Paradoxically it seems, one of the silver linings from the past 2 years of the global pandemic has been - for me at least - a greater connection with different groups and communities around the world. And this week, it really struck me how this has manifested in the activities I’ve been involved in - all from my kitchen table. Let’s explore my global week…
Africa
I began my week with a Zoom call with a team of students working with a great social enterprise Proudly Made in Africa where we planned out the first stages of a business plan for a Tanzanian company Swahili Cashewnuts with their CEO Catherine John and UCD Proudly Made in Africa Fellow David Nyaluke.
On Friday I got an email from a friend in South Africa who had lost their presets in Adobe Lightroom, and was at the end of their tether trying to figure out how to get them back to edit some images for a competition deadline. A quick Zoom call enabled me to remote control their laptop and fix the problem… It never ceases to amaze me just how powerful the video-conferencing medium is today - being able not just hear, but also see each other, adds such an added dimension to interactions, maintains relationships better and is a much better experience. And being able to remote control the computer at the far end of the Zoom call means I can be of practical help to so many of my friends and colleagues around the world - fabulous!
Asia
On Tuesday morning it was great to be invited to speak this week at one of India's top business schools - Apeejay School Of Management by a former student of mine (and alumni of UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School), Anuj Kumar. Together with Dr. Nishu Ayedee I presented a seminar on managing international projects, which was given a writeup in their newsroom here...
Europe
This week I delivered 4 camera club talks to Eastbourne Photographic Society, Tonbridge Camera Club and the Royal Photographic Society in England, and SOLAS Photographic Club in Ireland.
I also collaborated with another student team undertaking the UCD Health Fusion Challenge under the leadership of Prof. Kate Frazer from UCD Health Sciences.
And I signed up to be part of a fundraiser on Sunday 3rd April to raise money for the Ukraine - if you’d like a great day of photographic talks from some of the top speakers on the circuit while helping raise much needed funds to support the Ukraine, sign up on Eventbrite here:
North America
One of the opportunities I’ve been fortunate enough to land recently is becoming a UCD Faculty Partner. Our role is to help roll out UDL (Universal Design for Learning) across UCD, and we get some funding to put towards activities to help this effort, so I’m going to do a series of online courses with Harvard Business School on UDL, and hopefully then pass some of the learnings on to my colleagues. So I’ve been progressing this application this week - again it’s just amazing to me that education has become such a globally accessible resource.
And I’ve got my own initiative in progress in this area after gaining College approval to offer the UCD Part-Time Master’s in Project Management available in person, hybrid or fully online to students from September 2022
This is a first for the Smurfit School Master’s programmes, and will be a great way to explore the challenges and opportunities in providing education both in-person as well as to a remote audience - surely a must for any global school as we emerge from the pandemic.
Yes, I know there’s no South America featuring in y week - must stop slacking I guess!
But seriously, it is slightly mind-boggling the reach we can all have these days from our home settings. I love being able to connect and interact like this - and although travel certainly is wonderful too, the world truly has become more accessible, and there are far fewer barriers to collaborating at distance if you are just willing to make the effort to reach out and connect…
Asst. Professor & Director, MSc Project Management programmes, UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business
Management consultant - www.houghton.consulting
2021 UCD Innovation Academy Fellow - www.plusoneteaching.com
EPALE Ambassador - https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en
Dublin, Ireland
Email : joe.houghton@ucd.ie / joe.houghton@gmail.com
Tel: +353 86 384 3670