A friend asked the other day what our work day is like.  And I realized that most of this blog has focused on what we do in non-working hours because that’s more interesting and has more photos!  But we are working hard each day trying to deliver value on eSkills for South Africa.  We are divided into 4 smaller teams to each tackle a different challenge around eSkills.  It is a government program in partnership with many many others, which is why we are housed at North West University (NWU) in Mafikeng.  Our work day starts with a pick up between 7:30 and 8:30 and ends officially with a drop-off between 5 and 6, then additional individual work or meetings at night at the hotel.  We have a large single room at the University and a Conference room at the hotel where we all sit together. The work doesn’t look much different than from back home … huddling over laptops, brainstorming, making charts, and having telecon or in-person meetings.  The huge difference for me is physically being in the same room with my team since I’ve worked remotely from home for 9 years.

Each of the 4 teams also has a Masters or PhD student from NWU assigned to us for the month to help with logistics, translation when needed, input from a local view and research.  Our student is Kebiditswe, pronounced Kay-Bee-Deet-Sway, and she’s doing her Masters in Sociology.

Kebiditswe – the North West University Master’s student working with my team, team 3.

Team 1 working at the University, Clockwise from the top is Suro, Thapi (NWU Grad student), Lucia, Leigh and Julie

Part of teams 2 and 4 taking an early meeting via Skype from the hotel – from L, Paola, Aruna, Tarik, Wouter and Valentina

#ibmcsc