other. Since the program launched in July 2008,
the CSC has deployed more than 700 IBMers from 47 countries on 70 teams to Brazil, China,
Egypt, India, Ghana,
Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines,
Poland, Romania, South
Africa, Tanzania,
Turkey and Vietnam. The
CSC experience spans six months: three months of preparatory work completed as
a team, virtually, one month overseas and two months post-service. All projects
work at the intersection of business, technology and society. “Clients” include
entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises, non-profit organizations,
educational institutions and governmental agencies.
So how does a typical CSC engagement works?
Early 2009, six IBM executives set off for Vietnam with the intention of helping city
planners, entrepreneurs, and NGOs develop a road map for a smarter city in Ho Chi Minh City. The IBM
team came from varying geographical and professional backgrounds. Upon arrival
in Ho Chi Minh City,
the team began a three-week, three-step process of gathering data, framing the
problems and crafting recommendations. Under the direction of local leadership
at the Ho Chi Minh City
People’s Committee, the IBMers split into teams and focused on four critical
areas of concern for the city: food safety; water management;
transportation; and developing
a high-tech
ecosystem..
During the first week, each team member spent time building
relationships with key stakeholders, and traveling throughout the city and
outlying areas to better understand the issues. “In my case, the city was
interested in ensuring food quality and safety, and developing a plan for how
to respond in the case of a food emergency,” says Michele Grieshaber. “So in
that first week, I visited a vegetable farm, a vegetable processor, a seafood
processor and exporter, a wholesale market at night, a clam farm, and a shrimp
farm. We met the people that are part of the supply chain, we asked questions,
and we tried to understand the process and the problems.”
Over the course of the next two weeks, team members spent time
researching best practices in other countries, consulting IBM experts in each
of their respective focus areas, and presenting recommendations for pilot
programs with city experts and officials. They presented the city with specific
guidance for how to collect, integrate and analyze information about the
various urban systems, and how to view them as one, fully interdependent system
of systems. “I think more than anything we were an impetus, a chance for
different city departments to come together and view the problems in a new
way,” says Grieshaber. “And for me, I came to understand that the problems in Ho Chi Minh City, or Vietnam, are not isolated or unique
to this area. These are
important parts of global systems. So if Vietnam
has a problem, we all have a problem.”
Queretaro, Mexico
So, now about my CSC assignment in Queretaro, Mexico.
Yes Mexico;)
A country to which I have never traveled before and therefore I was quit
excited when I heard that I was being selected for the IBM CSC Mexico 1
team. My fellow CSC teammates and I are
the first team ever assigned to Mexico.
So far only Brazil and Chile were chosen as CSC countries in Latin America.
So when I was told that the city of my assignment would become Queretaro I was very curious to get to know a bit more
about Queretaro As I had never heard of Queretaro.
Of course we all know Mexico City, holiday
places like Cancun, sunny Acapulco but Queretaro……
Let me give you a short update of Queretaro, to be even more precise Santiago
de Querétaro (pronounce as K’eretarhu). It is the capital of the
Mexican state Queretaro de Artega. This city, which lies at an altitude of
about 1800 metres, inhabits approximately 600.000 people, while the whole Queretaro agglomeration
accounts for about 1 million inhabitants.
Queretato is located about 200 kilometers NW
from Mexico city:
A nice fact to mention as well for
all Dutch people complaining about the weather, even during the summer period
in Mexico
heavy rain can occur on a regular basis. So this also accounts for Queretaro. Thus I will
be staying during the wet season, however with an average temperature of about
20-25 degrees Celsius. So rain and shine through the day……
Ok, I think is is enough information for you
all to absorb for one blog.
When I arrive at Mexico City I will stay in the ”Grand Prix
hotel” and there I will meet my fellow CSC participants during a dinner for the first time. How exciting ;)
Tomorrow morning I will continue my trip
towards Queretaro
by bus with all CSC participants. Expected 3 hours drive.
From now on I will try to post something
(of course only relevant topics..) on my blog every 2 or 3 days so that you all
can follow me on this great journey through Mexico and Quererata in particular.
During the course of this program and my blogging activities I will try to figure out why Corporate Social Responsibility really matters. More on this topic to come, so stay tuned.
In my next blog I will dive into my
specific CSC assignment and share some more details with you all.
For now hasta la próxima
Yuri
#ibmcsc Mexico team 1