Ready for Canada Day 2017

The team of Seneca International is all ready for the 150th birthday of Canada (July 1) and celebrating our team's diversity!

Project planning in Nairobi

After the large stakeholder session of yesterday, we work with a few of the managers of the KTTC today in more details on the project planning for the next two years.

Kenya Teacher Training College

This week we are with a Canadian team hosted in Kenya at the start of new training consultancy contract in academic leadership. This project will go till the end of 2019. While we work with the Kenyan Association of Technical Training Institutions (KATTI), most of our activities will be hosted at KTTC (Kenyan Teacher Training College).

The Canadian team is a consortium of Seneca College, College of the Rockies (BC) and the Marine Institute at Memorial University (NFLD). This week we start out getting to know each other and by formulating our work plan for the next two years.

Mark's Graduation

This afternoon a big milestone in the life of our son Mark (age 22): graduating from Electrical Engineering at McMasters University (and already working at the multinational LaFarge since early May). A proud moment for his parents! My BB does not make the best photos but above the tickets for the event in the hall where the ceremony was held, and below Mark walking the stage...

A very happy mother and our son owes her a lot! Mark studied hard to make this happen and most of the time he was in the university library with the group below, a very nice and diverse group of new engineers who have high hopes and ideals to shape the technology of the future. Kudos to all and thanks for hanging out with our son and giving him lots of encouragement.

Trainees Italy and visitors China

This week the team at Seneca offers a leadership training program to 16 leaders from the college system in Italy. Fresh back from Kyrgyzstan I assisted the team today, while next door we hosted also a group of visitors from China. Busy day....

Office of the day

My office during four hours today is in the Turkish Airlines lounge at the Istanbul airport (I can access that with my Air Canada card). Istanbul airport has one of the highest numbers of daily transfers of all airports in the world (something I did not realize till a few years ago when I cam through here for the first time). It is bad if I admit that the photo above is my "favorite spot" in this lounge (it means I come here maybe too often?). Anyhow, it is my "office" for the day...

This is one of the largest airport lounges I have ever seen. Lots of different sitting and relaxing areas and all over the places small food outlets which change the offerings for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not a bad place to hang out for a few hours between flights. Tonight back in Toronto again...

 

University of Central Asia

Today (Sunday) a full day of reviewing, discussing and scoring student applications for the new undergraduate bachelor degree programs at the Naryn campus of the University of Central Asia (UCA). The review team consists of a mix of educational professionals from the region and me representing one of their international partner institutions (Seneca).

We go through big binders prepared by the team of the Registrar Office of the UCA with summary results on academic tests and personal interviews with the applicants. The selection method is purely based on academic merit, leadership potential and geographic diversity of the students.

We do a few hours of review at a time and take short breaks on the terrace enjoying the beautiful scenery of the mountains. Below is one of my favorite views.

After the long day of reviews some of us went to downtown Naryn (a city with a population of around 40,000). The mountains surround the city wherever you look.

A view from the city central square with in the background a music museum and school where traditional music concerts are performed. Inside we saw some of the traditional instruments and photos of the national musician after whom this center was named. He wears the traditional hat from the peopled of Kyrgyzstan.

Our walk ended at a new public park called the Smart Park donated by the Aga Khan Development Network to the town of Naryn. The park is "smart" because it has free WI-FI and the lights are solar powered. Clearly a popular place for the people of the city. Tomorrow another day of reviews and then I drive back to Bishkek for an early Tuesday morning flight back to Istanbul and then Toronto.