WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE FUTURE OF AFRICA

On Monday accompanied by the 9 other IBM'ers from India, Nigeria, Czech Republic, Japan, Canada and Great Britain went to the office of the Premier to kick off three very important projects aligned to South Africa's key imperatives

1.       Create a more responsive, accountable, effective and efficient Local Government system by assisting the Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the Office of the Premier in improving accuracy, validity and reliability data collected has

2.       Support A long and healthy life for all South Africans by working with NGO Kheth’Impilo to develop a new business model to improve capacity and health care services provided in public sector outreach by developing a new business model 

3.       Assist in delivery of quality basic education and more specifically improve science education through thru introduction of a program called Teachers Try Science

I was assigned to the third project to assist in improving the skills of South Africa’s Teachers in educating students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  The primary vehicle for this is a program called Teachers  Try Science, Teachers Try Science : enables teachers to revolutionize their teaching methods through design-based lessons which apply scientific, mathematical and technological solutions to engineering problems. The lesson plans are linked to online resources which guide teachers through effective delivery of project-based work; offer subject knowledge materials and professional development support. Teachers TryScience aims to improve teaching and learning by providing a comprehensive guide to classroom delivery and by fostering student interest and enthusiasm for the STEM subjects. Through the Teachers TryScience project-based model, students are provided with the opportunity to experience a range of STEM disciplines while exploring real world problems and challenges hands on.  Lessons encourage students to work collaboratively, employ critical thinking, inquiry and problem solving skills and achieve success by having autonomy to predicting, assessing and revising project outcomes. The site also provides social networking tools to enable educators to submit their own teaching materials and engage in focused discussions on relevant topics.

This  project builds on a CSC program in 2012 where IBM worked with the Eastern Cape Department of Education to map the KIdSmart programme for literacy, numeracy and life skills to the CAPS educational curriculum helping teachers improve the classroom experience for young learners while ensuring the course activities can be adopted as part of the school curriculum. This success of this has led to the roll out of the KidSmart in three more provinces in South Africa. Currently we have more than 2500 KidSmart units in schools being used by 5000 + teachers in South Africa.

In Africa these projects have special meaning as IBM has a strategic focus on Africa as a growth market. The level of development on the continent is fast and furious and we see the opportunity for many step changes and even “leap frogging” problems that exist today. As we work with NGO’s and Governments here in South Africa, we are working together for the future of Africa. 
 

Introduction to IBM CSC

Last Friday, my family departed after the trip of a lifetime and I began the second phase of my trip to South Africa.  For the next month I will participate in the IBM Corporate Service Corp. For those of you who have not heard of the IBM Corporate Services Corps (CSC) I have the following introduction for you (most of which was plagiarized from my colleague, Andrew MacDonald).

IBM's CSC  is a leadership program that takes high performing IBM’ers from different countries, to all join together in a developing country to perform a community service project.

The Corporate Service Corps was launched in 2008 to help provide IBMers with high quality leadership development while delivering high quality problem solving for communities and organizations in emerging markets. The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10 - 15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four week community-based assignments. During the assignment, participants perform community-driven economic development projects working at the intersection of business, technology, and society.

This program increases IBM's understanding and appreciation of growth markets while creating global leaders who are culturally aware and possess advanced teaching skills. The Corporate Service Corps offers a triple benefit: leadership development for the IBMers, leadership training and development for the communities, and greater knowledge and enhanced reputation in the growth markets for IBM.

Since its launch in 2008, the Corporate Service Corps has had a positive impact of the lives of more the 140,000 people through skills transfer and capacity building. Many thousands more have been positively impacted through the services of the organizations the Corporate Service Corps has supported. The Corporate Service Corps program has sent over 2400 participants on over 200 teams to more than 30 countries around the world. The participants come from over 50 countries and have served communities in Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan , Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, The Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Vietnam, UAE and Ukraine . The program continues to expand to new locations each year.

For more information on this IBM program please look at the following site -> http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/

Gratitude in Getting to South Africa

Today my wife, my two kids and I arrived in South Africa. Exhausted after 28 hours in transit but with smiles on our faces. The trip was not as harrowing as 28 hours might seem.  We had an overnight flight on Tuesday from Newark to Munich.

We had a 10 hour lay over in Munich.  My son took on the task of organizing our day and did a phenomenal job.  We took the train into Munich, had a German Lunch of Bratwurst, Frankfurters, Sauerkraut and Mashed Potato, took a bus tour of the city and ten returned to the airport for our overnight flight to Johannesburg. 

We arrived this morning in Johannesburg took a short flight to Cape Town collected our car and then got to our apartment just off the VA Waterfront.  While we did well on the trip (I am very proud of my kids) we were all ecstatic to finally arrive at our destination.    Since we only had two showers and I can not sit still on vacation my daughter and I decided to go over to the waterfront to explore and get some snacks.  As we walked around I was feeling incredibly grateful.   Not only was I given an opportunity by IBM to do a one month service assignment in South Africa but circumstances were such that my wife and two children could come for 10 days prior to the beginning of my project so we could share what is sure to be an awesome experience.

As we traveled these past couple days it was staggering when we realized that my children at the ages of 9 and 12 had been to 4 continents.  Wow they certainly understand the world is far larger then our hometown and can appreciate the value of diversity that is a part of our Irish, Jewish Chinese family