Nov 1-3 - Interviews

Where do the days go? The last three days have been a whirlwind of interviews for our project. As part of IBM's Issues-based consulting model, we did alot of research in Week 1 and came up with some hypotheses. The next step was to put together a survey questionnaire and go out in the world of stakeholders to conduct interviews to test out our hypotheses. 

• On Tuesday we interviewed senior management, professors and students at various universities. We were based at the University of Nairobi. 
• I love being on campus - the energy, the atmosphere - there is just so much going on! Our first interview was conducted at the UoN FABLAB. Follow the link to learn more about it. In the FabLab thered were lots of inventions underway, lying around on the counters and floors - you could just FEEL the innovative atmosphere.
• On Wednesday we interviewed a few more staff and students from Kenyan universities, but because they were out of town we did our surveys by conference calls instead of face to face. The phone network was a challenge throughout the day and our phone lines kept getting cut off. The same for the power and lights in our hotel! 
• On Thursday we interviewed staff and students from various Research Institutes and colleges (Called TIVETS here). We learned about innovations being done in Agriculture, Medicine, Fisheries etc. Very cool stuff is being worked on in this country!

In terms of our MoHEST project on Innovations - great news - every one of our hypotheses was totally validated in each and every interview. Consistent answers across the board is a Consultant's best dream dome true. It makes the report so much more easy to write!

All three days were 15-18 hour days including the very lengthy commute to Nairobi. (See my blog entry from Oct 31st for details on traffic jams and pollution in Nairobi).

Tomorrow (Friday), the whole CSC team Kenya 4 will go and do a Community Service Day in Machakos at Daystar University.  Also, we're making team plans for the weekend. 

So stay tuned - more blogging to come!