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Many companies striving to be good corporate citizens today face an internal tug of war between giving attention to community initiatives that address social problems and the growing demand to make environmental issues paramount.
IBM teaming with entrepreneurs to build a smarter planet
By Susan Thomas, Assistant Director, Electronic Communications, Boston College Center
In today’s challenging economic environment, technology start-ups can struggle to bring new ideas to market. In response, Center member IBM has opened its resources to these companies in a new initiative to help this next generation of entrepreneurs capture emerging business opportunities in fast-growing industries such as energy and utilities, health care, telecommunications and government.
The IBM Global Entrepreneur initiative provides start-ups with no-charge access to industry-specific technologies in a cloud computing environment. Under the new program, IBM will provide access to its research community as well as sales, marketing and technical skills.
The initiative is part of IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy, which seeks to apply technology to big challenges like improving the efficiency of energy use, water management, transportation and health care.
With nearly 5,000 new patents in 2009 alone, IBM has experience bringing innovative technologies to market, and is uniquely positioned to help start-ups because of the depth of resources, expertise, and experience with the most forward-thinking institutions, governments, and businesses around the world.
Under the new initiative, start-ups can:
- access IBM’s software portfolio through a cloud computing environment, including IBM industry frameworks to accelerate software development;
- work side-by-side with scientists and technology experts from IBM Research to develop new technologies;
- take advantage of dedicated IBM project managers to assist in product development;
- attend new IBM SmartCamp mentoring and networking workshops with VC firms, government leaders, academics, and industry experts at the global network of 40 IBM Innovation Centers to build business and go-to-market plans;
- tap a new social networking community on IBM developerWorks to connect with other entrepreneurs and more than eight million IT professionals from around the world.
IBM’s Claudia Fan Munce, vice president of corporate strategy and managing director of the IBM Venture Capital Group, explained why the company is opening its resources more widely to start-ups: “Businesses around the world are increasingly applying new technologies to address industry-specific needs, and technology start-ups are looking for new ways to capitalize on this trend,” she said. ”IBM’s goal is to help entrepreneurs gain the skills they need to bring new ideas to market faster using IBM technology to accelerate industry transformation and fuel innovation.”
As part of this program, IBM is collaborating with 19 global industry and technology associations to identify and connect local start-ups to the initiative through IBM SmartCamps and forums at IBM Innovation Centers throughout 2010.
To participate in the IBM Global Entrepreneur Initiative, start-ups must meet the following criteria:
- the company must be privately-held
- in business less than three years
- actively developing software aligned to IBM’s Smarter Planet focus areas
For more information about the IBM Global Entrepreneur Initiative, please visit http://www.ibm.com/isv/startup.
