#aipromades

A clean up that keeps on cleaning.

Lake Chapala, the largest fresh water lake in Mexico, is being taken over by invasive water-weeds. Aipromades, an organization that cares for the lake, partnered with the Peace Corps and IBM Corporate Service Corps to clean it up in economical and environmentally-friendly ways. The weeds, called water hyacinth, spread very fast and cover the lake, which throws off its ecological balance by reducing water flow, oxygen levels and the fish population. The team developed sustainable alternative uses for the water hyacinth and other practical implementation methods to help clean up the lake, so future generations have a clear way to enjoy it and avoid pollution.

The last week was an especially busy one as it was the last on of our 4 weeks. And this meant due date for the final reports to the host organizations: Sub-team 2 “BAMX” did so on Wednesday night, followed by sub-team 3 “DIF” on Thursday morning and Sub-team 1 “Lake Chapala” presented their results to their host organization Thursday afternoon. All of the presentations went very well and each of the host organizations were truly impressed about the quality and the extensive details included.

We were especially excited that Gina Tesla, Director of Corporate Services Corps flew in to see the presentations and also then be present at the big closing ceremony on Friday in the city hall of Guadalajara. During the ceremony each of the sub-teams presented an 8 minutes executive summary of their work and then received awards from the host organizations for the excellent work. The closing ceremony was similar to the opening ceremony a big event with lots of media interest and was hosted by the major of Guadalajara. This closing ceremony officially finished our in-country assignment and as Jaime Kuklinski, Country Director Peace Corps Mexico said in his speech: “Thanks team - mission completed”

It was with very mixed emotions when we entered into the bus this morning to go to our office in Chapala for a very last time. And especially when we went up the road to the hill that is just before Chapala and then got the view on the lake from the top of it, it became very quiet in the bus and everyone tried to absorb and memorize this fantastic morning view of the lake and the sun mirroring in it.

We had worked hard last week to get all our findings and recommendations into slides and  today’s goal was to bring it all together and go through our consolidated presentation to fine tune slide contents and agree on the flow. We made very good progress and are on track to finalize our report over the next 2 days which are holidays here in Mexico and we will thus work from the hotel.

Thursday is the big day: we are scheduled to present our final report to our host organization AIPROMADES at 4 p.m. that day. We are very much looking forward to that and can’t wait to share our project outcome.

Our last afternoon in the AIPROMADES office had a special surprise for us: we were invited to go to the lake to see the harvesting machine working and also eye-witnessed when the conveyor was put into the water the very first time.

IBM CSC México 6, IBM CSC Alumnis, Peace Corps and AIPROMADES ran together a series of workshops and sessions in Centro Universitario de la Ciénaga. We covered topics like cognitive era, Watson Health, Digital marketing, Design thinking, sustainability and social responsibility. Also we mentored students and gave them feedback on presentations they made.

The star was probably Frida, a robot that is able to communicate like a human being thanks to Watson technology.

Today feels really good. Finally our team “Dad” is back: Carlos Saucedo, Manager of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs Mexico.

Carlos is the man behind the scenes…. making this CSC experience possible in Mexico and being truly dedicated to the team. He spent the first days with us and then headed back to Mexico City where he is based. He is now back to Guadalajara and will spend the remaining week with us. Carlos has true passion and is at least as excited about our projects and progress as we are. He is always very positive, enthusiastic and full of energy. He is also a great friend to tell us about Mexican culture and help us to understand local habits. Great to have you back & very much looking forward to all of the upcoming events such as Community Day, final report presentations and the closing ceremony at Guadalajara City Hall.

And there was one more special kind of family situation I experienced today: Chuma from AIPROMADES invited all of his colleagues and our sub-team to his house and served delicious lunch. Besides his profession as a biologist, Chuma is an amazing artist and his house is very extraordinary. All designed by himself and lots of details in all of the rooms and the garden. These 2 hours were very special to us as it was the first time to come to someone’s private house in Mexico and get an idea on how people live and get together with friends. We definitely enjoyed this very much and the bus pick up was way too early. We would have loved to stay and also enjoy the marvelous view on Lake Chapala that he has from his garden. Thanks again for hosting us!

It has been a week since we had our kick-off with AIPROMADES and we did good progress since then. Our team is honored to pilot a cooperation with Peace Corps and have Cara Pratt joining the project team on their behalf.

Last Tuesday AIPROMADES took us on a tour to the lake to see the weed as well as the surrounding areas. This was very valuable to the team as it is much easier to understand what we are talking about if we could live experience it. The main problem is the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which is spreading fast and negatively impacting the ecological balance of the sea. When not controlled,it will cover lakes entirely; this dramatically impacts water flow, blocks sunlight from reaching native aquatic plants, and reduces oxygen in the water which causes significant reduction of fish. Also, the plants increase mosquito population. There is also water lettuce (Pistia stratoites) in the lake and it would typically show up between water hyacinth but to a way less big extend and not having that big impact on the ecological balance.

Our team is supposed to find alternative uses for the weed that are socially and economically sustainable.

On Wednesday we were working from the hotel as the AIPROMADES office was closed due to “La Romería”, a local religious holiday. The main discussions we had that day were around the assessment criteria that we want to use for different uses and drafting a research template that we would apply to illustrate the various use options. Also we did a very high level research on potential uses and splitted the found alternatives between the team for further research on required process steps to produce the alternate output, entry barriers and potential constraints, tools and resources ($ & human capital) required to implement, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threads) analysis, etc.

Thursday we were back to the office in Chapala and intensively researched each of the options. Also, Cara took us through some recent statistics that showed CO2 emissions by municipality and root causes. This may be helpful later on once we start working out recommendations as we may want to show how these are impacting the emission levels. Mexico has also signed the Paris agreement and is thus required to bring its emissions down.

On Friday, Gabriel our host organization leader traveled to Florida to do his driving license for the newly ordered harvesting machine. Many other AIPROMADES team members went on an excursion to Lake Zapótlan that day and we thus decided to stay in the hotel again to conclude our research and consolidate the findings. We figured out the following potential uses: Biogas, Biodiesel, Animal Food, Fertilizer/Compost, Fibre boards, Cement, Medicine/Pharmacy, Bedding for lab mice, Charcoal briquetting, handicrafts and female personal products. We ended the week by preparing for a project progress review with Gabriel on Monday.

The weekend was reserved for team activities and on Saturday we went to Chapala and felt a little proud that we were able to tell a lot about the lake, the weed, the municipalities around the lake and the various focus areas by region (indigenous communities, expat communities, tourism, agriculture).

Week 2 began with very exciting news: finally the harvesting machine arrived last Saturday and Gabriel successfully completed his driving license and is very proud to be the first in Latin America having this certificate. Congratulations!

We then took Gabriel through our findings in the first week, re-assured we are on track and re-confirmed scope and assumptions we were making. Also, we worked with him to complete a stakeholder matrix which would

list all stakeholder of AIPROMADES

show their influence on AIPROMADES (low/medium/high)

illustrate their support level for AIPROMADES (resistant/watching/supporting/driving)

We are planning to repeat this exercise with other team members to see if there is a different perception and then also will interview some of the stakeholders to get their view on AIPROMADES and the activities around the lake and of course their view of the weed.

We spent the rest of the day working to put the various options in a simple chart, created a stakeholder interview guide and did research on international companies that may be interested in future partnerships. Also, we are benefiting from our translator Ana who started researching on local organizations/communities that may be able to support (financially, human capital, etc).

We ended the day with a late lunch in the wonderful garden of AIPROMADES. We decided to order food this time to not loose time to walk to a restaurant as the next ones take an approximate 20 minutes walk (though the restaurants are also definitely very nice there).

From left to right: 1st row (sitting): Haynes Cooney (IBM CSC/US), Birgit Wiesinger (IBM CSC/Austria), Vivianne Farmer (IBM CSC/US), Chris Suda (IBM CSC/US), Jiten Rajani (IBM CSC/India); 2nd row: Francisco Javier Zamora (AIPROMADES/Mexico), Maria Fernanda Roman Lara (AIPROMADES/Mexico), Jaime Kuklinski (Director Peace Corps Mexico/Mexico), Eugenio Godard (Director IBM Technological Campus Guadalajara/Mexico), Gabriel Vazquez (Director AIPROMADES/Mexico), Cara Pratt (Peace Corps Volunteer/US)

After the formal kick-off with all 3 sub-teams in the Centro de la Amistad Internacional, sub-team 1 had its kick-off with their host organization AIPROMADES and Peace Corps on Monday afternoon. Sub-team 1, alias “Lake Chapala” will work on a “Strategic Planning for the Sustainable Use of the Aquatic Weed at Lake Chapala”.

During our sub-team’s kick-off, Gabriel Vazquez, Director of AIPROMADES introduced us to the key team members for this project and gave us a detailed presentation on AIPROMADES’ history, mission, organizational set up and current projects. Also we got lots of very valuable information about the lake itself, the surrounding municipalities and issues related to the invasion of aquatic weed.

In the following discussion we had the opportunity to reconfirm our understanding of the scope and the expected results of our 4 weeks work: We will focus to identify and prioritize possible options for the financially sustainable use of aquatic weed.