Early checkout of our beautiful Hyderabad hotel and off we fly to Mumbai. An hour and a half later we arrived at the Mumbai domestic airport.
The local taxis here are black and yellow and swarming everywhere. I am on the edge of my seat peering out from the bus window into the very crowded Mumbai streets. We pass multi storey slums on the side of the highway and see children playing in the streets. The skyline is full of new and old sky rise buildings with some still under construction with bamboo used as scaffolding to significant heights. The city is full of contrasts from slums to modern buildings, narrow street markets next to multi story western style shopping complexes. A fusion of east meets west, old and new.
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| Indian irony. Look at the Giant sized billboard on the right. It sais "Life ok". And it is situated over the slums of Mumbai. I wonder if the residents feel that way? |
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| Amazing bamboo scaffolding like spider web. |
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| Multi storey slums - you still have to pay rent. |
Check into our hotel and into the professional clothes for a visit to an IT conference sponsored by ECU. We arrived at the University of Mumbai and join the conference participants for a delicious Indian Thali style lunch.
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| Michael, Lucy, Ebrahim, Chantal (peeking), Shivan and Hattan, all looking very professional. |
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| Michael, Chantal, Ebrahim and I, all looking hot, literally...it was boiling hot...lol |
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| Conference supported by ECU and what fine ECU representatives we all make (well except for Hattan - haha) |
We sat through a few seminars and then Off for a quick tour of the campus. I spied the education school and took off on my own to chat to some lecturers. Lucky for me the head lecturer for the school of education was available for an impromtu chat. It was a great opportunity to uncover more research for my report and she was very happy to help. Unfortunately my time was cut short and had to head back to the bus after an IT lecturer came looking for me.
We head across Mumbai to go to Datamatics Financial Services. This company was started in the 1980's to offer a low cost outsourcing of labor intensive tasks that are non core business activities ie; payroll, call centers, help desks etc. The company were very excited to have us and we arrived to receive an Indian blessing and flowers.
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| Presenting a gift from ECU to Datamatics team. |
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| All happy after a fun tour through Datamatics or was it the yummy high tea? |
After a discussion on their business we were then invited to high tea. It was delicious. I was chatting to the staff about Indian desserts and they even offered to have me back for morning tea the next day so I could try more. Then we were allowed to tour through some parts of their office. It was very interesting to see the call centers first hand, even if they wouldn't allow me to make any calls for them. They showed us their secure network area which you can see through the glass but are not allowed to enter. I did ask if they had enough security to keep Tom Cruise out (aka Mission Impossible style), haha, they all laughed and thought they might. The Directors and Managers at Datamatics were so friendly and lively, very welcoming, this was a great experience.
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| Call centre. |
#fact: staff here are actually very highly educated. They need a minimum of 15 years IT experience with multiple degrees. Again this is an example of a very highly educated Indian workforce as compared to Australians that would work in call centers.
Back on the bus to head back to University Mumbai for a cultural show. We were quite late so we needed to dress formally in the back of the bus. Fellow travelers in neighboring buses had a good laugh at this. A beautiful cultural show of music and dance in the auditorium, then back to our hotel for dinner.
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| Leisa (ECU Tour leader, Chantal, Lucy, Dee and Charlene (looking gorgeous in her Sari). |
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| Michael, Ebrahim, Vu, Lucy and Leisa posing with the performers. |
Very glad to head to bed.
Shubh raatri.
