Introduction to IBM CSC

Last Friday, my family departed after the trip of a lifetime and I began the second phase of my trip to South Africa.  For the next month I will participate in the IBM Corporate Service Corp. For those of you who have not heard of the IBM Corporate Services Corps (CSC) I have the following introduction for you (most of which was plagiarized from my colleague, Andrew MacDonald).

IBM's CSC  is a leadership program that takes high performing IBM’ers from different countries, to all join together in a developing country to perform a community service project.

The Corporate Service Corps was launched in 2008 to help provide IBMers with high quality leadership development while delivering high quality problem solving for communities and organizations in emerging markets. The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10 - 15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four week community-based assignments. During the assignment, participants perform community-driven economic development projects working at the intersection of business, technology, and society.

This program increases IBM's understanding and appreciation of growth markets while creating global leaders who are culturally aware and possess advanced teaching skills. The Corporate Service Corps offers a triple benefit: leadership development for the IBMers, leadership training and development for the communities, and greater knowledge and enhanced reputation in the growth markets for IBM.

Since its launch in 2008, the Corporate Service Corps has had a positive impact of the lives of more the 140,000 people through skills transfer and capacity building. Many thousands more have been positively impacted through the services of the organizations the Corporate Service Corps has supported. The Corporate Service Corps program has sent over 2400 participants on over 200 teams to more than 30 countries around the world. The participants come from over 50 countries and have served communities in Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan , Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, The Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Vietnam, UAE and Ukraine . The program continues to expand to new locations each year.

For more information on this IBM program please look at the following site -> http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/