#ibmcsc withdrawal sets in and random reflections emerge

It hasn’t even been a week since we completed our assignments and I’m going through CSC withdrawal – missing the daily work with our smaller team, the camaraderie of the larger team, the hospitality of our host organization TÜSİAD, and the frenzy of Istanbul.
As I think back on our experience there are a few suggestions to pass along to future CSC teams:

• Try to do as much research on your respective organization, the environment it works in, the country it operates in, best practices, and the related subject matter before you leave – it’ll help you get started more quickly when you get on the ground.
• If at all possible, get ahead on your day job – it'll make the transition back much easier.
• If you’re lucky enough to have a country with a local IBM Corporate Citizenship representative like we were with Ceyhun in Turkey, ask for some country context and a view of the organization you’ll be working with.
• When you get your Statement of Work, ask lots of questions and try to get in a few discussions with your host organization to validate the scope.
• Learn some key phrases in the local language – it’s amazing how far a few phrases and a smile will go.
• Be open to new experiences. While the CSC project is your focus, absorbing the culture is also important to provide context to the work you’re doing.
• Learn something about the countries your teammates are from and reference their personal profiles that we all do near the beginning of the assignment.

From a personal perspective, a few random reflections:

Deirdre getting fresh pomegranate juice

• I’ll never get used to Istanbul traffic but have learned the “critical mass theory” which is: more people, cars stop – more cars, people stop.
• Turkish tea flows endlessly. Turkish hospitality extends to the office with a person assigned to provide tea and coffee to guests AND employees.
• Pomegranates are the fruit of choice. We’ve enjoyed freshly squeezed pomegranate juice everywhere. It ranges in price from 1 to 5 Turkish lira depending on where you are in the city.
• People are the same around the world: each of us wants interesting work that pays well and is productive; a healthy and happy family; and a way to give back to our communities and our world.
• Working together results in grander outcomes both in our personal work, and the projects we’ve facilitated on CSC.

Now the question is, what next?

#ibmcsc #turkey Mission accomplished - four key recommendations for Turkey’s STEM strategy and lifetime connections made

TÜSİAD-IBM CSC Team

Four weeks have flown by! Yesterday we presented to the team and a committee of TÜSİAD, and they plan to take our recommendations forward to their board in December. Today we participated in a media event to present high level recommendations. The body of work from all four teams is absolutely impressive and wide-ranging in scope. We can only hope that each organization takes the recommendations forward to help Turkey’s national goals. See the photos from the event.

When our team examined the volume of work we produced over four weeks, we surprised even ourselves – but the team effort made it happen, and the co-operation of our most hospitable host organization team Ebru, Yasemin, Deniz, İpek and Ezgi. They even created a wonderful parting video for us. Thank you Team TÜSİAD!

Drawing on the strengths of each team member we produced four key recommendations (that are confidential until the board has decided on which ones they want to implement), 18 best practices from 9 countries, a multitude of resource documents, and a list of over 50 possible activities and initiatives to promote STEM education and workforce training gleaned from interviews and best practice research.

Best practice observations

Some of those best practices surfaced some general findings:

• STEM identified as a common issue globally in the quest for innovation and global competitiveness
• Common themes of public-private partnerships and collaboration across business, NGOs, government and communities
• Businesses are engaged in STEM as they recognize its importance to research and development
• Government plays a key role in all best practice STEM programs
• Multiple stakeholders are consulted to ascertain their specific STEM needs
• Student and teacher engagement universally present in best practices
• Real-life application of STEM is paramount in addition to theory
• Examples of best practice projects are occurring in pockets around Turkey

Deniz and Yasemin reading coffee fortunes

This week hasn’t been without some cultural activities. The ever-gracious TÜSİAD team took us to a restaurant where we heard traditional Turkish music. Beautiful melodies sung with a unique modulating vibrato, and when translated, seems there are a lot of stories of unrequited love, lost love, bitter love – melodic nonetheless. What was best was hearing our Turkish colleagues and surrounding tables joining in. Turkish hearts are full of passion and pride for their country and culture.

Football frenzy

We also took in Turkey’s football frenzy when we went to see a game between Turkey and Brazil at the Fenerbahçe Stadium that holds 50,000 people. Even though Turkey lost 0-4, we saw the patriotism of the crowd when the anthem was played, and the unreserved passion they have for football. We also experienced the crowds piling onto buses after the game – fortunately it was all a good natured scramble.

Tonight we said our good-byes as we’re all going in different directions tomorrow. We’re all a little apprehensive about returning to our regular routines after such an exciting assignment in such an exotic venue. Adjustment may be challenging but we’ll all have the memories of our experience in Istanbul to think about as we carry on with our lives in India, U.S.A., Australia, China, Singapore, Canada and Turkey. It has been an adventure and a one-of-a-kind learning experience of a lifetime. I’d highly recommend it!

#ibmcsc #turkey final recommendations coming together

A birthday to remember

Birthday lunch near Galata Tower

What an action-packed Friday! We reviewed our recommendations with Ebru, Yasemin, Deniz, and İpek on Friday so now we’re cleaning up our final deliverables. But it wasn’t all work – we celebrated team member, Frank’s birthday a day early with cake after a great lunch with the TÜSİAD team near the Galata Tower. It was so very thoughtful of them.

Later in the early evening we met Yasemin for a boat ride on the Bosphorus to Ortaköy. Seeing the skyline at night with the mosques and the Bosphorus Bridge all lit up is quite magical. Many thanks to Yasemin for suggesting it and accompanying us. The Ortaköy Mosque was built in the 18th century and the current mosque erected in its place, was ordered by the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid and built between 1854 and 1856. Its architects were Armenian father and son Garabet Amira Balyan and Nigoğayos Balyan (who also designed the nearby Dolmabahçe Palace and the Dolmabahçe Mosque that we saw last week), designed it in the Neo-Baroque style. We met Yasemin’s very hospitable husband who is now a naval officer teaching at the naval academy. During his 13 years of service at sea he travelled to 39 countries – but never to Canada or the U.S. I see a possible vacation to New York and Toronto in the near future for someone!

Ortaköy Mosque

On the Bosphorus with Yasemin

After the boat ride, we met the team from the Centre for Social Innovation along with some of their colleagues to share our CSC experience and to hear a little about their work at the Centre. It seems to be a lot like our own Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. In fact, Suat Ozcagdas, the executive director, said that he had read about it before they initiated the Centre in Istanbul. They were curious about our impressions of Turkey.
After that we had a birthday celebration for both Frank and Matt who's birthday is November 9! Thanks to Prajyot, Merve, Seda and Ceyhun for all the preparations!

Ortaköy Mosque & Bosphorus Bridge

The clock is ticking too fast

Just one week left and so much to do. We’re preparing our final deliverables to present to the TÜSİAD team and board members on Thursday. Time has passed so quickly. While I miss my family, I’ll also miss working on such an important project – one of national significance. We’re leaving our roadmap and recommendations in the capable hands of the TÜSİAD team and we’re confident they will carry it forward.

Working on our deliverables the rest of the weekend so no exciting excursions or meetings for me til Monday!

More anon…

Quince dessert

Istiklal Tram at night

Galata Tower at night

Ortaköy Mosque

#ibmcsc #turkey Inspiration hits – a plan is emerging!

Team 1 consensus reached!

TÜSİAD team at the workshop

We ran our workshop on Monday and extracted some key recommendations that we will share with the TÜSİAD team and they, in turn, will share with their working committees and board. Ebru, Yasemin, Deniz, İpek and Ezgi from TÜSİAD have been very helpful in providing direction and support. We truly appreciate their insights and knowledge of the Turkish environment.

A rich past – an evolving future

While it’s essential to know the context of Turkey, we also have to be cognizant so as not to let it limit our recommendations. If Turkey truly wants to be innovative, competitive, and develop 21^st century skills – we need to think beyond the barriers of the current context to push what’s possible. Dream a little, if you will. So that’s what we’ve been doing – dreaming a little with TÜSİAD to see a future for a country that has such a rich past and can have an even more exciting future. We’ve certainly seen pockets of brilliance with some best practices already in place – now if they can only be replicated across this complex country…

STEM-related organizations

Turkey's STEM Ecosystem 

With our workshop participants, we mapped out a STEM ecosystem to understand who the key organizations are in each of four areas: student and parent engagement; teacher training, engagement and motivation; research & data gathering; and business, NGO, government engagement. With that we examined possible activities and the key recommendations began to emerge. (And yes, I know this is a misuse of the term “ecosystem”, that it’s a natural process etc. etc. but it certainly helps to describe what we’re thinking here more explicitly – organizations that work with each other, leverage each others’ strengths, reach, capabilities to achieve an overall goal and create an overall system.)

Mapping the STEM ecosystem

Now we’re developing the plan along with packaging up our extensive research on best practices, references and resources. We’re feeling that we are contributing to STEM here in Turkey and are confident that TÜSİAD will be able to push the STEM agenda a long way.

On a more personal note, we’re all missing Deirdre terribly as she returned to Bangalore yesterday to take care of her broken arm. I keep looking around on the bus, and on our walks thinking, “Where’s Deirdre?” and then I remember! We’re all thinking of her and wishing her a super speedy recovery.
Also thinking of my mother and late father today – their 59^th wedding anniversary!
Back to work…more anon…

Workshop planning and thinking ahead to final recommendations #ibmcsc #turkey

Deirdre, Frank & Prajyot

Our team spent Thursday and Friday planning our workshop that we’ll run on Monday with representatives from TÜSİAD, Koç Holding, Education Reform Initiative and the Teacher Training Academy. Each day we’re getting closer to our final recommendations and the workshop will help to validate them. For the workshop we plan to map organizations with ties to STEM education and business to four theme areas in order to identify which ones TÜSİAD might consider collaborating with to promote STEM awareness.

In our best practices research we’ve seen the theme of collaboration and public-private partnerships as common to all. This is certainly something that needs to be considered for a national STEM agenda and it will be among our key recommendations.

Turkish Private Schools Association with CSC Turkey 11 team

Turkish Private Schools Association shares perspectives on STEM

We also had the opportunity to meet key officials of the Turkish Private Schools Association who shared key recommendations from their perspective including university and business collaboration; businesses building and managing labs in public schools; businesses sponsoring research projects with high school students; and summer English language programs saying, “Without language, there is no STEM.” In fact, they rather promote STEAM.

Not so happy Halloween

On another note, on our way to the office on Friday, our team member Deirdre fell in the rain and fractured her elbow – an unfortunate occurrence indeed. Seda came to her rescue and she was treated at the hospital where she'll return to have the firm cast applied next week. With her sunny disposition and positive attitude, she is taking it well and we're all confident she'll recover quickly. In addition, our team member Wagma lost her grandmother in Australia on Thursday and found out Friday morning so Halloween was a sad day for all of us. Our warmest thoughts to Wagma and her family.

Matt, Frank & Joanne

Dolmabahçe Palace

Sultans to Presidents

To lighten the mood today, Matt, Joanne, Frank and I explored the Dolmabahçe Palace, built by Sultan Abdulecid between 1844 and 1853. Six sultans and their families lived in the palace until the establishment of the republic in 1923. Set on the shore of the Bosphorus, the palace has two parts: the Selamlik, the official part of the palace only open to men, and the Harem where the women and children lived and where the Sultan had his bedroom. It’s also where the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, died in 1938. The opulence of the furnishings, the chandeliers, crystal banisters, and painted and gold-leaf ceilings is reminiscent of French and Italian palaces – and no wonder, much of it came from there.

We wandered back through Beşiktaş  – home of one of the three rival Turkish football teams – who’s biggest fan is our IBM colleague Ceyhoun! Prajyot treated us to some Indian tea to complete our day.

Back to more work tomorrow.
More anon…