Susanne Hupfer, an advisory software engineer for IBM in Cambridge, heads this week to Ahmadabad, India, where she will work with the local government’s department of tribal affairs to develop an RFP for tourism companies that bid on an ecotourism program into the Gir Forest National Park. The revenue from ecotourism is planned to go to help support tribal people who live in the national forest and have no sustainable income.

“Never having done anything with tourism or never gone on a safari, I’m nervous about how I can bring my expertise to bear on it,” said Hupfer, whose broader team will include IBM staff from Budapest, Holland, Finland, and Tokyo.

Marc Herman, a human resource transition manager for IBM in Cambridge, had the same concern before he went to Campinas, Brazil, to work with a local autism organization to develop an outreach plan. Herman’s project ended in mid-September.

The pre-journey jitters were replaced quickly by the fascination of a new challenge and learning about a new culture once he was on the ground, Herman said. His team helped build a database of more than 150 international contacts working in the area of autism for the Brazilian NGO with which he was working, developed other local networks for the organization, and set up media interviews.

Perspective is what the Corps members said they take away from their overseas experiences. Erica Topolski, an IBM communications specialist, spent her Corps month in Kumasi, Ghana, working with the local organization Aid to Artisans Ghana.

One experience involved Topolski working with a kente weaver on ideas for marketing his cloth. Something he said stuck with her.

“He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what color I weave in my kente cloth or what part of year I sell it or where I sell it,’” said Topolski. “‘If people don’t have enough money to buy food, they won’t buy kente cloth.’”