Monday 18 August 2014

Mauritius 2014 Part 2

Just a quick recap of our recent trip to Mauritius.
The training went well. could have done with a few more delegates but hey, sometimes you have to work with what you're given!
Please see the previous blog entry for info.

Our last 2 days included. a visit to a potential client, this was for the ICEOTOPE product, apparently the CEO had seen the module I had presented at INFOTECH last year and had requested his guys to look into it.
So, I visited their site and had a look around, I also had the opportunity to visit their shared DR site as well.
I am disappointed to reveal that the PUE fudge reared its ugly head, I was told that the PUE of the site was between 1.5 -1.8, however the raw data indicated that the "real" PUE was considerable higher, it was actually 2.6.
I knew it was going to be a lot higher than they had told me because I could see that not even the most basic of the EUCOC best practices had not been implemented, the temps and the humidity range were also high.

Being a good consultant often means advising customers even if you're not being paid so I sent them a few documents to help them on their way to energy efficiency.

We could easily save them a lot of money by the use of ICEOTOPE and we're currently preparing some costs for them.

The other meetings included a visit to my chums at the National Computer Board, we have a number of potential projects with them in the offing and we'll update you all when the picture becomes clearer.

Later that evening I presented to the BCS Mauritius branch on the topic of "Mauritius' impending energy problem and how ICT can help".
I was actually given a police escort to the venue, but tis not what you think!

I had taken a cab from Port Louis to Rose Hill (up in the highlands) but the cabbie had no idea of the actual location and dropped me in the centre of town, well I don't know if any of my readers have been to Mauritius but it seems that only the main streets are named and it can be quite difficult to find what it is you're looking for, so after about 30 mins wandering the streets of Rose Hill, I decided to go to the police station and ask for directions.
The end result was that the desk sergeant got one of his patrol cars to actually take me to the venue and its a good job that he did, otherwise I'd still be wandering the streets.

I delivered the presentation to about 70 people overall and had quite a few questions afterwards, this was followed by an excellent meal with the BCS Mauritius branch committee, on account of one of their members having a birthday and a short trip home.

The next day involved some 20 hours of travel door to door, but I did have a very nice chap who had been in Madagascar on a field trip as a companion, we chatted for ages about climate change and its impact in Africa.

Here in the UK, we moan about bad weather but at least we have food on our tables, there, bad weather often means that the crops fail and people die.

I'm not going to get involved in the politics of the situation, but it does seem to me that we need to do more, and that the use of technology is going to be key, green technology solutions and energy efficiency in particular.

Its still holiday season so not much seems to be happening, but we have quitre a few interesting projects and assessments to undertake, and the rest of the quarter and Q4 looks very very busy.

Until next time, oh and congratulations to the England Women's Rugby Team, World Cup Winners, and Charlton, beating Wigan in the last minute in the Championship this weekend, C'mon you Reds!

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