Our hotel in Bandung

Today it was just a normal business day, not much to interesting to share, so a bit more about the hotel where we are staying. ABV rented the Magnolia B&B for us. As it is just a small B&B we have the whole B&B for ourselves.

Entrance

Inner court

Trupty & Manuel in the backyard

Breakfast table

Breakfast is ok, but bringing my own fruit makes it special: Sirsak juice with passion fruit and manggis! Great!

Yammie, Yammie

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Marketing Seminar in Bahasa Indonesia & Birthday Cake

Today we were invited to come to a marketing event at the university of IT Telecom with Anne Ahira as the speaker. Anne Ahira won the “Small and Medium Business Entrepreneur Award” in 2007 and is now seen as the number 3 in the world regarding online marketing as we were told.

Banner at University of IT Telkom

The presentation went about the success factors of online marketing to a group students. Pak Dudi from DISKOMINFO invited us to come to the seminar, got a warm welcome and were even mentioned in particular during the welcome word. We had to sit in the front row!

Manuel talking with Anne's husband

Waya, Imke, Karen eating from the free snack.

Anne presenting

It was not always easy to stay alert and listening to a presentation of which you miss 95% of what is said although Anne was kind to translate somethings in English!

At twelve we went back to Bandung, an hour drive to have lunch immediately at a nice place near the office.

Karen, Manuel, Imke & Waya, the birthday girl!

It was already after two when we arrived back at the office and could start work! We had to prepare some slides for our meeting with Pak Dudi, the Kepala (head of office) tomorrow.
On our way to the office we met these to boys who try to earn some money near the traffic lights, unusual as you mostly see sellers there.

Robot boys

For dinner we went out to a place to celebrate Waya's birthday! We bought her a nice birthday cake!

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Our first office day

Today was our first normal office day.

When we arrived at the office we had a short meeting with Pak Dudi and some of his staff. There we also met our contact person. Pak Purnomo for the first time. As welcome gift we received an agenda & notebook from DISKOMINFO in a batik printed bag.

Agenda wrapped in batik bag

We had a short introduction about the organization DISKOMINFO and the department we are going to work for. The total office count 98 people and another 15 at a branch office.
DISKOMINFO is responsible for the management of the infrastructure of the internet in West Java province and several applications. West Java counts 26 municipalities and 50 million inhabitants. Besides the technical division where we are going to work for there is the electronic division, mainly maintain website contents, a marketing & communication department and several support staff like finance & human resources.

One of the applications they support is an e-auction system which all governmental departments have to use when they want to buy something.

After the kickoff meeting we got a short tour through the building. For each room you see shoes in the hallway as you have to take your shoes off in the offices.

Shoes in front of the training room

After the tour we went to what will be our office for the coming weeks: The video room! Fully equiped, but hardly used.

"Our office"

For lunch we went to "Loempia Semarang" a local restaurant, as they are used to go out for lunch lacking facilities to lunch at the office.

After lunch we had a more in depth meeting with Pak Purno and got a better view of what the organization is look like and the current situation of some processes and systems. We need to talk to some more people to be get a better picture of what would help them.

At 4PM the workday at the government office stops so we where brought back to our hotel. We are were tired,but satisfied as we received a lot of information.

A good first start......
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Our first day: Kickoff and ..... Kid Smart Competition

At 9.15 we left the B&B to get to our first workday. Some of us are nervous to meet their clients for the first time. We went to the office of one of our clients, where we were welcomed by all the three companies.

They had made a welcome banner, especially for us. Looked that they really looked forward to meet us.

Welcome banner

We were welcomed by Pak Deny, the head of the office where we had the meeting. He mentioned that they really looking forward to our coming and he asked us immediately to stay longer. We didn’t even start yet! So they are really thrilled about our coming!

After the introduction by Pak Deny, Ibu Hartini from IBM explained a bit more about the CSC program and our stay in the coming 4 weeks. 

After the first introductions we al had to introduce ourselves. Danny from IBV translated what we said. The people were very pleased when I said “Saya orang Belanda” ( I am Dutch). 

My introduction

 

After our introduction all the head of offices explained what they expect from us. The expectations are quite high, so we have a challenge there.

Pak Dudi from DISKOMINFO talking

The total team

 

At the end of the speeches and a Q&A session all the official photo’s had to be taken. Together with Karen & Manuel I am going to work for DISKOMINFO. We also have an intern from Germany in our team.

At government offices it is usual that they wear uniforms.

Our team

 Time for lunch! A great buffet was served and you could create your own "Nasi Rames". Delicious!!

 

After lunch we went to the library which took an hour as there was a lot of traffic. At the library we had a community service activity. A group of 50 children would have several competitions. One of them was Kid Smart competition on the Kid Smart computers given by IBM earlier.

We were welcomed like superstars! The staff was waiting for us in the entrance hall.

In the room 50 children (all between 8 and 10) were sitting down in their school uniform waiting for us. The staff prepared a welcome performance, with local music, dance and a story teller.

Particular the story teller was cute. He has a talented gift in entertaining people. He could speak very well. We had to introduce again ourselves and he asked all kind of questions about us, as the art of our country, the favorite food and where our country is famous for. He made all kind of compliments to all of us. Really funny. Micael was his name, he had a great sense of humor and wants to become a surgeon!

Fun!

After the performances the competitions started: Kid Smart competition; Coloring competition and another one where they had to cut a model and build it. Together with Flavia and Sergio it was my job to be the judge of the coloring competition. In between the competition the kids collected our signatures. We all felt if we were famous!

The winners of the coloring competition

The day was a success! The kids had a lot of fun, the staff had a lot of fun and we had a lot of fun. What do we want more!

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On our way to Bandung

This morning we left our great hotel in Jakarta in time to visit Taman Mini Indonesia, an open air museum comparable to the Dutch "Openluchtmuseum Arnhem".  Each of the provinces is represented by the typical houses and churches.

We did the cable car tour to see the miniature Indonesia in the water. The created all kind of islands representing the main islands of Indonesia.

The Island of Sumatra

As it was a Sunday a lot families were there and the children play around or kept busy.


A girl playing with a kite!

Taking pictures with some living puppets

After the visit to Mini Indonesia we proceeded our way to Bandung were we arrived after having lunch half way 4 hours later.

We ended the day with a short briefing for the rest of our stay, a bit more background of  Indonesia, again some do's & don'ts, the expectations of the "kamar kecil" (toilet) in the offices and other types of local habits.

We are all prepared for the work ahead of us!
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Jakarta ...meeting IBM Indonesia

Wake up early and went to the swimming pool and swim my usual 30 lanes! Great to have a pool almost as big as I am used to! And next to my bed!

Swimming pool of "Four Seasons"

At breakfast I met the majority of the team, except for Nitin, who was still on the plane this morning. Also Waya and Danny our local ABV hosts were there. When I shake hands with Waya we realized we were swimming together before breakfast, not being aware that we would meet later.

 

After Breakfast David & I arranged our flights to get out of Bandung at the 23rd of March so that we don't have to worry about that one anymore.

The national monument is not far away from where we booked the flight so we visit that. It was full of school kids, visiting the monument. You even can go up, but there was a queue for at least an hour or so as the card seller who approach us told. He explained there is a museum about the Dutch time, which elicit

a reaction from me that I am Dutch.  He immediately started to talk Dutch and quite well actually. His grandmother happened to work for the "Nonnenklooster". I expected to meet people who still speak Dutch, but definitely not on the first day.

A girl at the monument

After visiting the monument we went for lunch before we went back to the hotel to change to go to the IBM office. The office is located in the center of Jakarta at Plaza Indonesia, an shopping mall with shops like Versace, Louis Vutton and more big brands. They are located there since 2010.

View from IBM

At the IBM office we met Ibu Hartini, Ibu Santi, Bapak Tan  & Bapak Kiki from IBM Indonesia who welcomed us and explained about the program for the first and the last day. We got a tour through the IBM office. Never thought to need to go to Indonesia to see a real IBM data center.

IBM Indonesia office

Our team in front of the centennial wall in the IBM office

At the end of the tour through the office we had a chance to meet and talk with the IBM Country Manager of Indonesia Bapak Suryo. He explained a bit more about doing business in Indonesia, telling some stories and what is expected from us. The was great to meet him.

Than it was time to go out for dinner. The food was great and although it was not officially called like that it looked like an Dutch rice table. We had all kind of dishes. I had my second Sirsak juice of the day. Great drink!

It was a great day, hard to imagine that we have to start working on Monday. It still feels like a holiday. But that will change soon, I guess!

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Our first stop ...the Jungle.....and than Jakarta

Read about my second day here
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Bandoeng, Bandung....here we come!

I started the team blog today, so go to Bandoeng, Bandung, to read about our team and the start of our journey!
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Only 4 days to go....

Only 4 days to go, so counting down has really started ......

All preparations are finished, packing has been done, logistics has been prepared, my work has been finished or transferred to my successors, so ready to go.
Thanks to the great help of Nitu, our facilitator who joined CSC Indonesia 3 last year and Jean from ABV (Australian Business Volunteers) we are all well prepared to this great and probably life changing experience! Last Friday already I noticed a first healthy nervousness with myself. It is so exciting!

The next last three days at work will be used to dotting the i's and fill in some blank spots. Feels good to leave with an empty agenda!

Thursday evening I will meet David from Ireland at Schiphol and together we'll fly with KLM to Jakarta with a stop in Kuala Lumpur. Friday evening (local time) we meet most of our team mates and than our adventure can start. We'll stay in Jakarta for two nights to meet the country manager of IBM Indonesia. We stay at the luxury hotel Four Seasons. Our stay in Bandung will be more according to local standards, which I will tell more about when arrived.

We all are thrilled to finally meet each other and ready to start our assignment where you can also read about in our team blog. For the address see the "About me" section.

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Packing has started ......

With fresh snow on a Sunday morning it is hard to imagine I will be in a tropical environment in less than two weeks time!

Time to start packing! I had a big fitting session this morning to decide what I will pack so that I am prepared on an Islamic working environment: dress modestly is the advise, should not be tight fitting or revealing! In practice this means blouses with long or three-quarter-length sleeves, skirts reaching below the knees! Pants are allowed!
For me this means wearing linen pants and fortunately my Mom still has a skirt which I brought back from one of my Asian trips and applies to the "rules".

We also need to be prepared to the freezing offices, so knowing myself of being "cold blooded" I need matching vests as well. Scarves are need for the occasions that you might need to cover your head!
Quite different packing list from my normal holiday trips!

Hopefully my suitcase is big enough and all will fit within the 23 kg allowed with KLM. But that's something for next week!

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DISKOMINFO

DISKOMINFO or Dinas Komunikasi dan Informatisi Provinsi Jawa Barat (Office of Communications and Information Technology of West Java Province) is the organisation I am going to work for during the 4 weeks of our assignment. Together with Karen from USA and Manuel from Canada we are asked to provide recommendations on ways to improve e-government delivery in Jawa Cyber Province addressing Financial, Marketing and IT processes issues.

The first week of our assessment we will figure out what this exactly means and what we need to do to reach that objective.

All the tree of us are thrilled and cannot wait to start.....

DISKOMINFO is part of the Government of the Province of West Java located in the famous Gedung Sate.

Provinci Jawa Barat

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