IBM CSC - South Africa 18 - A journey begins - Kathleen Leedle

A unique journey is about to begin and I think the impact it will have on me, my teammates and our client is going to be extraordinary.

I am honoured to be flying off to Johannesburg, South Africa for an IBM Corporate Services Corps (CSC) assignment in just over a week. I’ve created this blog that I’ll be using to post pictures, videos and stories of my journey and I hope that you will follow along. Please leave comments, ask questions and provide a familiar face.

For those of you who have not heard of the IBM Corporate Services Corps, IBM’s CSC is a leadership program that takes high performing IBMers from different countries, to all join together in a developing country to perform a community service project.

The Corporate Service Corps was launched in 2008 to help provide IBMers with high quality leadership development while delivering high quality problem solving for communities and organizations in emerging markets. The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10–15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four week community-based assignments. During the assignment, participants perform community-driven economic development projects working at the intersection of business, technology, and society.

For more information on this IBM program please look at the following site -> http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/

The journey to Johannesburg will take 26 hours for me (18 hours in the air, with an eight hour stop in London, England). For anyone that knows me, flying is not my forte, even though I fly frequently for work. I’ve been on over 40 flights in 2017 and the count will continue to grow.

With nerves set aside, I don’t think I have ever been more excited about an assignment. When I applied to the CSC program, I wanted to be chosen for a project that is completely different than what I am used to and something that would be meaningful. When I received the acceptance letter last summer, I was thrilled.

The IBM team accompanying me for this South Africa assignment includes fourteen other IBMers from different countries. I’m the only one from Canada and the rest of my CSC team comes from Argentina, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Slovakia and the United States. We have been meeting weekly for the last three months over video conferencing to prep for our assignment. I am looking forward to meeting my teammates in person. So many different skills, so much diversity, that will come together in unison to show what a cross cultural team is capable of.

To learn more about the assignment I will be experiencing and to follow my progress please keep connected to this blog. I love working with new people, and traveling, so I really hope to have the experience of a lifetime. We will be completely immersed in the South African culture and will be learning about the history of South Africa through various excursions. It doesn’t feel real yet, although my bags are already packed and I am already starting to transition out of my current job. Wish me luck and I look forward to connecting with all of you very soon.

#CSCZA18

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