Days 12, 13 - catchup

Mon Oct 16th. After a hectic weekend it was back to Technopark on Monday morning. The picture shows the Technopark incubator building where we are based. No expense has been spared in fitting it out to the highest spec and a second floor is currently being added. With the exception of the IT review most of our research is complete and we have moved onto analysis that will lead to our recommendations. Also we are happy with our scope document now - that needs to be signed by ourselves and Bp Sumadi on behalf of Technopark and summarises our deliverables for the rest of our time here.


Candra gave us a song to get us back into a working frame of mind. Her colleague Bayu seems unimpressed.

On top of the work that we do for our assigned organisations CSC also entails an element of community service. That will happen next weeked and compromises 3 parts:
1. Host an SME (Small Medium Enterprise) seminar for female and disabled entrepeneurs in Solo and surrounding area.
2. Host a robots workshop to encourage children in the areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)
3. Launch a cancer care app that has been developed by IBM Indonesia at next Sundays Car Free Day event.
Hosting a seminar for business people is not an area that I have any expertise in but this is where the strength of the group comes in. Between the 13 of us we have almost all skills covered. Yemisi works for IBM training and gives us some leadership on pulling it together. The robots workshop doesn't phase me as I have hosted schools STEM workshops before.

Technopark is right beside the University (Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta). Sebelas Maret means March 11th, a date of significance for the revolution here in the mid sixties when President Soekarnos was ousted by Soeharto.  This was a violent chapter in Indonesian history, captured poignantly in the film "The Look of Silence". 
The area is bustling and has plenty of cheap eateries - the one above did a tasty buffet for around EUR2. The food is always good but sometimes you need to ignore your surroundings in these places as the standards are not what westerners would expect. In this place it was finger food (ie no cutlery) with a sink in the restuarant to wash your hands afterwards. We've been advised not to take ice in our drinks but so far only 2 of the group have succumbed to stomach problems so I'm taking a few more risks by now.

Tues 17th
On Tuesday we got sign off on our scope of work document.

We celebrated and treated Candra and Bayu to a fine lunch of fried chicken with rice and iced tea.













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