9/20/2010 - CSC Kickoff

The program has officially started.  The kickoff was hosted at and this is where we met our partners for the very first time.  The event started with Kabi, our program lead, talking a little bit about the CSC program, then a vice-president from IBM India gave an overview of IBM in India.  It's pretty remarkable the presence the company has here.  Then each of the NGOs (there were six of them) spoke about their respective organizations.  Each spoke with such passion about their cause that by the time they were all done each of us CSCers were ready to get to work. At the end, each one of us took a couple minutes to introduce ourselves to the group.  

After all the presentations, lunch was brought in and we spent the rest of the time (until 5-6ish) working one on one with our partners / projects (Population Services International PSI).  Chris and I will definitely have our hands full for the next month.  Our partner wants a better data management system and the way things are running now ..Ug... let's just say we're in for some really long hours <sigh>.   On a positive note though, the team we'll be working with, mainly Neeraj and Pinki are very, very nice and open to suggestions.  Our project is also very technical compared to the others so it's kind of refreshing to be working in this space again.  The picture below is that of the PSI team we'll be working with.  ~Dan

(Left to Right) Dan, Pinki, Neeraj, Chris