Extreme Blue

Extreme Blue is one of IBM's internship program for both graduate and undergraduate students; it also serves as a placement opportunity for future IBM employment due to the significant effort put into placement of the interns.

IBM Extreme Blue

Type of business	Internship Program
Founded	1999
Headquarters	15 active, 18 total See List
Area served	World Wide
Founder(s)	David Grossman, Jane Harper, Ronald Woan, Sean Martin, Morris Matsa
Parent	IBM
URL	https://www.ibm.com/training/badge/ibm-extreme-blue
Current status	Active

History

Extreme Blue was created in 1999 by David Grossman, Jane Harper, Ronald Woan, Sean Martin, Morris Matsa.^[1][2] It began at the Lotus Software site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2003, Extreme Blue participants filed 98 patents.^[3]

In 2007, 10,000 applications were received for 92 positions in the U.S.; over 10,000 students applied for 220 positions worldwide. At the 2008 National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) award ceremony, the UK Extreme Blue program received the "Over 250 Employees – Short term placement" award.^[4] In 2009, according to an Extreme Blue manager, over 10,000 applications were received for fewer than 50 US positions.^{[citation needed]}

Since its inception, the program has expanded to include 15 active international locations.^{[citation needed]}

Former IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, now chairman (far right) speaking with interns at Extreme Blue in 2009

Projects

Extreme Blue uses IBM engineers, interns, and business managers to develop technology and business plans for new products and services. Each summer an Extreme Blue team also works on a project. These projects mostly involve rapid prototyping of high-profile software and hardware projects. Publicly released projects include the following:

• AmalgamR (2009) amalgamates social information from multiple sources, including Twitter, and displays relevant and timely group-based information.^[5]
• BreadCrumbs (2009) is an iPhone application that scans grocery food barcodes and gives consumers information such as ingredients, manufacturing history, and product recall alerts with the use of food traceability servers.^[6]

  

  Malaria Clinic in Tanzania helped by SMS for Life program, an Extreme Blue project

• SMS for Life (2009) fights malaria in Africa by utilizing cell phones, texting and web mapping technology to track and manage antimalarial drugs.^[7][8][9]
• exSEL (2007) is an end-to-end marketing tool which provides a virtual tour and allows virtual interactions with the exhibits in the IBM Solutions Experience Lab.^[10]
• SiSi Say It Sign It (2007) converts from spoken English directly into British Sign Language which is then signed by an animated digital character or avatar.^[11][12]
• Peridot (2004) checks web sites for broken links and assist in updating them. IBM applied for two patents^[13][14] on this technology.^{[15][16][17][18]}
• GameGrid (2003) created a distributed computing MMOG based on the open-source version of ID Software's Quake 2 first-person shooter.^[19][20]

Laboratory locations

North America

In 2004, there were 44 Extreme Blue teams in North America.^[21] In 2002, there were 101 interns in North America from 42 schools.^[22]

• IBM Almaden Research Center located in San Jose, California, USA (2000-current)
  • 4 teams in 2009
• IBM Silicon Valley Lab located in San Jose, California, USA
• Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA^[23] (1999–2004)
  • Debut location of Extreme Blue^[23]
  • Did not host EB in 2001.^[23]
• Raleigh, North Carolina, USA (2002–current)
  • Started 2002^[24]
  • Lab manager:
    • (2006-current) Ross Grady
• Austin, Texas, USA^[25] (2001-current)
  • Started 2001
  • Lab manager:
    • (2015-current) Marjean Fieldhouse
  • Technical lead:
    • (2015-current) Matthew Glover
• Montreal, Quebec, Canada^[26]
• Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Toronto, Ontario, Canada

South America

• São Paulo, Brazil

Asia

• Beijing, China
• Bangalore, India (2004–?)
  • Started in 2004 with 9 students in 2 teams^[27]
• Delhi, India (2010–current)^{[citation needed]}
  • Started in 2010 and is currently active.^{[citation needed]}
• IBM Haifa Research Laboratory located in Haifa, Israel^[28]

Europe

• Dublin, Ireland
• Cork, Ireland
• Böblingen, Germany
  • 3 teams in 2002^[29]
• Brussels, Belgium^[30]
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Uithoorn, Netherlands^[29]
• La Gaude, France
• Hursley, United Kingdom
• Zurich, Switzerland^[29]
• Rome, Italy

References

1. Scott Kirsner (August 4, 1999). "Kirsner: Big Blue Reinvents Internships". Wired.
2. John PatricK (July 15, 2003). "Extreme Blue".
3. James Watson (23 Sep 2004). "Students swap beach for the lab bench in IBM internship scheme". Computing. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
4. NCWE Awards: Extreme Blue wins 'Over 250 Employees – Short term placement Award'
5. Mike Cassidy (August 14, 2009). "Cassidy: Looking at the Valley through fresh eyes". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
6. Richard Macmanus (October 26, 2009). "IBM Debuts Food Traceability iPhone App". The New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
7. Zachary Wilson (15 Dec 2009). "Are Your Interns Saving the World? IBM's Are". Fast Company. Retrieved 21 Dec 2009.
8. "Saving Lives with SMS for Life". IBM. 14 Dec 2009. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved 21 Dec 2009.
9. Mitch Wagner (15 Dec 2009). "SMS Project Fights Malaria in Africa". InformationWeek. Retrieved 21 Dec 2009.
10. "Extreme Blue". IBM. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
11. "IBM Research Demonstrates Innovative 'Speech to Sign Language' Translation System". IBM. 12 Sep 2007. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved 2009-10-14.
12. Geoff Adams-Spink (15 September 2007). "Technique links words to signing". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-10-14.
13. US 7290131, Beynon, Margaret Ann Ruth & Flegg, Andrew James, "Guaranteeing hypertext link integrity", published 2007-10-30, assigned to IBM
14. US application 20040267726, Beynon, Margaret Ann Ruth & Flegg, Andrew James, "Hypertext request integrity and user experience", published 2004-12-30, assigned to IBM, since abandoned.
15. EISENBERG, ANNE (October 21, 2004). "For Missing Web Pages, a Department of Lost and Found". NYTimes. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
16. "Broken Links No More?". Slashdot. 24 September 2004. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
17. Twist, Jo (24 September 2004). "Web tool may banish broken links". BBC. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
18. "Students swap beach for the lab bench in IBM internship scheme". Forbes.
19. "Cool projects". IBM. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
20. www.cs.berkeley.edu https://web.archive.org/web/20100728054412/http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bethenco/ibmsj06quake.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
21. "Igor Jablokov, Program Director, Speech & Multimodal Technologies, IBM Pervasive Computing". SpeechTechMag. August 2004. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
22. http://www-913.ibm.com/employment/us/extremeblue/bio/2002_us_interns.html
23. "Extreme Blue History". IBM. 2001. Retrieved 2009-12-08.
24. "Dynamic places". 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2002-02-22. Retrieved Oct 12, 2009. ... Raleigh, North Carolina – New ...'
25. http://www-913.ibm.com/employment/us/extremeblue/location/index.html
26. "IBM Canada jobs - Student opportunities". www-03.ibm.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009.
27. Abhinav Singh. "First Extreme Blue internship programme in India". Bangalore, India: Express Computing. Archived from the original on 2009-10-12. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
28. "IBM Haifa Takes Four Technion Students to the Extreme". IBM. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
29. "Extreme Blue: Top talent puzzle at IBM". IBM. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
30. "IBM Recruitment - Students - Extreme Blue - Belgium/Luxembourg". Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved October 7, 2009.

External links

• Official website
• UK Extreme Blue Blog