Ghana Game Changers — Part 7: The last week = Final Presentations & First goodbyes
Here we are, the week 4, the LAST week (Nooooooooooo!) where we had to deliver our work and do 2 final presentations: one with our client organization only and the other one with all client organizations and SAP SoSa teams.
Day #22: Work work work
We worked in the morning and met Francis in the conference room of our hotel at 2pm. We discussed remaining points about our presentations. Then, we met TechAide company to get to know their products and check whether they could fit to the needs of DreamOval Foundation. They had good products but not released on the market yet.
Day #23: Work, WOrk, WORk, WORK … Wrapping up our final presentation
We spent all our last day preparing our final presentation. Pressure was obviously there. It was much appreciated to go out of that conference room to feel fresh air, well rather warm !!!! We had a long day but it did not feel too long because we were so concentrated and focused ..
We had a little break going out to the Koala supermarket. We wanted to thank our organizations. We bought out all of the cakes in the supermarket ahah #MakeItRain xD !
It’s 11 pm and we were DONE with our slides deck. Guess the number of slides… wait for it… it’s gonna be… LEGENDARY ahahah: 65 slides without appendix and other concrete deliverables we created !! What an amazing work we’ve done consolidating our researches, recommendations, priorities etc…
I went to bed with a strange feelings that I could have achieved more, more technical stuff to help them … I was also wondering whether our NGO would be grateful for our hard work.. Those thoughts kept bothering me for a moment..
Day #24: The D-Day to present our deliverables with our NGOs
Here we are, the famous D-Day to share all our recommendations, ideas, deliverables, content with them!
Got up at 7 am, short breakfast and ready to be picked up by Kobe by 8 am. Sahar showed up with many gits bags, thanks to her for preparing everything the day before. We grabbed our cakes from the kitchen and we came to the office by 9am.
Our presentation was supposed to last 2 hours, including discussions but it turned out that it took us 4 hours, including some breaks ! It was not a formal format, we sat down around a round table with Francis, Keren, Mina and the co-founders. We went through our slides deck, listened to their remarks carefully, and gave clearer understanding or recommendations when they had to questions. Henry asked us how many slides we had in total. He just wanted to know how big was our hard work since he seemed to already be satisfied with what we had presented.
We ended up our presentation with a fun way to describe our 4 weeks working with DreamOval Foundation :) :):
SO, WE DID IT !!!!!!! Whaooooooouuuuu, let’s take a big breather, enjoy cakes with the whole staff, take last group shots all together (or selfie for Keren hihi) and say last words… We got very nice words from the CEO as well as Francis. They were extremely grateful for what we brought: ideas, recommendations, energy etc. They deeply thanked us for our high engagement over the last weeks. Derry, the CEO, said: “We can only thank you for all you’ve done by realizing your ideas”.
Big thanks to Kobe who was so kind and patient with us ! We had such great moments in the way to the office and meetings locations. Hope to see you again, wish you all the best bro’ ;)
Back to the hotel, we all shared our feedback and had peaceful moments by the pool. Like first days, we rediscovered the joy of sharing a diner all together! We went again to the Heritage indian restaurant to get as many mango lassi as possible till we were full :D
Day #25: Preparing our presentation for Closing Ceremony & Susan’s birthday
Well, we were all relaxed that day, our deliverables were handed over to our NGOs. We just had to work in the morning on our final presentation for the closing ceremony, but it was a high-level overview of our 4 weeks: who we are, what our NGO does, what our deliverables are, and what our takeaways are…
The most relevant thing of that day was Susan’s birthday !!! It was SUSANTIONAL ahahah. As you guess, I’ve shared my expression: to be frawesome :D. And susan came up with “susantional” word to express how she feels. I definitely approve it !!! We went to THE fanciest restaurant of Accra: Urban Grilled (upstairs Coco Lounge). We had a private area (like a bubble room as we are used to say in Paris office). Food was delicious despite a little quantity (gastronomic restaurant héhé)
After diner, we moved to the outside area, still fancy of course. We had a surprise for here: a movie with all our individual’s wishes. We were supposed to show it on a laptop but finally we were able to display it on a huge screen above the outside bar !!! It was nice. We all had a lots of emotions while watching this video. Bismark, Brijesh and Barbara were also part of it !!! Susan did not expect it at all… It was very emotional, or I would say, susantional: some tears of joy, heartfelt hugs, .. At some point, we also realized that was our last evening all together and the end of this adventure…
Day #26: Closing Ceremony & first “see u soon”
Closing ceremony took place in the morning. Our team was first to present. The goal was to introduce our team and NGO, share a high-level overview of our deliverables and the best moments of our journey. Afterwards, Francis thanked us for what we had done and brought to his foundation. We were offered Kente “scarf”, cotton fabric made in Ghana, I Love It. It is colorful and nice, I can’t wait to hang it somewhere in my flat :).
The other teams made it well. I enjoyed their presentations, different from ours but it had brought another perspective of our journey. Well done all !!!
@DreamOval: We’ll definitely stay in touch and follow-up with you ! We all are available for any questions and support.
In the afternoon, Andreas and I went to an opening ceremony of a library in Accra, downtown. The Vice President’s wife invited us to attend it. The library owns 5K books donated, 5 laptops and 10 kindles.
Back to the hotel, we joined the whole SAP SoSa in the conference room for debriefing those 4 weeks. Then, we had a few hours to relax and pack our suitcases.. We went out for diner early, by 6pm, all together before first departures: italian restaurant right in the corner. The atmosphere was not very joyful, we were all tired, a “goodbye” mood.
Sahar & Ricardo were the first ones to leave us. First goodbyes were emotional. But we promised to see each other somewhere in the world. And anyway, I was so pushy that I think Sahar has no choice to come to Paris in 2017 :).
Right after they left us, we went to another fancy bar called: SkyBar on the 25th floor in the Villagio, near airport. That was The Fancy week actually. The view was nice, we were close enough to see a few planes landing. Ajay and I ordered a passion fruit cocktail, so good ! I was surprised to see passion fruit on the drink menu as I had not been able to see and get it before (grocery store, bars, restaurants..). We were not in a partying mood, we really chilled out :). Afterwards, we came in the neighboring bar: AM&PM, a sport bar with a lots of televisions and loud music. A Lamborghini was parked in front of the bar entrance. I can’t believe that someone has a Lamborghini here, considering bumpers, holes on the roads, crazy drivers .. I guess the guy can only drive around in a circle of less than 2 kilometers diameter from the airport ahah. Very useful :P!
I’ll write my last blog post later, it will deal with my last day at Bojo Beach, shopping, other goodbyes and thoughts..
Thanks for reading and stay in touch for the next and last one !
