The CSC assignment is coming to an end; the final presentations have been delivered to our clients – it is now the time to wrap up and summarize.
Thursday morning we met in the hotel meeting room for a somewhat formal wrap-up with the team (including Frank – our DOT executive). The sub-teams gave an overview of what they delivered to the clients, followed by a quick lessons learned and a presentation of nick names, i.e. a presentation of the nick names we got from our interns and those we gave them 😉
In the afternoon Sanjiev, Clare and myself made it to an IBM Wuhan event around the celebration of service in the Wuhan area. With the CSC program only one of many of IBM’s community service programs, we were not in the center of attention, though were asked to join to also represent that program. The focus of the event was on the launch of an i-phone app given by IBM Wuhan volunteers to the community; the app basically works as a guide through Wuhan and its revolution history.
The event was mostly conducted in Chinese, so another excellent opportunity for Elaine and Theresa to get into simultaneous translation.
When we got back from the event, there was just enough time to change, before we made it to the farewell group dinner with the interns, DOT and the full team.
After dinner, we met up in Jay’s room (or on Jay’s bed at one stage) for a photo exchange party. Another opportunity for crazy dancing, drinks, snacks, jumping, scaring Lesley, games – and of course loads of fun.
Friday morning saw us heading to a different form of wrap-up meeting; the staff of the Starbucks, i.e. our temporary office and meeting room (aka. Western bubble) over the past four weeks, did invite us to a coffee tasting … so we met at nine o’clock (Canadian timing) at Starbucks and enjoyed a little farewell coffee tasting … to see the first of the team (Nick and Sanjiev) heading of shortly after.
The team is now splitting up – one group is heading North to Beijing, another group South to Hong Kong – Lya will be in Thailand soon – and I will be climbing Huangshan (黄山 – the Yellow Mountains). Lesley and Frank are heading back to Chengdu – and the interns are hit hardest, they are back to normal student life basically immediately.
