Thursday was a very good day. We arrived at the Ministry of Agriculture for our last day at the office. Many people came by in the morning to say goodbye, give hugs, and even give a few presents. We continued to be surprised by the kindness and generosity of the people we have met while in Morocco. We will certainly miss them after we leave.
We presented our study and recommendations to the Ministry of Agriculture and it was very well received. What we thought would take less than hour, ended up going well over two hours because of the good questions and discussions that we had afterwards. Our team felt very good about some of the insights that we were able to provide based on research we had done on other similiar projects internationally, discussions we had had with IBM experts on the subject, and meetings that we were able to hold with two of the three major telecom companies in Morocco. We reviewed the 24 recommendations we had made with the majority of the emphasis on the SMS/text piece of the solution. We also presented the 'lessons learned' that we had gathered during the last couple of weeks based on research and meetings we had.
I think what was most rewarding is that a representative from the Morocco Economic Competitive (MEC) organization was at our presentation and spoke openly of their willingness to fund this next piece of the pricing project and that they were ready to move quickly. He spoke about setting up conference calls after we leave so that we could further describe our SMS design specifications to the company that is selected to do this work based on an RFP. It's a great feeling to know that many of our recommendations are about to become a reality for the farmers of Morocco.
It was a real sense of accomplishment knowing that work that we had done for a month was really going to make a difference in people's lives in Morocco. It makes me smile to think of the small farmers who work so hard every day will now have a means to know what the prices are for their crops and where they can take their produce to get the highest prices. Until this project, there really were no options for the small farmers to get this information. I know that in the future, these farmers will be able to use this same SMS infrastructure to get information on the most profitable crops to grow, how much water is required to grow these crops, where they can get the best prices on seeds, fertizilers, etc. It is rewarding to know that in a small way, we helped to make this happen. :-)
Thursday night was our last night in Rabat since we are leaving on Friday morning to drive to Casablanca. In Casablanca, our teams will meet with the IBM Morocco office and present our findings. We leave Saturday morning to return home. Really looking forward to going home!
 |
| Rahul, Andrew, and myself 'high fiving' each other after giving our final presentation to the Ministry of Agriculture. We were all very pleased with how well it was received. |
 |
| Our team in the office before leaving for the final time. We are with Ali Aqallal who is the IBM Business Development Manager for IBM Morocco. Ali was so helpful to our team while we were there. He helped to schedule the two meetings that we had with the telecos and attended both of these meetings with us. |
 |
| Celebrating our last night in Rabat at our favorite Italian restaurant. |
 |
| I didn't actually order this dessert (although I tried it and it was delicious) but I thought it was so pretty that it needed a picture. :-) |
No comments:
Post a Comment