#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…