SME Workshop - the most happening day

Got up in the morning to the news that the hotel we are staying has been taken over by the government authorities since the owner of the hotel defaulted on some payments. Today was planned for a SME (small and medium enterprise) workshop on internet and website technologies at 8:30 am. We were asked to vacate all the rooms and get all our stuff with us. There was lot of chaos in the hotel due to presence of many police personals, law enforcement personals, doctors (I don't know why they were called in :)





We immediately packed all our stuff and left for the workshop. We arrived at the workshop venue a little late due to all the chaos at the hotel. The workshop went very well. There were around 50 SME companies present at the workshop. We delivered presentations for 1. Usage of Internet in Business 2. Web Site Visioning and 3. SME Toolkit. Most of the questions from the audience were around website development.






We finished the workshop and had to look for a new home :) We took all our luggage and went to the Dong Nai hotel to check if there are rooms available in it. Luckily this hotel had rooms for the entire team. We checked into the Dong Nai hotel and finally had a home to stay.. :)

Trip to Cu Chi tunnels and Saigon main city

This Saturday we visited the Cu Chi tunnels and the Saigon main city. Cu Chi tunnels are the networks of tunnels around 220 kms long. They were used by the Vietnam soldiers during the Vietnam war in Guerrilla warfare. The place has been converted into a tourist spot with many tourist visiting each day. It also displayed some of the weapons used in the war, and a documentary about the war and its heros.

In Ho Chi Mich city (Saigon) we visited ancient palace of the president, the post office and the church. The post office and the church were build by french when Vietnam was a french colony.

The ancient palace was rebuilt after its destruction in the Vietnam war. The palace was a mix of western and local architecture. The church and the post office are build with the western architecture.

Kick off meeting with the client

Wanted to post this earlier about the kick off meeting we had with our client, Dept of Science and Technology, Dong Nai province.

The meeting was started with key note speech by Director of Dept of Science and Technology followed by introduction by each participant about their work and their assignment. The event was covered by the Press.



Post the introductions we worked with the clients to identified their requirements and needs for the assignment. The interactions went very well and we got good amount of understanding of client's needs.

Below are the links to the story covered by the press.

http://bizhub.vn/tech/5658/ibm-helps-dong-nai-to-improve-it-applications.html

http://english.vov.vn/Economy/IBM-helps-Dong-Nai-enhance-IT-skills/276324.vov

Day 1 : Reached HCMC - Start of the assignment`

Finally after 3 flights and long wait at the airport, I reached HCMC city of Vietnam this morning. Met some really interesting people on the flight. The city looks great, lots of people seems to be driving two wheelers to their work. I found the traffic and building structures over here, kind of similar to that in India.

Met with the entire team at the hotel. We had briefing with the IBM security personal in HCMC for the security related Dos and Don'ts. After the meeting followed the logistics meeting where the team was briefed about the overall plan for today and tomorrow. All other issue and concerns that team members had were cleared.

Post meeting we all went for dinner at a near by restaurant. The food was really great and I particularly liked the fruits offered post dinner.

The plan for tomorrow is to travel to Dong Nai - Bein hoa, the city of our assignment and get use to the surrounding.

I will keep you posted
of all the happenings during the assignment, do follow on.. :)