Orange juice @ UOM

We received invitations to the famous z-orange conference via facebook , I quote

Orange on Campus

L’ Université de Maurice
et
Mauritius Telecom
vous invitent à la conférence
« Les Télécommunications :
Stratégie d’un opérateur intégré dans un monde convergent »
par M. Didier Lombard
Président-Directeur Général du Groupe France Telecom

le jeudi 17 avril 2008 à 16h15 à l’Auditorium Octave Wiehé, Réduit
Surprise Gifts to students !!!
Resfreshment will be served

Basant Lallah
Vice President SU

And indeed it was a well-kept secret, even the Student Union vice-president wasn’t aware about it and I overheard him asking what the surprises would be minutes before the conference was about to start :p And am pretty sure he got a blank answer…because the surprise for the audience was that there was no surprise gift at all :p No simcards…not even t-shirts!

The conference attracted some university students (mostly because of those surprise gifts…), some lecturers and many many z-orange and M.Telecom guyz…(according to some confidential source: 18 french, 30 expatriates). And more than a dozen cameramen and journalists. At one point in time, we had to look at the backs of the photographs while they stand just in front of those speaking.

The University’s vice-chancellor tried to make a good impression upon the zorange people (we will know why soon) with his french…well well…Monsieur Fagoune, as the zorange vice-president lovingly referred to him as buttering his guests :p

After the vice-chancellor, the zorange vice-president started his lengthy (more commercial than technical) speech during which he exposed the good intentions of the company, how it pursue two goals: making money and also caring for the society (but we all know that caring for society, is simply long-term money-making, else these companies just don’t care about society whatsoever ). While Mr Bernard the vice-president was speaking, one of our lecturer (responsible for delivering Computer Networking lectures) was jotting down keywords, underlining, boldifying and linking words to derive a Question! He started the question planning well before the conference began and had already briefed us about the strategy he would adopt.

And came the “donation-ceremony”:(now we know why the vice chancellor was buttering zorange) zorange donated R2million to UOM for scholarships and lab equipment (hey it’s for our computer labs???). But I wonder how this money will really be spent…Our vice-chancellor honestly thanked Bernard, and asked him rather directly for more money next time he come :p (yeah…indeed our financial situation is such…and the vice-chancellor even mentioned about “levé de fonds”. Ladies and gentlemen, if you see young boys and girls standing with tin-cans asking for donation , please donate…)

Soon during question time, we had our default UOM-Question-Asker firing his first salvo:Mainly about whether Zorange will do same as it did with other universities to UOM , helping in bringing forward new courses. After taking the longest possible route for an answer…well, we were merely told what we already know: zorange has started with a donation of R2million to UOM….Nothing else promised…

The second shot was fired by our well-prepared and motivated lecturer, determined to show zorange who is the Boss here! He asked how zorange is thinking about managing the tensions generated by trying to reach the different objectives of that company through integral branding. Well it seemed that either the zorange vice president’s french is poor or he just did not want to answer the question. As for the french problem, the question was translated to english for him but in vain maybe spanish next time?

By the way…did any among you know that the University of Mauritius is the best university worldwide? (i was totally ignorant until some french guy said so…)

One thing on the mind of most mauritians right now… the taste of this ‘z’orange. (as for refreshments, the conference organizers left us with an empty stomach : a piece of ‘maspin’ and a small ceres juice).

#end