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Down to the wire....
By the serious looks of my team members you can tell what stage of the project we are in now. This morning we are putting the final touches on our presentation and prepping for our meeting with the BAMX (Banco de Alimentos) host team in the afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed they agree with the outcome of our findings and recommendations.
Cultural Identity
Mexican national culture slowly emerged from a process of accommodation between the indigenous cultures and the Spanish colonial domination that lasted three centuries.
Today I had the opportunity to observe much of the uniqueness and diversity that is deeply embedded in this country and how this cultural identification is celebrated. Earlier in the day a fraction of our team ventured to Tlaquepaque. The streets were buzzing with people getting altars ready for the celebration of ‘Dia de los Muertos’.
The main square known as El Jardín Hidalgo was filled with groups of dancers in their colorful costumes and feathery head dresses. The sound of drums and rhythmic vibrations filled the streets. It was contagious!
For the evening we had purchased tickets to attend the Ballet Folclórico de la Universidad de Guadalajara. Words cannot describe the amazing performance of the dancers and choirs.
Busy bee’s....
or could we do more than Watson can?
I hardly have time to stop to change clothes or most nights when we finally come back to our room I just fall in my bed completely exhausted.
Friday was not any different..... another early morning meet up in the lobby of our hotel to head to the Campus Cienega of the University of Guadalajara, located in Ocotlán - roughly an hr away.
As part of our CSC assignment we were asked to help facilitate a community day, as students had just been part of a week of Technology Innovation with the focus of Social Impact and Public Policies Projects. Beginning with a key note presentation of our cognitive ear lead by Vivianne, I had the opportunity to explain to the students how Watson and cognignitve is now disrupting the Health Care market and use cases specifically around Oncology, Trial matching and Genomics. Followed by Haynes and Jitten covering ‘Internet of Things’ and in closing Eleanor shared a use case of the Woodside, Australia’s largest independent Oil and Gas Company, which uses IBM Watson to enhance decision making to increase efficiency. Talking about stepping out of your comfort zone... the auditorium had about a capacity for 300 students. When we began talking students kept pouring in and in the end there was standing room only. I was exciting to see how much interest and excitement our talks created with the audience.
Next stop (Saturday) - Tequila - a long awaited cultural trip to the ‘Magical Town’ best known as being the birthplace of the drink that bears its name and is made from the blue agave plant, native to this area.
The heart of the plant contains sugars and had been used by native people here to make a fermented drink. After the Spanish arrived, they took this fermented beverage and distilled it, producing the tequila known today. The popularity of the drink and the history behind it has made the town and the area surrounding it a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is very hard to capture the impressions about the wonderful train ride, educational lessons on ‘how to test and drink tequila the right way’, a fascinating tour of the oldest distillery, or the beautiful town of Tequila itself. Finishing with a original folklore show the day ended way to fast.
And if that wasn’t enough.... some crazy people suggested to end the day with a soccer game at the Estadio Omnilife, a brand new sports arena 20 mins outside of Guadalajara. It was a great match with the deciding goal in the last minute by penalty shot. What more could I have asked for today?
And just in case you wonder about today..... YES, there is already a day full of events planned again.
Watson is the AI platform for business
“Thank you for building the World of Watson,” IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty told attendees in an inspiring keynote address Wednesday.
Rometty says IBM Watson has now reached critical mass. Watson is building deeper human bonds, scaling human expertise and transforming industries. Hundreds of millions of people have interacted with Watson, with 1 trillion expected by the end of 2017. Rometty says she believes within five years, cognitive computing will impact every decision.
Keep reading
We’re really geeking out now
Second day this week that the BAMX team is heads down working on recommendations, systems gap analysis, presentation outlines, Change management frameworks, executive summaries, mobile app wire frames and PoV’s,..... (geek, geekier, geekiest?)
and we are not complaining about enjoying the sun on the patio that we called our mobile office today.
PS: my heart was filled with sadness again today watching a small child walking through the very busy traffic in the middle of an intersection, attempting to sell candy bars when cars stop at the red light. #wemustendpoverty
Another quake
Yup, that’s how I felt this morning. We have been going non-stop since arriving here in Guadalajara, and I knew a very busy week was awaiting me. Amongst my team, we are preparing input for recommendations that we will be presenting to our client team in a few weeks.
The only thing that kept me going today were the great memories from the past weekend. Saturday morning our entire group piled up in a van and we headed south to Mazamitla. Located about 124 km south of Guadalajara in the Southeast Region, this quaint town is a popular resort destination for travelers from Guadalajara.
We rented 2 cabañas in a the forest and enjoyed nature, hiking to some beautiful peaks, waterfalls and enjoyed the city as it was celebrating a flower festival.
And yes, we ended Sunday night with a quick shake and rattle which turned out to be a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. Everybody was ok - it’s all part of the CSC experience! ;-)
If you wonder about my silence...
Well yes, it got me... Montezuma’s revenge said hello this week, and I am just recovering from all the fun. Btw. if you didn’t know, Montezuma was Emperor of Mexico from 1502 to 1520 and was in power when the Spanish began their conquest of the Aztec Empire. The revenge element of the phrase alludes to the supposed hostile attitude of countries that were previously colonized by stronger countries, which are now, in this small but effective way, getting their own back.
Well, now that we cleared this up... in summary of the week, we made great progress bringing our project back on track, finishing Thursday with a Skype calls with the President of BAMX, gaining agreement on the opportunities we identified that we will focus to work on the remaining weeks that we are here.
I also had the pleasure Thursday evening to meet up with some former team members from the Guadalajara campus for the first time. We had some great hrs together and really it was great finally putting a face to a name.
Friday we all got to visit the IBM Guadalajara campus and I must say it was quite and impressive facility. From meeting our local CSC alumnis, to visiting the CIO agile work space, ending with a very impressive Power system manufacturing tour.
Shopping for our weekend trip to Mazamitla
this was a fun trip .... ;-)
True test of our leadership skills
Monday, and we are back in the office at the Guadalajara food bank. Right away we picked up where we left off, despite the fact that we experienced the very common network challenges that we heard about so often about last week.
When you have to go hard wired again!
Well, the end of the day threw us a curve ball and basically we have to reassess our entire approach and reconfirm for outcome of our mission.... but I guess that’s why they have selected us to be part of this challenging engagement.
Aside from that - we as a team had the pleasure of congratulating one of our own Haynes, and his wife Claire to their 1st wedding anniversary. It was very special! We are definitely bonding as a team overall.
The 2 ladies behind the scenes
More than timely to introduce 2 great and passionate ladies who make our CSC assignment possible and a once in a lifetime experience:
Linda Wizner (with the green top): she is a CSC Mexico alumni herself, living in Florida/US and has been our team facilitator. Ie she was the one who brought the team together on the kick-off call 3,5 months ago and was on with us every week until we left to Mexico to get us prepared for the in-country assignment. This included arranging for guest speakers on the calls such as the Vice President of IBM Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the IBM Mexico CSR Leader, IBM Legal (to know what we are allowed to do and what not), IBM Security to get practical safety advises, Director of IBM Guadalajara, and many more. Also, she ensured that all of us go through the mandated 40 hours training in time, helped with logistics and was hard trying to find volunteers in the team to help lead the calls and take minutes of the calls. That was the visible part to us and I am sure there has been much more she has been doing behind the scenes like helping to decide on team member assignments to the sub-teams, working on the statement of works, etc.
It was hard to say good bye on the last team call before we went to Guadalajara (see my earlier post “With tears in my eyes”). The more joyful it was that Linda decided to travel to Guadalajara on her own last Thursday night and has spent Friday and Saturday with the team! We had a great Friday evening out - it took us a while until we found a bar in the hotel’s neighborhood that offered Margaritas but finally found a really good place and had our first Margarita since we arrived. On Saturday we went to Chapala and then had lunch in Monte Coxala where she introduced us to the secret of properly drinking Tequila. We ended the day with a nice Mexican team diner in La Tequila in Guadalajara and the time together with Linda was passing way to quickly and we had to say Adios as she left early Sunday morning.
Paula de León (with the white tops) is the most important person to the CSC team here: Paula is the DOT Mexico leader (Digital Opportunity Trust). DOT is one out of 5 IBM’s partner NGOs to run these CSC programs. Paula is our local contact and she is with us for all 4 weeks. She is the one who arranged for the hotel, for transport, for weekend activities, team diners, advising on food, supermarket options, ATMs, arranging for doctors (we already needed one once - luckily all turned out ok, nothing to worry), shooting all the team pictures (this is why I hardly have anyone from Paula), having the relationship to the local host organizations, helping to find lost luggage, seeking clearance from IBM security for all the activities we are doing etc. And same like for Linda: I am sure there so much more she is doing we are not even aware of. She also helps us understand local customs, language and is always there for anything we need. So we ended up to call her our team mum and all love mum! (she even allowed us to have ice cream last Saturday ;-) ) Not sure what we would do without her! Very very glad we have her!
Very nicely said Birgit! Couldn’t agree more - thanks ladies for all your support!
Circular Pyramids of Guachimontones
Most of Mexico’s ancient ruins are located in the south of the country, but the 2,000-year-old Guachimontones ruins are located just an hr away from Guadalajara. Our team decided to go and explore - the circular pyramids are quite visually striking and nearly one of a kind. Aside from the similar but smaller Cuicuilco pyramid in Mexico City, they are the only circular pyramids in the world. Now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Guachimontones was discovered in 1970 by U.S. archaeologist Phil Weigand, Research proved that Guachimontones was built by a civilization that has come to be known as the Tradicion Teuchitlan, a society dating from around 300 B.C. to 900 A.D.
A very special visitor
I have to take a moment and point the spotlight to our wonderful Linda. As a CSC alumni herself, she has been prepping us since July for our assignments and living in Mexico for an extended period. By sharing her knowledge and answering all of our endless questions, we were ready when we arrived in Guadalajara and wasted no time to get working with our clients. Committed as she is, Linda traveled for 2 days to Mexico to meet the teams, observe our discussions and the progress we have made so far. Today we enjoyed some very relaxing time exploring the Lake Chapala region and a farewell dinner of course.... Viaje seguro Linda!
With coffee in hand....
It’s Saturday morning and we are getting ready for a day of excursions. and I was slacking with my post the last two days, so here is a quick update of how the rest of my first week of my assignment wrapped up.
Thursday my team piled up in our little van again and we drove to León. It is part of the macroregion of Bajío within the Central Mexican Plateau. It has a strong leather industry, offering shoes, boots, belts, jackets, and other leather accessories both to national and international markets. The BAMX location is one of the largest in the network and the remodel and expansion was finished just 2 years ago. Quite impressive what the team has put together - I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Friday we were back to our ‘permanent’ office location for the next weeks at the foodbank in Guadalajara. Here we attempted to capture administrative processes from the social workers, inventory procedure and specifics we learned about the network and food banks we had the privilege to visit all week. Now that may sound easier than it is! We facilitated great discussions, shared ideas and expertise, and by applying IBM design methodology we managed to help our client team to visualize & agree on their main pain points. We will now work over the next week to build a strategic plan with them to help address most feasible solutions to implement and reach our goal to recover more food to be distributed.
Unfortunately we had to say our first good-bye’s already. I want to thank again some great we had the opportunity to work with from the BAMX team. Good luck with your mission and we will be working hard with you to make you succeed fighting hunger in Mexico.
In the evening we had our first cross team check point to update each other on the progress we’ve made this week. On the agenda most importantly - voting on weekend excursions and team activities (more to come) ;-)
The night ended with a lovely dinner and some tequila and margaritas - CHEERS!
Off to Lake Chapala this morning - stay tuned!
Warning - extreme humble alert
Well another day venturing across the state of Jalisco - today we visited 2 more food banks that are part of the BAMX network.
First stop Tepatitlán a city located about 70 km east of state capital Guadalajara. A relatively new built warehouse, with lot’s of space, alternative energy sources, their own bakery, a dental office, Tortillería, community kitchen and water purification center. Super impressive and an amazing group of people with one goal - fight hunger and building responsible communities.
Second stop - Zapotlanejo! The food bank here has also been recently rebuilt and focuses on serving food to community, but also socioeconomic programs like teaching sewing lessons, teaching how to cut hair, nutrition classes and in the future, computer access to complete high school graduation - all available to beneficiaries of the communities. The food bank is 100% powered by solar energy.
Late in the afternoon the team had the opportunity to drive to a community drop off, where beneficiaries of the program gathered to receive their bi- weekly packages of food. Seeing all the families come together, children eagerly helping to line up the distribution packages - I think we all wanted to just be part of this and felt even more encouraged to help in the mission of making the BAMX an more sustainable organization, fighting hunger and poverty in this country. By the time we were leaving we had many kids tug on our shirts to engage with us... laughing and smiling, telling us their names.
“To be rich, is not what you have in your bank account, but what you have in your heart!”
Who doesn’t like field trips?
.... or did you know Mexico has active volcanoes?
In the wee hours we were picked up by our host team for a road trip to visit a food bank in Colima, about a 2 hour van ride. Since the BAMX network has so many food banks in their network we are meeting with different organizations and talk to their employees and volunteers to understand their challenges and assess operational pain points. Colima is the fourth smallest state in Mexico and has the smallest population, but has one of Mexico’s highest standards of living and lowest unemployment. At the very north of the state, the border is marked by two volcanoes. The Colima Volcano, also called the Volcán de Fuego, is active and the Nevado de Colima is not.
The food bank in Colima is one of the smaller ones in the network, but since the state is very rich in fruit and vegetable farming, an incredible amount of food is being received and distributed from there.
Further more we had the opportunity today to drive closer to the coast and visit a papaya farm. As the papaya trees are not producing adequate fruit anymore, now being at the end of the season, the food bank volunteers were in the process of harvesting papayas to include for distribution the next couple of days. It was extremely hot and humid... but the papayas were delish!
I think my head & heart grew bigger today
Today we had our formal engagement ceremony at Centro de la Amistad Internacional with approximately 100 guests in the room and lots of press and even TV representation. Everybody had the kindest words for us and shared their excitement about working with our teams, it was almost a bit overwhelming. And clearly we have our work cut out.
Once photo shoots were completed our subteam changed location to spend the remaining day at our host facility in Guadalajara and the team of the National Association of Food Banks (BAMX).
To give you a little context of their work.... today, 1 out of 4 Mexican lives with food shortage. 1/3 of the food that is being produced in Mexico is going to waste. In Mexico there is enough food for everyone and more... if only half of what s produced could be rescued, Mexico could be a hunger free country.
BAMX is a nonprofit and non-governmental organization devoted to rescuing food in order to fight hunger and improve nutrition of the most vulnerable people. The network currently rescues 2% of the food that is being wasted (120,000 tons a year), with over 1,1Mill people all over Mexico benefiting. AND here is where I come in with my IBM colleagues. The next couple of weeks we will be visiting other food banks, review operations and ultimately help optimizing the rescue and distribution of the food by systematizing data that is available, predictive analytics and collaboration improvements across all 60 food banks in the network. With one common goal to drastically increase food rescue for the Mexican population.
Formal kick-off at Centro de la Amistad Internacional with approximately 100 guests in the room and lots of press and TV representatives.
Agenda was as follows:
Welcome by Mario Armut Abarca, Director of Innovation Guadalajara Government
Speech by Eugenio Godard, Director of the Technological Campus IBM Guadalajara
Speech by Jaime Kuklinski, Country Director Peace Corps Mexico
Speech by Gabriel Vázquez, Director of AIPROMADES
Introduction of the AIPROMADES / Peace Corps team
Speech by Ruben Oliva, Director of the National Association of Food Banks (BAMX)
Introduction of the BAMX team
Speech by Lorena Martinez, President of DIF Guadalajara
Introduction of the DIF/Innovation team
Official Photos Team & host organisation representatives
