First week in Kazakhstan

More than a week has passed and I did, see, eat and learn more than what I would learn or experience in months. Not only by knowing Kazakhstan country and culture, but also by learning from my teammates cultures as well in personal and professional aspects. My first week in Kazakhstan was:

The project

On Monday morning (July 16th) we have our kickoff meeting with our three clients (KAZNEX INVEST, JSC Kazakhexpertiza and Soyuz Atameken), USAID representatives, representatives from IBM Russia, IBM’s local distributor and some interns from top local universities. 

During the introduction everyone of us did a short introduction of themselves. We need to wait in order to be translated into Russian for the audience.  Also, every client did an introduction of their expectations of this projects. You can read more in the following press release: http://kazakhstan.usembassy.gov/pr-07-11-2012.html

Kaznex Invest

Kaznex Invest mission´s is to develop and promote non-mineral exports and to attract foreign investment to Kazakhstan (http://www.kaznex.kz/en/).  I am part of the team that is going to make recommendations for exports website together with Yuji (Japan), Divya (India) and Tanner (USA). Working environment in Kaznex is very good and there are really nice people working with us. Specially Erbolat and Almas that are taking good care of us!  We also spend good quality time in the coffee area doing some group work and drinking cold Frappuccino's due to the hot weather.

Erbolat, Gustavo, Tanner, Yuji, Divya, Almas

During the week we did some interviews to validate our initial scope. And, after a few rounds, last Friday (July 20th) we had our final scope meeting with several managers and employees from Kaznex Invest:

Other activities

Indian Dinner

4 of our teammates come from India and they were eager to take us to eat Indian food. It was the first time I ate Indian food together with Indian people. They showed me how to eat spicy curry using one hand only. Food was fantastic and I am definitively going again!

Kazak Dinner

We also went to a Kazak restaurant and try some horse meet (thanks SiewYIn for the pictures):

Боровое (Borovoye)

This lake located at 250km north of Astana it called “little Switzerland” and is a kind of Oasis in the middle of the steppes. It took us until lunch time to get there. Going out of Astana, police stopped us in a checkpoint and requested our passport and almost half of us didn't brought it so we needed to return. These are some pictures during the waiting time in the middle of the steppes:

Arriving we did some walk around and did some swimming in the lake:

Football

Sunday evening we played football with Kaznex people. Although we were only 9, we played in a 7x7-size football field with one of the best artificial grass I ever played. Our international team needs to improve for next match (Sunday at 8:00pm). Of course, Peruvian t-shirt needs to be present also in this event:

You can follow some other teammates blogs and tweets in the following link: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/wwa_kazakhstan.html
#ibmcsc kazakhstan