Wheels up

Boarding my flight now and it appears that the majority of passengers
are either Africans going home or missionaries, with a few adventure
seekers sprinkled in. Maybe things haven't changed as much as we'd like
to think in the past hundred years.

Departure

Feeling nervous is serving no purpose save for highlighting just how infrequently I feel nervous, but with departure in just 2 hours, some rowdy butterflies have opened a mosh pit in my midsection. Started my malaria meds, one last luggage check, and was pleasantly surprised by a Shabbat meal invite from the owner of our hotel in Nairobi. My next post will be from Kenya!

Countdown

As with any pending transition, mental countdowns proliferate. This seems to be a combination of anticipation for the new experience and new awareness of incipient absences. Only 6 more bedtime stories to read to the kids, 5 more times to wake up in my own bed, 2 final client visits, dwindling availability of reliable internet and electricity, last easy access to prolific kosher food, only 18 more transition emails to send, last davening in a minyan, one last Shabbat together, the enumeration knows no enumeration. I'm well-versed in the art of appreciating the commonplace sublime that has populated my daily life, but even pause accentuates poignancy. Melodramatic, admittedly, as I am a service corps participant, not a cancer patient, but still weighty as a month is a far longer period than I've ever departed from my happy routine. Now if only any of that anticipation translated into a more practical motivation to pack...

Come again?

As my teammate Francesco comments on our Team Blog, the most common reaction that most of us get is not "How cool!" or "Stay safe!" It's typically "Say what?" That includes from members of my own family. Which begs the question, why on God's green Earth are all of us shlepping all over God's green Earth? So here's the best succinct summary I can offer.

It's good for Kenya.

 From the Kenyan e-Government Directorate's perspective, I think this is the equivalent of finding a $20 in the laundry. It's not going to change your life, but it allows you to do one small thing that you wouldn't have otherwise done. I expect from our initial interactions that we will find the staff there skilled but overwhelmed. And if our small group of highly motivated, highly skilled professionals with a fresh set of eyes working intensely for a short period of time at no cost to the government can produce a work product that helps move their agenda forward, that's a good thing. It's worked on dozens of Corporate Service Corps projects up until now, and our crew of talent makes them look like shlubs.

It's good for IBM.

 There is no question that IBM gets a PR boost for these activities, and companies and governments want to do business with companies that have a robust corporate citizenship agenda. And Kenya is an expanding market for IBM. But given how much press we see on corporate malfeasance is it so terrible for a company to receive good press for doing good works? Cynically, if IBM really just wanted the PR boost, they could have run this program for one year and then killed it. Instead, they're expanding it each year. IBM also gets the benefit of globally seasoned leaders that it needs given the 100+ countries in which it operates.

It's good for Me.

 This is radically unlike any professional experience I've ever had in my life. In a global economy, my history reads extremely local. The career development I can receive in one month of working with an international team for an international client is more than I could hope for from twenty classroom trainings. It might also be fun. Maybe.

Kwaheri

The Reluctant Blogger

On the list of things I was reasonably certain I would never do in life, blogging ranks near the top. Here begins further evidence regarding a mistaken reliance on my reasonable certitude.

My objections to blogging (and facebook, tweeting, vlogging and bunch of other non-English words that I find myself suddenly considering) are two.

First, a Privacy Paradox. Events of moment in my life are best shared with those close to me; others are not worth sharing. Therefore, my blog would be constituted of items too insipid to read and items I regretted writing. Hardly a compelling case.

Second, I am fortunate not to lack for interpersonal interaction. I am not eager to dilute my conversations with status updates, my small talk with wall talk, or my friends with "Friends". Quantity threatens quality.

And yet, here I type. For in this instance, I am faced with an a situation which defeats my prior objections. I am at once presented with an experience of some note which I can share uninhibited, indeed I feel obliged to do so. For in a mere two weeks, my team departs to Kenya for a month as a part of IBM's Corporate Service Corps - a corporate funded, technology focused privately outsourced version of the Peace Corps (sans abuse). In addition to my commitment as part of the program to document my experiences, I'm tremendously grateful for the opportunity and feel obligated to share it. I'll have no consistent capacity to share it on an individual basis, and certainly not as broadly as I would like - hence blogging (and its fellow travelers of lexical chazerai) seem the best option.

More to come as I suspend my apologetics and describe the experience in more detail.

Blog in Swahili is... Blog

Some background... I initially applied to IBM CSC in 2008 for the 2009 assignment year. My application was rejected, which was not surprising given the selective nature of the program. More surprising was my acceptance the app I resubmitted 2009 for the 2010 year. Subsequent to my acceptance, I waited about 9 months for an assignment. This was likely due in large part due to my severe chronological constraints comprised of chagim, school schedules, moving to the suburbs, and a sprinkling of other landmines strewn across an otherwise inviting calendar. The assignment arrived just prior to Thanksgiving 2010 notifying me that I would be part of the 2nd IBM team headed to Kenya, or - in the blase lingo of the CSC - Kenya 2.

I immediately scoured the web for information on my predecessors' travels, finding a German woman to serve as an unsuspecting victim for my insatiable curiousity. After about an hour of instant messaging, I ordered Swahili CDs and a few Kenya tour books, and sat back and waited for the rest of the team to show themselves. We began to review preparatory materials and training in weekly conference calls which spanned the globe, with teammates drawn from the Eastern United States, Italy, South Korea, Switzerland, China, Canada, Hungary, Japan, and Denmark. Our destination was determined to be Nyeri, a smallish city or largish town north of Nairobi and historical locus of the Kikuyu, Kenya's dominant tribe.

Our projects were assigned to three subteams - ours taking on the President of Kenya's E-Government Directorate as our client. I could not have asked for better teammates, with Anna (South Korea), Luan (Switzerland) and Nimeesh (Canada) each contributing creatively and consistently from Day 1. Our task is to lay the basis a legal framework for Kenya's e-Government services, specifically in the area of data, as their new constitution (b. Oct 2010) has left them generally bereft of detailed regulation. Our customer, Dr. Katherine Wanjiro Getao, Secretary of Information and Communications Technology Secretary, is the first African woman to have earned a PhD in Computer Science. Her ambition, humor and energy were all apparent in our first phone call, and after speaking with her our spirits were as high as her expectations.