Indonesian Adventure 2017

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...

Thursday and it's exactly one week since I left Dublin.  At this point I'm running low on clothes.  Our hotel offers a laundry service but we thought it would be better to give one of the many smaller laundries our support. The inside didn't inspire much confidence but the price was good so we pushed ahead and left our bags of clothes off, agreeing to pay a bit extra for next day service. On collection we were delighted at the fine job the lady did and at a price of EUR0.80 who would complain anyway! After 2 days of meetings with various stakeholders we are now beginning to fit the pieces of the puzzle together (or at least getting to a point where we can ask relevant questions). We are back in Solo Technopark for the day for a tour with Bp Sutrisno and several meetings with staff, students, alumnis and an employer who hires STP graduates. We met with Ms Ayu (manager) and Bp Endi Suhardi (supervisor) with TRC  - a Japanese company that manufactu...

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...

Clockwise from me, Bapak Sutrisno, Candra (our translator), Tracy and Aban (both IBM) We spent Tuesday morning meeting with Bapak Sutrisno who heads up the training faculty in Technopark.  Working almost entirely through a translator in 30 degrees of humid heat is tough going but by the end thanks to the patience of Candra and Bapak Sutrisno we had quite a good understanding of it. Solo Technopark offers 5 training courses all of 9 months duration. Plus 2 additional courses which are partly run in Solo city. 1. Manufacturing - eg spare parts for cars 2. Mechanical welding 3. Automation 4. Textile machine maintenance 5. Mechanical design The additional courses are: Basic aircraft structure - 6 months in Solo - 3 months Jakarta Underwater welding - 2 months duration. No prior welding knowledge necessary. Students are usually 18 or 19 and have graduated from vocational secondary school - what we would call a tech in Ireland. Courses cost 7....

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...

Sunday and it was time to move south to Solo city to begin our assignments in earnest. We would be moving into the Royal Heritage hotel for a month and the staff gave us a fine welcome at Solo City Airport with flower garlands and a comemorating banner. The welcome at the hotel  itself was even more overwhelming and the management team greeted us in full traditional dress and a traditional dancer put on a show.