PMI Pune Monthly Meet: “Trends in Disaster Management IT Solutions” & “Building effective distributed teams” April 9, 2010

What: Project Management Institute, Pune Chapter’s monthly meeting, consisting of two sessions – 1. Current Trends in IT enabled solutions in disaster management services in a social environment, and 2. Building more effective cross-cultural distributed teams.
When: Saturday, April 10, 10:00 am to 12:30 pm
Where: Cummins Auditorium, Pune Shramik Patrakar Sangh, 193 Navi Peth, Ganjwe Chowk, Near Alka Talkies, Garware bridge & S. M. Joshi hall, Pune 411030. Reception (Tel) – +91(20) 24534190
Registration: This event is free for all, and no registration is required
Topic 1: Current Trends in IT enabled solutions in disaster management services in social environment
About the speaker – Dr. Parag Mankeekar

Dr. Parag Mankeekar is a qualified medical doctor as well as a Medical anthropologist & Masters in International Health from Swiss Tropical Institute, Switzerland. He also did another Masters in Disaster Medicine from San Marino in Italy.

Parag is a recipient of the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship (www.ashoka.org/pmankeekar) a USA based Social Business Innovation organization for the year 2008-2011 for his innovative initiatives in reaching the concepts of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change to children and youth.

Parag is founder Director of “Neeti Solutions”, Director of the Global Challenge Award, a USA Non-Profit (NGO) and also Co-Director at Educational Simulation (ES) a social software gaming company based in California. Both ES and Neeti Solutions have developed a peace building and culture sensitive game called ‘Real Lives’. (www.educationalsimulations.com), popular in US schools.
Abstract of talk

There are many service groups working in social environment for disaster recovery like fire brigade etc. where in the technology based IT solutions are proving to be very useful. Along with this Parag would be covering the work done in innovative initiatives in reaching the concepts of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change to children and youth which has been acknowledged in the form of the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship (www.ashoka.org/pmankeekar) he has received from a USA based Social Business Innovation organization for the year 2008-2011. He would also cover social software gaming area where in Neeti Solutions have developed a peace building and culture sensitive game called âReal Livesâ. He would be discussing on the various trends and opportunities in IT enabled business in social environment which is untapped market. He would also be discussing the challenges he faced being non-technical entrepreneur from medical background and how he managed though them.
Topic 2: Building more effective cross-cultural distributed teams.
About the speaker – Dr.Urvashi Rathod

Dr.Urvashi Rathod is a Ph.D. in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani. She has an overall 22 years of work experience including an entrepreneurial stint of seven years. She had been in academics for last ten years including a 5 year long teaching tenure with IIM Indore. She is internationally published in peer reviewed journals and has been a reviewer and a member of editorial board for national and international publications of repute.
Abstract of talk

Businesses deal significantly with interpersonal communication at the individual, group and organizational level. Employees of an organization assemble to work together as a work group, wherein the members share their experiences, best practices or take decisions to help an individual in enhancing his/her performance, or as a team whose members work together toward a common goal. Globalization leads to greater interdependence and mutual awareness among economic, political, and social units in the world. The very existence of businesses in a global environment enforces multi-cultural interactions within the organization or between the organizations. Culture, being the link between human beings and the means they have of interacting with others (Hall, 1973), plays an important role in interpersonal communication in organizations.

This study proposes that the cultural characteristics of team members are associated with the attributes of team communication, which has been found to be one of the key determinants of team productivity and performance. Proposed seminar aims to introduce the audience to the possibility of association between the cultural and team communication attributes that if studies scientifically, can help in building more effective cross-cultural distributed teams.

Official Website: http://pmipunechapter.org/