IBM established its version of the "Peace Corps" in 2008, naming it the Corporate Service Corps. The CSC and its sister program, the Executive Service Corps / Smarter Cities Challenge bring IBMers to work with communities and organizations in developing nations to address things that typically fall within the domain of NGOs - and quite far outside, frankly, of IBM's core clientele and work.
The program was conceptualized as a two-way learning street - the communities and organizations that IBMers work with benefit from their skills and expertise, and the IBM volunteers would gain an understanding and appreciation of global development challenges. This program has already sent over a thousand IBMers to more than 30 countries so far, tackling issues as diverse as food safety in Vietnam, water supply in Turkey and energy conservation in China.
Why would any hard-headed business invest so much resources and $$ in "corporate volunteerism" ? As it turns out, the business calculus behind this program is sound. IBM and the IBMers who participate benefit as much and in as many ways as the recipient communities, organizations and people. Talk about win-win !
Closer at hand, I am a member of CSC Brazil Team 14. I had heard about the program three years ago, and was immediately intrigued. Not many firms offer you the opportunity to spend four weeks working on "good for your soul" things in an exotic locale - so I applied in 2012 (more about the application cycle and process in a later post), and was, to my delight, accepted. My cohort has 15 IBMers and 4 from J P Morgan Chase, a key IBM client. IBM has been working with a few clients of late to help them establish their own versions of this program, hence the JPMC-ers.
The 19 of us represent 16 countries - New Zealand, Australia, China, Vietnam, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, UAE, Netherlands, Germany, France, Chile, UK, Ireland, USA and India. As you can imagine, there is never a good time for team conference calls with this kind of time zone dispersion - but Karin, our team coach and Nada, our team mentor (who were themselves members of CSC Brazil Team 13 Belo Horizonte last year) have done an admirable job in all of our pre-work over the last 3 months. More about the pre-work and the calls in a later post...
#ibmcsc brazil
The program was conceptualized as a two-way learning street - the communities and organizations that IBMers work with benefit from their skills and expertise, and the IBM volunteers would gain an understanding and appreciation of global development challenges. This program has already sent over a thousand IBMers to more than 30 countries so far, tackling issues as diverse as food safety in Vietnam, water supply in Turkey and energy conservation in China.
Why would any hard-headed business invest so much resources and $$ in "corporate volunteerism" ? As it turns out, the business calculus behind this program is sound. IBM and the IBMers who participate benefit as much and in as many ways as the recipient communities, organizations and people. Talk about win-win !
Closer at hand, I am a member of CSC Brazil Team 14. I had heard about the program three years ago, and was immediately intrigued. Not many firms offer you the opportunity to spend four weeks working on "good for your soul" things in an exotic locale - so I applied in 2012 (more about the application cycle and process in a later post), and was, to my delight, accepted. My cohort has 15 IBMers and 4 from J P Morgan Chase, a key IBM client. IBM has been working with a few clients of late to help them establish their own versions of this program, hence the JPMC-ers.
The 19 of us represent 16 countries - New Zealand, Australia, China, Vietnam, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, UAE, Netherlands, Germany, France, Chile, UK, Ireland, USA and India. As you can imagine, there is never a good time for team conference calls with this kind of time zone dispersion - but Karin, our team coach and Nada, our team mentor (who were themselves members of CSC Brazil Team 13 Belo Horizonte last year) have done an admirable job in all of our pre-work over the last 3 months. More about the pre-work and the calls in a later post...
#ibmcsc brazil
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