Ten (or even eleven) of the fourteen days in between the previous blog entry and this were spent on the International Business Week (IBE - #IBE2011 on twitter), so this entry is going to be about that.
IBE as it is shortly called is about a week long (excluding travel and setlling down) trip to a country other than UK and your own to learn about how business is done there. There are many countries that Cranfield takes its full time and part time students to in groups like China, USA, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Chile, Cuba, Ghana and a few others. There are two themes, the first being a formal trip to a country of your choice, including educational institutions, Companies of interest and other cultural activities that might help in understanding the country better. The second theme is the field trip, where an NGO works with Cranfield to take a few students in an activity of interest to the society, this trip is supposedly less comfortable and involves working closely with a social objective.
This year, fortunately we had the addition of Challenges Worldwide to the list of Field Trips. Challenges worldwide requested students to go to five different companies in a space of five days and get information about the operations of the company in detail, so as to measure if there is a need and opportunity to help them prosper and serve the society better.
My personal choice of destination was Uganda, being a country in Africa, and a relatively unknown culture, it attracted me a lot. I did not realise the many connections that I might develop with the country by the end of the trip.
Our trip was the longest planned (even though the South African group was delayed due to a flight cancellation and could have become the longest) trip amongst the IBE, starting with the Friday and ending on the next Monday.
The trip itself was exciting and interesting, we learnt a lot about how business is done in Uganda. Travelling to the North, East and West of the country, we found the country to be filled with lush green forests and vegetation. Our primary stay was in the Southern Capital city of Kampala, and our only southern travel was to Entebbe, where the airport lies just metres away from the Victoria Lake.
Agriculture is the primary industry and there is a lot of room towards improvement of productivity. We were treated to green everywhere, remarkably I did not witness a single dry patch of land, that is typical in India (My home country). This was one of the unknown feelings I had about Africa as a dry land (which obviously is not based on facts but just talk about dry Sahara and Poverty) which were completely erased from my mind. I now feel and see a possibility of Africa being the Food Capital of the world some day in the future.
The one strange commonality in most of the Ugandan businesses that we met is that there is a Foreign element to the leadership, even though we did meet a few businesses completely owned and operated by Ugandans, most of the businesses had a foreign ownership. Indians are the biggest number of Expats in Uganda, and Ugandan businesses are more than fairly represented by Indian Ownership. In fact history says that this Indian domination of businesses actually led to Idi Amin chasing all Asians out of Uganda, but a few chose to return and do business in Uganda. The presence of Indians all around made me feel as if this is just another Indian state. Personally for me, doing business in Uganda has become one of the options of livelihood :), I know this might sound untrue for the very near future, but a very real option that I might explore again in a few years.
We travelled to Jinja, where we saw the source of river Nile (the longest river in the world at the time of writing). It was a great experience, seeing the calm and a bit more violent form of Nile in various places in Jinja.
We also travelled to a place near Hoima district, close to the DRC border. We also travelled to the Equator, where we saw a demonstration of how magnetic forces work in different hemispheres of earth (even though later I learnt that it was FAKE). Regardless of the experiment, this was the only time I had ever been to Southern Hemisphere till date, and so I was happy.
We were treated extremely well by our host, from African Agricultural Capital, an NGO working in Uganda and East Africa for reasons obvious from its name. We visited five organisations working in various sectors like Seeds, Honey, Travel and an NGO trying to help various projects in Uganda. We got treated to delicious Indian food throughout the trip and we also did not miss the opportunity to taste the local Matoke (which is Boiled Banana in various forms). The travel company that arranged for a great driver to accompany us throughout our travel, I would say were excellent in service at the least. The hotel that we were accommodated was called City Royal Resort Hotel, Bugolobi, Kampala. I would say its a decent place to stay, but then we found during our stay that there are cheaper places closer to the city.
We also got introduced to an Indian Entrepreneur with whom we could connect through my only other travel partner to the country. He treated us with utmost respect and friendliness, a level of friendliness which made us feel completely overwhelmed. We also visited his hospital and pharmacy and I personally felt inspired by the simplicity, soft spoken nature and the astonishing success that he has had. I think he is a man of his own making and so his statement "Dont Cheat Others and leave the rest to god, he will take you to success" seems very relevant to me.
While I am very happy that I chose Uganda, being such a different experience, I still wonder why this country has not yet prospered. This also makes me think if the IMD research into why countries are successful (more because of systems than resources) is being proved out there in Uganda. I feel that there are far too many Casinos, Bars and Evidences of free sex for my liking. I also feel that the positive effect that Indian laws, restricting or prohibiting these, have had on Indian society are immense.
