Personal Reflection

Personal Reflection

The aim of a personal reflection is to give the student an opportunity to relate a personal understanding of the course. To highlight not just the described learning outcomes but also draw attention to challenges and areas of difficulty. Think of it as a statement of what you determine to be the key learnings and contribution of the course. It can be critical, highlighting gaps etc. Ultimately it is a personal statement of your own (perhaps new or changed) perspective on the subject, new understandings, difficulties, and insights.

Grading criteria:

The Personal Reflection is authentic, critical, supported by evidence and descriptive, conveying your own personal learning insights.

• A single page, approximately 500 words.
• Is it original? Is it your own work? (this is a basic requirement)
• Are the insights and learning described authentic? Does it honestly communicate your personal learning on taking this class?
• Is it critical? Critique isn't a bad thing. It challenges your own and others, even the subject itself. Consider prior understandings, misunderstanding, new knowledge, or changes in understanding?
• Are statements supported with examples? For example, comments or reflections on the homework tasks, the project, themes and subject matter?
• Core concepts? At the very best the reflection offers a compelling account of the significance of some of the key ideas arising in the course.

David Nyaluke seminar on Africa for Entrepreneurs - UCD Proudly Made in Africa Fellow in Business and Development

David Nyaluke - UCD Proudly Made in  Africa Fellow in Business and Development.
David presents a seminar on ``Africa an Emerging Market and Outsourcing''

David Nyaluke seminar on Africa 15/April/2020

The seminar covers broad themes:

• Understanding that Africa is a continent, comprised of 54 countries, with diverse languages and cultures, with colonial histories and affinities with former colonial powers.
• That independence movements and proxy conflict on the continent which held back economic development largely ceased during the 1990s. Since that time there has been a gradual shift from rural to urbanisation and industrialisation.
• African nations have young growing populations of talented people and an increasing desire for modern goods and services.
• Understanding the steps in value-added exports.
• Learning that Africa already has millionaire/billionaire entrepreneurs who are themselves investing back into their communities and promoting startups in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and others.
• Learning about the growing economy, demographics, educational attainment, and commercial opportunities in African countries.
• Finding out that African countries, relative late-comers to digital infrastructure, may benefit from first-mover and more recent technological solutions, by skipping wired and costly physical infrastructure, jumping ahead to wireless, decentralised, more advanced technologies for telecommunications and computing.

The following sequence of videos complement parts of the seminar nicely:

• 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rloG1sGBCKE "Father of M-Pesa Michael Joseph, former Safaricom CEO, talks to CNN's Richard Quest about the future of banking and how Kenya is positioned to lead once again."
• 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9_6G8J6VJg "TEDxVienna - Alexander Oswald - Why Kenyans do it better"
• 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQo4VoLyHe0 "Documentary showing how Safaricom's M-PESA Mobile Money Transfer service is changing lives in Kenya."

Hans Rosling - debunking third-world myths with data (2007)

Hans Rosling (1948 - 2017), a Swedish physician, researcher and academic (Wikipedia), ignited a debate surrounding preconceptions about the state of the world, between what was once thought of as the third-world, developing and western economies.

(illustration image from Rosling's TED Talk of 2007)

In this TED Talk (2007) Rosling seeks to reveal the relationships between investment in public services, in Aid, GDP, human development factors, trends and linkages over time.  Rosling presents using a set of startling animated data-driven visualisations generated with the then new suite of design tools and data indices gathered under the banner of gapminder.org.

Martin Fowler's ThoughtWorks Technology Radar

For an opinionated guide to technology frontiers, and a deep dive into the technology igniting discussion. Thoughts on market impact and leadership, by technologists for technologists, on the business of software itself, pure and simple.

https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

"Software@" Sonalake - How we build software

Our next industry guests are from Sonalake: Ciaran Treanor (CTO) and Cormac Ó Foghlú (VP Operations)

They will be talking about how a software services business works, their client engagement models and software development and services as a team sport.

The software@ seminar series provides an insider's perspective on one or more of the following taking place in high-tech firms: software engineering approaches, methods, technology stacks, evolution of architecture, design process, dynamics of deployment, test culture, peer processes etc.

For more on this year's seminar series see http://mis.ucd.ie/news/software-speaker-series-2020

Africapitalism: a conference event, Feb 27, 2020

After a successful workshop last year on 'Place, Belongingness, and International Entrepreneurship in Africa: Impact on Sustainable Development', we are delighted to continue the discussion by hosting a conference on:

Africapitalism

While this conference is mainly targeting students, we would like to invite you to take part, as there will be a mixture of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers who will be engaging with the theme from multiple perspectives, with the aim to better locate Africa within the global business education curricula. For further information and registration please click the link below:

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/ucd-africa-business-conference-2020-tickets-92706923905

Best wishes,

David Nyaluke, PhD (Proudly Made in Africa Fellow in Business and Development)
Penelope Muzanenhamo, PhD (Assistant Professor in Business and Society)
Killian Stokes, Entrepreneur, Lecturer in Business and Development (Moyee Coffee, Ireland)

W:proudlymadeinafrica.org

Countries Raked by Attractiveness - Global Services Location Index (A.T. Kearney, 2019)

"

- Globalism is alive and well in information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and voice services

- While India ranks number one, the inclusion of digital resonance metrics shrank its lead and gave advantage to onshore locations such as the United States and United Kingdom

- Automation and cybersecurity are changing the outsourcing landscape...

...The GSLI has traditionally identified locations that can best provide information technology (IT), business process outsourcing (BPO), and voice services based on countries' Financial attractiveness, people skills, availability, and business environment. The 2019 GSLI, however, includes a new digital resonance category to capture the effects of digital transformation, especially automation and cybersecurity, on the global services landscape. 

" (source)

India
China
Malaysia
Indonesia
Vietnam
United States
Thailand
United Kingdom
Brazil
Philippines
Mexico
Estonia
Colombia
Egypt
Germany
Lithuania
Bulgaria
Russia
Peru
Ukraine
Latvia
Chile
United Arab Emirates
Poland
Sri Lanka
Portugal
Canada
Romania
Argentina
Mauritius
Hungary
Bangladesh
Czech Republic
Singapore
Slovakia
Morocco
Pakistan
Panama
Turkey
Uruguay
France
Spain
Kenya
Costa Rica
Ghana
Trinidad and Tobago
Ireland
New Zealand
South Africa
Israel

(from: A.T. Kearney (2019). Digital resonance: The new factor impacting location attractiveness - the 2019 A.T. Kearney global services location index. Technical report, A.T. Kearney. link)