Wetskills Kerala 2019

Last day – the day of pitches and tears

Posted on October 18, 2019
in Wetskills India (Kerala), Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - By Xiaoxuan Zhao and Csilla Bekker - On the last day of the Wetskills program we had to give our pitches at the Conference on Maritime and Water Development held in Kochi. As we were staying in Fort Kochi we needed to arrange transport to the Hyatt Hotel in Kochi where this event was held. Fortunately we could hire a small boat that directly took us to the venue, starting the day with a boat trip in our smart dresses. Great fun!   We arrived just on time and at the back door of this fancy place, so it felt a bit like sneaking in. Once already there we had our first real coffees of these two weeks and could join the opening ceremony.  After some interesting morning sessions we were provided with an extended buffet lunch, which we all really appreciated.  Some of the pitchers had a last...

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Last day Calicut, chalo, chalo with the results!

Posted on October 16, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills India (Kerala), Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Twan Smitskamp and Febin Jacob   Time is flying when you’re having fun. Today was the last day of working on the project aswell as spending our time in Calicut. Luckily for us we got this morning a very nice typical Kerala breakfast with just enough for everyone;).   With our full bellies we started the day to finalize the poster, papers and of course the pitch! Because of our perfect time management during the project we were all quite relaxed and did’t feel that much of pressure. Some of us wrote in the reports while others practised their pitch in front of team members or just on their own. Around one o’clock we got enlighted by another tasty lunch with some nice Chapathi’s (typical India flat bread), chicken and veg curry topped with a pappadam. After lunch the most groups were almost finished and satisfied with their progress. Only...

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Family day in Calicut

Posted on October 14, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Peter Hopman -   The Sunday in Calicut was a family day, since we are a Wetskills family we went for a day out. The girls started the day with shopping and discovered that Sunday morning a lot of shops are closed. The boys went out for a good coffee and also discovered that the shops were closed, so they ended up with an ice-cream. After the lunch and a high speed race in Nujoom’s car we were just in time for a boat trip at Beypore. This trip was beyond expectations in several ways. We were welcomed on the boat by a real entertainer with a couple of Indian songs and we had to participate in some local dancing. It turned out that the boat trip was more of an entertainment trip for families. Probably more than 1000 pictures were made of those interesting foreign people. The Sunday...

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A Busy Day Of Team Work

Posted on October 12, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Zoorathul Anfal -   Today we started at 9am as the second day of team work which is a really busy day of work schedule. Yesterday we had a Skype call with our case owner and make our research path more clear so, today we decided to get a solution for it and started to work on it. First of all we named our team and we sat together and find the solution documented it as action plan and divided our poster preparation for one, paper preparation for another one and pitch presentation for last one.   At noon we all had our lunch together from the near by restaurant which is a really interesting experience. After our food hunt, a training session of how to prepare a poster, paper and pitch were given by our supervisor Ms. Ioana Dobrescu. After that we continue our work. ...

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A hard day’s work

Posted on October 12, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Arshad Anwar - The 6th day of Wetskills started with a lot of work. The teams were all picking up from yesterday's activities. For our team, I was chosen to type the Memo so I spent a good chunk of the day on completing it in a quaint little room. My teammates were busy preparing the poster too. The lunch for the day was provided by JDT Institute and everybody sat and ate together. Xiaoxuan tried on a saree today. Everybody thought she looked good (and she did). Also Maarten shared a sweet from the Netherlands with us. It tasted different from the sweets available in Kerala but it was savoury and tasted good. Zachariah and Febin liked it too. By the end of the day everybody was excited, for a day of liesure lay ahead. ...

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A productive day at ‘school’

Posted on October 10, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Maarten de Vries -   The fifth day of Wetskills Kerala started like a typical day at school: wake up at 8:00, finally get out of bed at 8:15, have some (Indian) breakfast at 8:30 and get to school at 9:00. But on an average school day people are less productive than the participants of Wetskills. After the BrainHurricane and the expert meeting of yesterday, it was time for action. All of the four teams started to make a plan of action, divided tasks and in some cases a Skype call with the case owner was needed to understand the actual problem.   The typical Indian lunch, which was served on a banana leaf (and in some cases very spicy), gave the teams renewable energy to continue with the case. Many discussions later, the last course of the day was about teamroles and groupwork.   At five o clock the school...

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Brain Hurricane at JDT!

Posted on October 9, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Denny J Dilip -   It's the third day of the Wetskills programme. The teams have been decided, the cases have been assigned. Everybody is nervous, excited to be working within their group with a mix of nationals and internationals. It was go time. The teams put on their thinking caps and started the Brain Hurricane session in the programme. Teams were passionately discussing with each other, to find a solution/ to find a plan that will lead them into a solution later on. After racking up their brains for the past 3 hours, the Wetskills programme brought in the cavalry (the field experts) to reignite our passion and to provide us an informative direction that can be taken to arrive at a possible solution.   The field experts gave us a brief introduction about themselves and also shared some of their thought on the matter of the floods...

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Floods and landslides fieldvisits in the Western Ghats!

Posted on October 8, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Zacharaia Joseph -   Day 2 was assigned for excursion and site visits to flood and landslides affected areas in Wayand. The team along with faculties from JDTI  started the journey. All of us were excited about the trip ,the hairpin bends up the Weatern Ghats to the destination made the trip more thrilling. On the way we had stopped for sight seeing and had a delicious breakfast arranged by our host. Our first stop was an old tea estate in Kerala which was built by the british. The placed offered the history and the evolution of tea and tea plantation.We also came to the knowledge that the tea estate was  affected severely by the floods of 2018. From here we proceeded to Banasura Sagar Dam which portrayed a beautiful blend of the blue and green .     Next was a food hault at a restaurant in Wayand, where we had varieties...

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The First Day!

Posted on October 7, 2019
in Blogs, Wetskills Kerala 2019
by Ioana Dobrescu

Wetskills Kerala 2019 - by Elsa Anna Simon -   I’m an Urban Planner with Architecture background, currently working as Assistant Professor at College of Architecture Trivandrum (C.A.T). Being witnessing the floods affected in Kerala, I had been looking for an opportunity to work on the resilience of cities. It was the right time wetskills 2019 was announced for addressing the similar concern. Iam glad being the part of two weeks think tank program with problem solving and brain storming exercises. We are a group of 14 delegates including both International and domestic participants. This is the third time wetskills is being conducted in India, the venue for 2019 is JDT Islam Campus at Calicut. Day 1 had begun with routine session of prayer and welcome by the host. I being a resident of Calicut the joy and bliss was reflected on my face and the same has been shared on the session “how...

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Wetskills is an independent Foundation based in The Netherlands. Wetskills is part of the Human Capital Agenda of the Dutch water sector. KNW Waternetwerk, the Royal Netherlands Water Network, is the (financial) administrator for Wetskills Foundation.

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