There we are for the first day in Halifax!
September, 28th 2018. Finally, the day all CSC1CAN team members were waiting for! Now we are all in NS Halifax Canada to start our CSC journey.
It was quite interesting to follow the team leaving the home countries in the same direction during the whole day. Some posts in social media and many texts, including some selfies, helped us to have some fun and share locations and connection flights of each other and, most importantly, helped DOT with the arriving logistics involving 16 IBMers from across the world. Despite some flights delays due to weather conditions in Halifax, everything went well and now it’s time for us to have some rest to get recovered from the long trips. Special thanks to Liesl Mulholland for taking care of us!
Now, we all have to get ready for tomorrow when the whole team will meet in person for the first time! Interesting and special moment coming very soon.
Since I arrived in Halifax early today, I could go for a walk to explore around the hotel a little bit. Usually, when I visit a place for the first time I need some time to get used to the neighborhood. I think the best thing for me to do is going around by foot, so I have a chance to look better at the buildings, houses and people passing by the street. In fact, the weather didn’t help much today, it is raining the whole day but not too bad, so I decided to go even with some showers. It was worth it and I could register this moment through some shots that I am sharing with you below. My first impression was very good, meaning a nice place to visit. Hoping for some more time to explore it better.
For the weekend, I already have a schedule ahead with the team where we’re supposed to do some activities together and have some fun as well. Monday we start working with our clients, full of excitement and challenges to overcome. Nevertheless, the whole team is with the same mindset of impacting Nova Scotia community by helping address some of today’s issues they are facing with our best.
As I mentioned in my first CSC post, we are going to partner with four clients, each one working with a specific sub-team on the associated project described in the form of SoW (Statement of Work), as outlined below.
If you’re interested, you can visit client’s websites for more details at IORE, NSCC, ISANS and NS.
We are all fortunate to have such great projects and clients! And yes, we all have complex problems to address in a short time which requires focus, teamwork and partnership from the whole team.
I’m assigned to sub-team 2 with three other teammates. We are going to work with Nova Scotia Community College or NSCC team on an agenda of education inclusion for people with disability. I’ve learned that accessibility by nature is a complex and broad subject. That brings my sub-team with the first challenge which is to work with NSCC team to define and agree to a SoW which is clear in the objective and deliverables, feasible and also is linked to NSCC business context. That’s the first step to pursue for us to succeed, and I am confident on that.
I don’t know why I was selected to this sub-team and client. Anyways, I’m always personally interested in the agenda of inclusion since I believe we must ensure a world where opportunities are equal to all, no matter the condition (physical or intellectual), race, gender, beliefs or any other characteristic an individual presents. I think that can be possible only if the barriers faced by individuals with different condition(s) are recognized and managed accordingly. Main objective here is to remove or at least minimize the barriers, allowing those individuals access to whatever they need to develop the capabilities required for them to participate in social and economic activities in the same condition as others with “normal” condition. No doubt, that’s a right of all human being!
At this moment all I can tell you I have been studying a lot since I was informed about the project. It’s an incredible opportunity for me to learn, share and, most importantly, evolve as a person whose dream is to contribute somehow for a better world, in this case more tolerant and fair. However, it will demand much more research and hard work of my team to embrace this challenge and bring the best each one has to our client NSCC, regarding references, best practices, use cases, innovation, technology and so on.
Having said that, that could not be better and you cannot imagine how proud and motivated I am with this assignment. I’d like to thank the team from IBM Corporate Services, DOT, clients and for the Halifax community for having us and making this real. Counting on your partnership to make this happen.
To finalize this post, I would like to say that I consider all this as a gift and I feel thankful!
More to come, stay tuned. ;-)
