We left our home countries of US, UK, The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, India, China and Korea on 19th September as 10 individual IBM employees. We returned one month later united by a shared vision and proud of our achievements in exhibiting IBM values and making this program a success for all involved.

Our assignments covered different departments of the Provincial Governments of Bohol including the Human Resources Management and Development Office, Provincial Engineer's Office, Provincial Agriculture Office, Provincial Veterinarian Office and the Provincial Planning and Development Office. Our work, which included knowledge and skills transfer in the areas of Marketing, Geographical Information System, Infrastructure Technologies, Project Management, Talent Management and Strategic Re-engineering contributed to the Ten Point Development Agenda dubbed "10 in 2010" set out by Governor Erico Aumentado.

Assignments were completed in Holy Name University (HNU) building capacity of faculty leaders and lecturers in the areas of e-Commerce, Customer Value Management, Organisational Change, Negotiation, Conflict Management and Information Technology. We also assisted with an HNU water project, whereby we reviewed the strategic plan of a multi stakeholder approach for integrated water resource management, made recommendations on data collection and integration and reviewed a business plan which aims to provide a water testing laboratory for the Province. 85% of water in the Province is contaminated with e-coli and 50% people have no access to clean water. This work is linked to the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. We are investigating whether an innovative solution based on the Great Rivers Project and experiences of the global CoE on Water Management could be of interest to both the Province and IBM.

In addition to our formal assignments, we shared our knowledge and ideas wherever possible. We held a 'Cultural Dialogue Symposium' with the students of Holy Name University in which we presented economic profiles of each of our countries and took part in open forum discussions. We also helped to provide clean water to a village within the Carmen Municipality. The people of the village (like 50% of Bohol) had no access to clean water so drank rain water or traveled long distances to purchase water from another village. We discovered that a well had been half built but never finished. We listened and understood their issues, facilitated a meeting between relevant parties to decide what needed to be done and gained commitment that each party would deliver their part of the agreement, and we provided the money. The well was finished in just 2.5 weeks and, before we left, was providing clean water to the village for the very first time. We learned that small acts lead to great things 

This experience presented a unique opportunity for us each to lead in a new environment with interesting cultural challenges. There seems no better time to develop such cultural awareness and flexible leadership skills than in the present global financial crisis. We are all eager to apply these skills to assist our clients in their challenges and to ensure that IBM continues to succeed in such difficult times.

Thank you once again for this opportunity, we will cherish and apply the richness of its lessons for life.

Philippines Team 2

Anjani Kumar (India), Debbie MacConnel (US), Dipa Velagapudy (Sweden), Erwin van Overbeek (Netherlands), Gianfranca Rastelli (Italy), Shu Yan Cheng (China), Srinivasarao S Tata (India), Sungsim Park (Korea), Gregory B Labows (US) Kate Robinson (UK)