Asia, here I come

Welcome to the first post of my blog. As most of you readers (i.e. friends) already know, I'm about to embark on a 6 month journey through Asia, primarily in Sri Lanka, with stops in Singapore, India, and hopefully many other countries.

The idea of such a trip across the world has been festering in my head for years now. I have been restless for some time now, living in the same town in which I grew up. I have many great friends here in Reston, VA but I've been struggling and battling with the urge inside me to get out of Northern Virginia and experience something new. I've talked about moving to Chicago, Austin, Charlotte, and San Francisco, to the point where I've all but arranged a transfer within Accenture to one of these offices. But ultimately I stuck around here, as the right opportunity for me simply never came up.

Enter Accenture Development Partnerships. As part of Accenture's effort at corporate citizenship, the firm developed a non-profit "wing" in which we take on consulting work in developing countries and non-profit organizations and provide economic, technology, and management consulting services at no profit to Accenture. Accenture does its part by reducing the cost to the client by cutting out margins, reducing overhead, and requiring the employee (that would be me) to take a 50% paycut while on assignment. So over the next 6 months, I hope to have an experience of a lifetime, even without the discrectionary income!

I actually applied and was accepted to the ADP scheduling pool over a year ago, and beginning the middle of 2005 I began the process to actually get staffed on a project overseas. I attended core ADP training in December, and after then I was sold on the prospect of working on a project overeas. In addition, my lovely girlfriend Nima as well as my rockin' little sister Anjali are both currently in Singapore for work and school, so I can't deny there was an addition incentive to get me over to that part of the world.

After months of looking for a role within Accenture (both ADP and regular), ADP came through with a potential project with a non-profit that works closely with the Government of Sri Lanka to advance technology services both within the government and to its citizens. The role is a perfect fit for me as it involved strategic planning for a government portal, which is right up my alley in terms of experience. I expressed interest to the ADP management team and we're in the very final stages of making this project a reality. I've been slated to be a member of the team. The project, based in Colombo, is scheduled to go from late February through June.

I'm all set for my journey, as I'll be taking of from DC, connecting through New York, hopping on an 18 hour direct flight to Singapore, and spending a week with Nima and Anjali before reporting to Sri Lanka for work.

I set up this blog as a place for me to share my experiences, thoughts, and photos with my friends and family around the world. Check in often (subscribe to the ATOM feed in Firefox) to share my experience, and remember that comments and emails are much appreciated. I look forward to being in touch with all and I hope you enjoy the blog!