Top IBM employees arrive in Phl to improve traffic and education

MANILA, Philippines - Top IBM employees around the globe arrived on Monday in the Philippines with a mission to improve vehicular traffic management and create education programs for out-of-school youth.

The group of 12 high performing IBM employees come from the United States, India, Japan, Brazil, Spain, Turkey Netherlands and Argentina.  

The team is part of the IBM Corporate Service Corp (CSC) program and is the 13th team assigned to work on projects in the Philippines by collaborating with local organizations.

IBM said the volunteers will work with the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), the Makati City Government and the Department of Education (DepEd) on opportunities and workable strategies to help enhance and transform the way these organizations do things.  

The volunteers are tasked to help their "clients" improve internal processes and management systems for more efficient and effective decision making.

Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, President and Country General Manager of IBM Philippines, said the IBM CSC program, marking its 5th anniversary, has had a very positive impact to the lives of more than 140,000 people through skills transfer and capacity building.

“In the Philippines, we are fortunate to have been a beneficiary of 13 CSC teams already since its inception in 2008. The first 12 CSC teams have successfully collaborated with a broad range of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), non-government and government organizations and work on high impact projects across emerging markets in the acountry,” Winhoffer said.

Often called the corporate version of the “Peace Corps”, the CSC program was developed to help IBM employees become effective 21st century global professionals and citizens while helping solve complex problems in emerging markets like the Philippines.

According to an independent evaluation conducted by Professor Chris Marquis at Harvard Business School, these six-month projects not only create significant value for the countries, but also produce more skilled, collaborative, loyal, and culturally aware employees for IBM.  

The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10 to 15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four-week community-based assignments.

During the assignment, participants work on community-driven economic development projects that impact business, technology and society. Since 2008, the program has sent 1,800 participants in over 170 teams to more than 30 countries around the world.