Day 9 - Here comes the weekend

Our final meeting for the week was with Ryou Juara a tenant in the Technopark incubation centre.
He has developed a mobile app called Delivo which people can use to have parcels collected and delivered. Initially he's offering the service in the Solo City area but is hoping to form a partnership with Lion Air (the low cost carrier in SE Asia) and extend his reach. He is targetting souvenirs, fashion and food. There are four people involved including Ryou and they pay themselves half the minimum wage each month while they get the business up and running - that's EUR50 a month. He found out about Technopark from an enterprise group that he's a member of and is getting support with office space, soft skills training and assistance with developing his business plan.

So an exhausting but productive and fascinating week of fact finding and research draws to a close.
To summarise we covered:
  • Four members of the Solo Technopark management team
  • The partners of Technopark at ATMI
  • Tours of trainingg centres at Technopark and ATMI
  • A tour of a Polytechnic
  • Two entrepeneurs who are enrolled in the incubation program
  • One employer of Technopark graduates
  • Eleven current Technopark students at various stages of the process
  • Five alumnis of Technopark
  • A pile of reports, presentations, roadmaps
When you factor in that this was almost all done through translation it's not a bad weeks work.

We spent the remainder of Friday reviewing what we had learned and came up with a draft scope of work based on:
  • Where we felt Technopark needed help
  • Where our expertise could be most effectively used
  • What could we realistically achieve in 3 more weeks - 2 in reality as much of week 3 would be spent on translating and presenting proposals.
Time for some well earned recreation on Friday night.  Ibad, our friend from Pakistan, is a fan of Shisha. I had seen it before in Spain but never tried it. Myself, Ibad, Aban and Tracy headed to the Emirates Shisha bar and vaped a few hours away over dinner and coffee. 









I can't say I got any effect from the Shisha pipe but it lends itself well to socialising without alcohol and we had a very pleasant evening with some interesting and robust conversation.
I even got asked the question that every Irish person abroad loves: "Ireland  - so that's part of the UK isn't it?"
Was our 800 year struggle in vain?
I have advised my friends that they can't be saying that to Irish people!

A 5.30 am start on Saturday for a massive sight seeing trip  - more to follow.......

Comments

  1. Ibad ur Rehman18 October 2017 at 17:59

    It's good to know you enjoyed the evening with Shisha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deirdre Kennedy19 October 2017 at 04:42

    I know you are in a different time zone but is it not still Thursday there? By the way really enjoying the blog and have shared with all of our newly announced CSC'ers. Enjoy the weekend, look forward to seeing what you'll all get up to!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown19 October 2017 at 19:30

      Hi D - apols for the confusion. We got so busy that I fell behind with the blog catching up slowly. Tks for following it

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 7 - Out and about in Solo city

Image
Scooters Scooters everywhere  - The moped or scooter is the vehicle of choice in Indonesia. They swarm like ants along the road. It's chaotic and hard to tell who has right of way, but everyone seems to get to where they need to go. My colleague Tracy said it feels like you're in a game of Super Mario - Denis would love it! Click on the link to see a video of what I mean. Anyway a bit of a blog backlog due to our assignments becoming very busy so here's a catch up on a busy day 7. We were given a scope of work (SOW) document by Solo Technopark before we came to Indonesia so our goal for the first week is to gain an understanding of the running of their business and then propose any modifications we felt were needed to the scope. Once we get an agreed SOW in place then it's time to go and deliver on the plan. We met management of Solo Technopark on Day 6 so today we went out to meet other stakeholders. First up is ATMI  - a company that produces products commer...
Read more

Day 5 - Suits on

Image
On Monday Oct 9th we would for the first time meet our client organisations and the CSC Indonesia program was formally launched at a press event with the Mayor of Solo City so an early start in our finest attire. Video link to opening speech  - click on the video to get sound Mayor F.X.Hadi Rudyatmo (or Mayor Rudy as he is known) arrived and welcomed us saying how excited he was to have IBM experts from all over the world visit Solo city to work with Govt agencies. He had cancelled a trip to China so that he could attend the CSC opening ceremony. We each in turn introduced ourselves and said where we were from and what our jobs are. Mayor Rudy then took questions before posing with the group for photos. He told us that he grew up in great poverty and that his wish is that no 6 to 16 year olds in Solo city endure the hardships that he endured growing up. He said that the poor and very poor are now being cared for through improved health care and...
Read more

Day 2 - Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur

Image
 Prawn Meehoon Mee for brekkie - couldn't find any prawns in it but very tasty and for less than EUR5 (including a coke) I'm not complaining. I was fortunate on last nights flight to be seated with  Nesma who is en route to Bali for a training course. There can't be too many Eygptian female geologists in the world! A really interesting character and I enjoyed the few hours conversation on board. Final trip for today will be Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta - I've almost forgotten what a bed looks like by now!
Read more