In the summer of 2009, the Austin Technology Incubator, a not for profit arm of the University of Texas at Austin, and IBM experimented with a novel internship program. Working with a team led by Manoj Saxena, vice president of global solutions for IBM and Founder/CEO of ATI Alumni Company Webify (acquired by IBM), ATI sourced and subsequently coached two University of Texas at Austin student interns that were hired by IBM. The program was an outstanding success and the partnership continued in the summer of 2010. Through this joint program between IBM and ATI, three well paid, value add, learning rich internships were created that would not have otherwise existed.
IBM and the University of Texas have 40 years of history together. IBM’s Austin Research Lab, recruiting, conferences, diversity, community efforts, and state-of-the-art technology initiatives, including the university’s powerful new POWER5 processor-based academic supercomputer, are all part of the long-standing involvement between IBM and UT.
Manoj Saxena
IBM found itself competing with not only paid but unpaid internships with smaller start-up and entrepreneurial companies so they decided to take an innovative approach by partnering with ATI. ATI has been helping develop exciting new companies since their founding in 1989 and supports its companies by drawing on the deep networks that they have formed over the past 21 years, surrounding each newly admitted IT company with a team of experienced IT executives and successful entrepreneurs. “Closer collaboration with the Austin Technology Incubator helps us identify talent early on in their careers while enabling the students to contribute their ideas and give a fresh vantage point to our business,” said Manoj Saxena, vice president of IBM.
In 2009, the interns along with IBM thought leaders collaboratively developed an industry leading Business Architecture Assessment Model that provides a benchmark for organizations to identify and measure both their capabilities and positioning among key dimensions of business. Not only did the interns work with several top IBM fellows and vice presidents, they also successfully:
- Developed a Business Architecture Assessment Model, including dimensions and definitions, interactive questioning, improvement roadmaps and a technology to maturity matrix
- Identified needs and assisted with a structure for a white paper on Actionable Business Architecture
- Identified an opportunity for IBM to sponsor ATI’s Clean Energy Venture Summit
- Contributed concepts into IBM’s Business Agility Now!, a smarter planet imperative
“We were so impressed with the caliber of students identified by ATI for this program that we continued with the program in the summer of 2010. The interns vastly exceeded our expectations and delivered a usable end product within 90 days that usually takes significantly longer to complete,” said Kevin Daley, IBM Global Senior SOA & Solution Architect.
In 2010, the IBM-ATI Global Solutions summer intern was a former ATI – Clean Energy Incubator intern and among other things, and he assisted in Intellectual Property identification, market research, IBM’s Smarter Planet opportunities and worked directly with ATI.
Isaac Barchas
“We are thrilled the program worked well for IBM for several reasons including it assists in ATI’s mission to serve as a learning lab for University of Texas at Austin students interested in entrepreneurship, it enhances our relationship with a world renowned company that has a history of acquiring ATI companies, and allows us to stay engaged with alumni company founders like Mr. Saxena,” said Isaac Barchas, Executive Director of ATI. “We look forward to many more years of partnering with IBM. They have helped us create a model of building bridges via internships with large corporations interested in working with entrepreneurially minded staff and high quality start-up technology companies.”
Tags: IBM, Isaac Barchas, Manoj Saxena, summer internship, Webify
