2nd Working Week in Joinville

After a great first week, we continue on to a productive 2nd work week....

Monday 21 Oct

The team further venture into the possibility of engaging SoftExpert company as the project partner after a promising first meeting with the company's CEO Mr Ricardo Lepper. To get ourselves prepared we had to read up more about the company and it's product that they have.

As Mondays the Resgate office are not open, we had to go out for own lunch. So Mario took us out to a typical Brazil place with food lines (similar to "economy rice" in Malaysia). Which is a typical "food by the weigh" place or you can sign up for the buffet option. Mario had some errands in shopping fabric for the new computer room's tables and chairs cover, so we went to a nearby fabric shop. Whereby we met Paloma the parrot who almost gotten Mario into trouble and kind of an inside joke for us now!! LOL

*Click here to view the video*

Paloma...Paloma...*riiiingggg*

Mondays are always important as we have our weekly team meeting to update the projects' progress and share with the bigger team. Each team had to talk about 2 positives and 2 doubts of each sub-project progress. This week we also had a good taste of "Hungary", Bela brought over some local liquo, salami, and dark chocolate for everyone to try. And since Bela is from my sub team, he gave me a pack of paprika and a bottle "unicum" as personal souvenir.

Tuesday 22 Oct

The team continued on with more research on SoftExpert and also on open source tools. Let me share on typical lunch prepared by our lovely Eronita. It's really nice send pictures in our watsapp group chat & bombard the other team's on our daily lunch updates to make the others feeling jealous.Haha! As we are the only team with personal chef, home cook and local dishes for lunch!!  

Wednesday 23 Oct

After work we were lucky to have a personal tour to the famous Escola de Teatro Bolshoi, which is the school for ballet and music that is associated with the famous dance company in Russia. I had NO IDEA that they were also located in Joinville!! 

Thursday 24 Oct

More work and research!! The guys were focusing in detailed process flow of Resgate and worked on drawing each process out to ease out the efforts if we require IT experts to design the tool for us. While Sene and I focused on our final presentation content, layout and agenda.

Today tasted this dessert made by our neighbors above (there is a nice family staying above the Resgate office). It's with bananas, apples and believed is condensed milk kinda sauce. Sinful yet delicious!! And again...I receive a cute art piece drawing from Bruna (Eronita's daughter who is also one of the Resgate kids). She drew me a heart shape, ain't she the sweetest thing!! 

Lastly, to prove that we actually do WORK here while we are on our CSC assignment, please look at our serious, hardworking look!! 

Friday 25 Oct

Today the team worked from hotel, as right after work we will need to head out to Curitiba airport for out flight to the long awaited weekend trip to Iguassu Falls!! And that's the 2nd week here, gosh time flies...

Stay tuned and read all about the amazing falls stories and see wonderful pictures as well!!

#ibmcsc #brazil15

1st Weekend Outing - Blumenau, Sao Francisco

Friday 18th Oct was Mr Captain Considerate's birthday, who is that? Adam!! The team brought him a balloon and cake, and of course we embarrassed him by singing happy birthday in the hotel lobby. After that we headed out for dinner and ended up in a Arabic Hooka place for some drinks and dance.

After a long night outing, we woke up and head out to Blumenau. It's well known for it's famous Oktoberfest which attracts many tourists flooding the town. And it's totally Germany here!! We head out with our private 16 seater van all excited.

Once reached, we spent some time walking around the town and shopping for souvenirs. And most important, you need to get your own MUG!! So there you see my own strap with my first steel Oktoberfest mug!! Some of my friends went further and got the hat too!!

First, we participated in the parade which was also one of the highlights of the festival. All the women, men and even kids were dressed up in traditionally German outfits. And some floats that passed by offered free cerveja (beer in Portuguese).

After the parade, while we were walking towards the main hall for where the festival was held. Some of the parade floats "accompanied" us towards the main area. It was some what the coolest thing that I've seen, everyone was dancing with the float performers, and everyone was just on the street dancing & singing. And at that very moment the tourists --> "we" became part of the parade itself!!

As the next day we had another outing to go to, we had to call it a night by midnight.

RISE and SHINE!! It's Sunday and we all woke up early (considering the fact we arrived back to the hotel "early"). We had a BOAT to catch this early morning!!

Basically it was a boat cruise to Sao Francisco, which we had limited time to explore the town. But it didn't look like there was much to do there. However, the weather was pretty good and the company that matters. It could be somewhat interesting if it was like a sunset cruise, which you could enjoy a different set of scenery on your return route.

So that's a wrap for 1st weekend outing of CSC Brazil 15!!

#ibmcsc #brazil15 #csctravels

First Week at a Glance

Most of first week was understanding the needs and requirements that Mario wish to have for Resgate. In terms of operations tasks and database management as currently they are using some tools with limitations in functions.

We had some meetings with stakeholders and potential partners as well. Currently we have proposed a revised statement of work (SOW) which we wish to accomplish by end of the 4th week.

Highlights of first week:-

(1) Meet and Great
We had some kids at Resgate office today, and we were asked to introduce ourselves. The younger ones are so adorable and they were having some art class. Surprisingly I got drawings as gifts from them, how sweet~~~~ We also spent some time talking to the older kids who have been with Resgate for few years. And we were also fortunate to listen to some of the essays they wrote about how they felt after joining Resgate. It was really touching and sentimental, as you can feel that this is really a great opportunity for kids to get better quality of education and a chance to dream big.

(2) Possibility of Partnership?
Visit to a potential partner Inovaparq, an organization that networks Universities and IT start up Companies. Which is also one of the organization for Brazil 15 team. We prepared some charts and showed them the framework on proposals of having a collaboration between University students, IT companies and them. As they could maybe provide some manpower in managing this database implementation for Mario (Projeto Resgate).

The Inovaparq CSC team welcomed us to their client place and was quite fun visiting their client place. they set in to listen to our presentation to the Chairlady of Inovaparq Vanessa. The office is quite relaxing as it's inside the University with many greenery and lake environment. We even participated in their twice a week stretching exercise.


(3) Visit to Bom Jesus IELUSC
One of the best private schools in Joinville and majority of the Resgate kids are studying there. The school is really nice, facilities such as swimming pool, gym, basketball courts, language labs etc. I was amazed with the security system they have for the schools, electronic tags to get passed the barriers. It's better than schools that I have back home. =) We went into one of the class and greet with the kids, they were so excited to see visitors coming to interrupt their class. After visiting 1 campus, we head downtown to the other campus which we met with the Director and some teaches. Purpose of the meeting was to share what we were trying to implement so that the school records such as grades and class schedule were able to sync up with the future portal / database that Projeto Resgate will use.

#ibmcsc #brazil15

Kick Off & Meeting Clients

Finally Monday 14 Oct is here, we have officially kicked off Brazil 15 CSC team~!! First day meeting face to face with our clients whom we have started talking for at least 2-3 weeks.

I am assigned to team Projeto Resgate which means Rescue Project in English. Feels great to be in charge with this NGO in helping kids of this community for better education opportunities.
We met up with Mario and his wife Monica at Univille University together with some key stakeholders of Resgate such as the founder of this project - Paulo who just relocate back to Joinville after spending 2 years in Italy for work.

We did not waste any time!! Mario just jumped right in and took us for a tour in the Community he helps, looking at the neighborhood,  living condition and schools.

And after the short neighborhood tour we reach our "office" for the coming weeks. It's a stand alone place with residential above. They have library, pantry/kitchen, classrooms, meeting room and a soon-to-be computer lab. And we noticed that there was 4 pretty brand new chairs, which we felt they really went their way in getting it for us. It''s really a sweet gesture!! And they have a chalk board too, reminds me of school days =)

We spent the entire afternoon, listening and understanding Resgate. Gave us pretty good insight of the concerns and areas that need help and improvement on. First impression of Mario, super passionate and person with GREAT BIG & GOOD heart!!

I am loving this project and feels truly wonderful to be part of this team.....

#ibmcsc #brazil15

Getting to know Joinville and the Brazil 15 team...

Sunday 13 Oct, the team had all FINALLY arrived safely and all in one piece XD !! So it's time to know the town better. Wellington was kind enough to show us around, telling us what places to eat, what to see, where to get groceries, hospital and of course some history and background stories. Originally, Joinville was a wedding gift to Prince of Joinville and his Brazilian bride who had never step foot on the land. And after that it was sold to a German named Mathias Schroder. Hence, the strong German influence that you can see from the architectures of the buildings.

After 2 hours of walking, we are ready for a BIG lunch feast!! Which is the famous Churrascaria, meat buffet. There was all sorts of meat and different cuts that you can try. And the great thing is that you will be served non stop. There is a card which you placed it in front of you, which is self explanatory. But any how, the waiters there will still come to you even if you flip it on the red side !!

After the heavy meal, we went back for some rest and 3pm it's team meeting!! So Bruno coordinated some "get to know" activities for the team. Each of us had to draw our own time line, which is interesting to see the different pictures people were drawing and their life experiences were.

Comments from the session, the team really consist of a diverse group in terms of background, experiences, and diversity!!

#ibmcsc, #brazil15

Being Tourist and Bonding Sessions

Slowly one by one the teammates arrived, think I was the 5th to arrive among the team. So after checking in and getting settled I head down to lobby to meet them for dinner. And it was my first time meeting Wellington - who is the local consultant here at Joinville, his lovely wife Clara and IBMs' consultant Bruno. So the early birds who arrived on Friday Oct 11th had a lovely dinner and it was a good first night out. We went to this placed called "Agua Doce". it serves typical local food here and "extra strong" "extra large" Caipirinhas.

The next day around noon, while waiting more of the team members to arrive. Wellington brought us for a short hike up to a hill.

You can see the coast line and a glimpse of Joinville's panoramic view from top.

After exercising and hiking, we decided to have a nice lunch at the Yacht Club. And managed to try some local food moqueca which looks like a curry in claypot to me but it's not spicy and the texture is less thick than curry. But taste was quite good. And we had papaya cream for dessert!!

Top Left: Bela (Hungary), Bottom Left Salil (USA), Bahar (Turkey), Bottom Right Helena (Hungary) & Ayse (Turkey)

Our yet-to-be complete Group Picture

What a good first day with the team!!

#ibmcsc, #brazil15

The Adventure Begins!!

After spending 2 nights in São Paulo (which I will blog about this separately), I flew out from Guarulhos International Airport heading to Curitiba, Santa Catarina. As always I bring drama with me all the time...

First the airport shuttle bus that supposed to reach at 11am had not arrived and the time was already 11:20am. I was really getting worried and suddenly a guy in his 50's approached me and offered his taxi service to the airport. I was lucky that he was really a legitimate taxi driver and kind person. Charged me 80réis and brought me safely to the airport.

After that my boarding pass printed the wrong gate number and almost missed the flight. There was hardly any signage at the gate on the destination it was for and I do not speak / understand Portuguese. Luckily this man in his 50's who sat beside me at the waiting area was able to converse in English and was really helpful!! We found that our Gate number printed on our boarding pass was the same, BUT we are heading to a different destination. So ended up he went around to check and found out my gate was another gate!! After thanking him couple of times and shock his hand, I literally ran to gate 21 from gate 15.
 Thankful that after that everything seems to be working out great.

On the plane ride the girl beside me was from Belo Horizonte and we had some good conversation. Even though she kept saying she have bad English, but we could communicate with each other and even learned few Portuguese words from her.

with Tatiane - plane ride new found friend =)

Once arrived at Curitiba Airport, driver - Walace was already there waiting for me. On the 2 hours car ride, the scenery reminded me home - the highway roads that I take back to Ipoh. As it was surrounded by mountains and lots of green sight!

Walace is quite friendly and we talked all the way the entire trip. He purposely slowed down for me to take the "welcome" point of Joinville. He loves his job as this way he hears stories from people everyday from different parts of the world and meets new people everyday. And his goal / dream is to enter & train for Iron man (Triathlon) as he is not really a strong swimmer. Apparently Florianópolis  have this international Iron man event every year!! (My dear friend Nico Mong would be thrilled about this...)

 Once arriving at the Mercure Platz Hotel for check in, I was warmly received by Vanessa who is one of the program partners that made all these happen!! Was given a local phone for this 4 weeks to be in touch with our clients and teammates.

So this is it checked in !! And cannot wait to meet face to face to my Brazil 15 team mates.

my "home" for 4 weeks and view of the town from my room

#ibmcsc, #brazil15