The Start of a Beautiful Adventure

Last June, I was sitting at my client site on a Thursday evening, just a few hours before it was time to go home. It was an ordinary day. The sun was shining, my team was working productively, and our client was happy. Suddenly, I received an email that would change the course of the next 12 months: I was accepted into IBM's Corporate Service Corps. I gasped so loudly that my team immediately rushed over to see if I was ok!

The CSC program has been a dream of mine since starting at IBM nearly 5 years ago. I have always had a passion for travel, service, and interacting with new cultures. I knew this program would give me the opportunity to indulge all three of my passions while developing leadership skills and giving back to the company that has been an extremely big part of my life since graduating from college.

After receiving the acceptance letter from CSC, I waited nearly 8 months before learning where and when I would be traveling: Casablanca, Morocco from April 24-May 25! We will be the fifth team visiting Morocco, and the first to stay in Casablanca. There are 15 IBMers from all over the world (US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Croatia, France, Switzerland, Japan, and India) traveling to Morocco.

While in Morocco, I will be working on a project for SMIT, a subset of the Moroccan Tourism Agency, to help them create sustainable ecotourism in Casablanca as part of their Vision 2020. Specifically, we will prepare a business case for which initiative they should support and select performance measures to gauge their future success. I will be working with 3 other IBMers: Dany (from Canada), Sayoko (from Japan), and Ana Paula (from Brazil). I can't wait to get started!

Finally, in honor of what I'm sure will be an incredible month of learning and exploring, I wanted to end with a few of my favorite travel quotes. I feel that they perfectly encompass the experiences I hope to have while abroad:

• "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~St. Augustine
• "I met a lot of people in Europe [and Africa]. I even encountered myself." ~James Baldwin

and my favorite:

• "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." ~Robert Louis Stevenson

The next time we chat, I will be in sunny Casablanca! Please feel free to leave comments and questions for me here, and I'll be happy to answer them when I can.

I can't wait to share all of my experiences with you!

~Brittany

#ibmcsc #morocco5