News

We’re making progress!

Time is running out, again two weeks have passed in our project, so it is high time to make a short statement again because a lot has happened in the meantime.

The first “Social Web Meeting” without a formal agenda took place and numerous students from all countries took the opportunity to get to know their fellow students on a more private level and to exchange views on topics outside the project content. It was so well received that we will now organize this regularly, the next meeting is already planned for next Monday.

Furthermore, the work in our international teams has started!!! After the first week was dedicated to more organizational topics, such as the organization of communication and collaboration, this week was already dedicated to dealing with the individual components of the solution, be it the Object Model, the Buinesslogic, the user interface homepage, code conventions or the topic of documentation.

All these topics were worked on intensively in order to meet the corresponding milestones of the project plan, which now contains them in a weekly grid.

So we look confidently into the weeks ahead of us and hopefully, we will be able to hand over the developed solution to our client at the beginning of July.

Since this week we have not only country teams but also international and intercultural teams in our project. 

After the team composition was announced last Monday in our web meeting, the last few days were dedicated to the teams starting to organize themselves and to define topics and contents in order to fulfil their respective tasks in the project.

Getting to know each other better was also on the agenda, now that all students have officially resumed their work because we are very happy that also the students from Namibia are back from their corona-conditionally extended mid-semester break in good health.

Tomorrow the first “Getting to know each other in Zoom” is planned, a casual meeting without official agenda and other formalities, just to get to know each other better, to communicate and interact! We would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers Edwin and Philip from the team “Project Controlling & Insights” and are very excited to see what they have come up with!

The first phase of the project, in which the students still worked together mainly in their national teams, is nearing its end now.

Later than originally planned (but nobody could have predicted that a worldwide pandemic would break out), the second phase will soon begin, in which the students will work in international and intercultural teams on different tasks within the project, so that everyone can make their individual contribution to delivering a good work for the customer.

This week there were also two workshops, with very well-prepared instructor teams from Peru and Indonesia, who explained the tech stack to their peers from Namibia and Germany, gave valuable tips and great support for the tasks. Many thanks again for this!

This is how it may continue, with the newly formed teams, hopefully, the cooperation and communication across national and continental borders will also continue to grow!

This week we started with different activities to initiate the next steps in our project to support the whole team-building process.

We decided to work on the application for the NCRST in 6 specialized teams, each with a specific task within the project:

– Team Project Controlling & Insights

– Team Object model

– Team Business Logic

– Team Frontend

– Team Quality Control & Assurance

– Team Documentation

For this purpose, we have started a survey to find out the preferences regarding cooperation in the respective teams!

Phase 2 of our buddy program with newly assembled teams also started this week and preparations are underway for 2 workshops next week in which the teams from Peru and Indonesia will help the students from Namibia and Germany to reach their level of knowledge regarding the tech stack.

So there is a lot going on in our project and it is nice to see that everyone is still motivated.

Last week and this week our Spring School was supposed to take place, during which our 15 scholarship holders from Indonesia, Namibia and Peru, together with the 5 German project participants, should work in international teams on the web portal for our client, the NCRST from Namibia. We all know that this is unfortunately not possible due to the restrictions of the worldwide Corona Pandemic… But of course, we do not give up hope that our scholarship holders can experience this highlight of the project after all. Therefore we are now planning to hold a Autumn-School in October instead of a Spring-School. The planning for this has started and we are confident that it can take place then.

A very special Easter is ahead of us this year. Due to the effects of the Corona Virus, many activities will not be able to take place as originally planned, grandparents will not be able to meet their grandchildren, worships are cancelled and much more. And we would also normally be full of anticipation for the Spring School, which should start next week! Even though there is no end in sight and the Corona theme seems to overshadow everything at the moment, we wish everyone a very happy Easter with beautiful moments and enriching encounters, even if they only take place via electronic media. Stay healthy and try to enjoy the Easter weekend as much as possible.

On Monday we had a web meeting with the German students, for whom the semester does not officially start until April 20th, but who are already there – at the original start of the lectures. It was nice to see that despite the current situation with all its imponderables, everyone is highly motivated to throw themselves into this adventure! If the five students from Namibia now also have access to the online resources via a mobile data package, everyone will be able to proceed with full speed in this intercultural project.

The Indonesian and Peruvian students are currently busy familiarizing themselves with the technology stack and are making great progress, as we saw in a web meeting yesterday. The Namibian students are still in their mid-semester break, which has been extended due to the Corona crisis, we are currently working on providing them with a free internet access thus they can be fully involved again soon. And also for the German students, the project can start soon, next Monday we will have a web meeting to get them on board and discuss the further course of the project!

The coronavirus now has a significant impact on our project. Due to travel and contact restrictions, the Spring School had to be cancelled already. If possible, a Summer / Autumn School will now take place in the second half of the year. At the moment we are talking with the representatives of our partner universities in Indonesia, Namibia and Peru to coordinate the further course of the project. We will publish further information on this shortly!