I got ready last night – set the Garmin StreetPilot GPS to point to 1 Rogers Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts and topped off the Harley gas tank. The ride began at 6:30 AM and was met with heavy fog along Route 7 and on Interstate 84, but as the morning unfolded, things cleared up and it was a beautiful 168 mile ride. I stopped just inside the Massachusetts border to get an Egg McMuffin, a cup of coffee, and check my email using 1xRTT. WiFi was not available — I know it will be soon. But, this story is not about WiFi or motorcycles. It is about students and technology – a la IBM’s extreme Blue.
In early 1999, an Internet engineer at IBM named Ron Woan had the idea to bring in a group of a couple of dozen computer science students to be part of a really unique summer program. Ron’s idea was to go out to the top ten Computer Science schools in America and recruit the best of the best students. His idea was to create leading edge projects for the students to work on and to set up a mentoring program whereby the students would work closely with IBM’s top technical leaders; Senior Technical Staff Members, Distinguished Engineers, and IBM Fellows. A further part of Ron’s idea was to give the students the latest IBM technology to use, provide housing for them, and generally make their life as fantastic as possible. We all thought this was a great idea but questioned whether we could actually pull off the administration, find the budget, and manage all the details. There were doubters but in the main many of us thought it was a great idea. The management team; Dave Grossman, from a technical point of view, and Jane Harper, from an operational point of view, believed in Ron’s idea and made the commitment to make it happen. Today it is a program operated on multiple continents.
The project became known as Extreme Blue. Wired Magazine wrote a story about it called “Big Blue Reinvents Internships”. The vision was to enable some of the world’s brightest computer science students to have a chance to spend a fast paced summer working on real, cutting-edge IBM projects. Not running the copying machine or “make work” projects but real projects; things IBM was actually quite interested in making happen. The students were split into teams of three and each team had a mentor who was a senior technical leader from a product group somewhere in IBM. The mentor had a very specific technical project that may have been on their dream list but for which he or she had not otherwise been able to get funding or skills.
Today I met with extreme Blue interns, top computer science and business students, who showed me projects they are doing in blogging, life sciences, mobil computing and other things. These projects, which tackle specific IBM objectivew, have all upside and no downside.
Every year the students exceed everyone’s expectations. The thing about students is that they have no “baggage”. They don’t know all the things that didn’t work in the past or all the reasons why something can’t get done in a short period of time. No blinders. Totally uninhibited. They have the summer – all of twelve weeks or so. Whatever it takes, they will get the job done. Students are fearless and tireless. Yes, I am sure they learned a lot about IBM and from their mentors but I think IBM learns even more from the students. How they think and work together. Their attitudes about technology. The trends they see. Their view of the future. It is so uplifting and enriching to talk to the students and learn from them.
And then there was the ride home. The first traffic jam was getting from Cambridge to the Massachusetts Turnpike. The second jam was on the turnpike. Then things went fine for a couple of hours until reaching Interstate 84 where construction was underway. Four hours for 168 miles was not a joy, but I would do it again!
