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Chris - Up close and personal
Summer 2004

Chris (MBA ’05), spent the summer of ’04 as one of IBM’s Extreme Blue™ interns. The highly competitive internship brings in talented students to work with cutting-edge technology in a setting that breeds innovation. Chris was one of the cadre of interns working on 44 student-led projects located across the country, from Cambridge, Mass. to Almaden, Calif. He was based at IBM offices in the Research Triangle Park.

Since the beginning of the program, college interns have filed over 185 patent disclosures. They have created solutions for key clients and have helped bring to market the next generation of IBM products. Over 100 invention disclosures were submitted from last summer’s projects alone—Chris’s group submitted three concepts for patent review at IBM.

Working on leading technology helps the Extreme Blue interns grow their skills and makes them a more attractive candidate in the technology field, Chris says. They get to roll up their sleeves and work with hot technology, like Linux™, Grid computing, autonomic computing and Web Services.

Chris, an undergraduate major philosophy, became interested in computers and technology at a young age and has remained active in the field. He has built a few computers over the years, and created the web authentication system used with North Carolina State University’s Unity login system, called "WRAP". In fact, he used that technology to start his own company in the late 90’s.

Chris first learned about Extreme Blue from Ellen Baker, director of the Redwall Career Services program for MBAs at the College of Management. She said she thought his background in computer technology, coupled with his MBA program, made him an ideal candidate. Chris’s interest grew when he learned through IBM’s Web site that the company was working on projects that included gaming systems (a hobby of his) and other fields of advanced computing, including services oriented architecture (SOA) and autonomic systems.

"I have been programming for fun since I was in eighth grade, using everything from the most basic machine language code to C++," Chris said. "I even sent a video game that I created to Electronic Arts, one of the largest gaming publishers, but I didn’t like the licensing agreement so nothing ever finalized."

To gain acceptance into the Extreme Blue program Chris was required to attend an information session, complete an on-line application, participate in on-campus interviews, as well as telephone-based conference calls.

"By attending the info session I learned the Extreme Blue mindset, which prepared me for the face-to-face interview," Chris said. "The interview was actually a double-team situation with the site managers from both Raleigh and Austin, Texas. Both managers took turns asking me what became detailed technical questions, which is not always the case—I’ve heard that the interviews vary with every candidate."

Chris became one of a team of four students that included Jackie Chow, a master’s student from Carnegie-Mellon; Kevin Schmidt, an undergraduate student from Carnegie-Mellon; and Leslie Jordan, an undergraduate student from the University of Florida. "The tech team, I was honored to work with, were all extremely bright and talented folks. In fact, everyone in Extreme Blue impressed me with their knowledge, skills, and acumen. It made the experience even more exciting for me," Chris recalled.

"During the internship I felt that I was well prepared for the challenges I faced, due to both my technical experience as well as my business background," Chris said. "I felt that all of the classes from my MBA program had given me somewhat of an advantage. Specifically, corporate finance—how to determine the value of new technologies, calculating ROIs and net-present values, and what it all meant to the innovation process--it was all incredibly valuable to me. In addition, my Career Managerial Effectiveness class made me better prepared for the innumerable business presentations I had to give. I usually had two to three presentations a week that I gave to senior IBM executives. The class also made me better suited to communicate with my team and made me better able to collaborate with my peers in the Extreme Blue lab. Even statistics, a class that wasn’t exactly my favorite, came into use. We had to gather and analyze so much data that I asked for a statistics package to be installed onto Excel—a first, from what I understand, for the lab."

Devoting all of his spare time to course work, working as a graduate assistant, consulting, and working as a co-op for IBM’s Academic Initiative, whose goal is to develop skills and relationships between IBM and students—an opportunity that he received through contacts he made during his internship—Chris reflected the qualities sought for the Extreme Blue Internship.

The work that Chris completed during his internship dealt with how companies can manage the shift from the old technological infrastructures to new, dynamic and malleable systems demanded by the evolving marketplace and will soon be featured through alphaWorks, "where IBM showcases their bleeding edge technology to other companies and researchers," Chris said.

"The best training I received through the program was learning to perform in high pressure situations," said Chris. "Having to relate the highly complex technology we were developing to different audiences who weren’t necessarily technically oriented really made you think about how you were going to present your project."

Chris stated that the most amazing part of his Extreme Blue experience was the exposure he received, not only in terms of his mentors and their coworkers but also the CEO and other key individuals within IBM.

"As my internship came to a close, I made sure to schedule appointments with the corporate leaders at IBM to get one-on-one face time, to discuss my work with the company and to make some internal contacts. It’s those contacts—and the relationships with my fellow Extreme Blue interns and the EB staff in the Raleigh location, as well as the opportunity to work with leading edge technologies from both perspectives, the technological and the business vantage points—that really made Extreme Blue such a special experience for me."

"When all is said and done, my main interest within IBM is with pre-emergent and emerging technologies and, specifically, how they will impact the role of business. What technologies will change the world tomorrow? What business problems will they solve? These are the questions that really keep me up at night—because from my perspective, it’s not just about technology and innovation—it’s also about the impact of both on how business will be conducted tomorrow."

by Matt Fulkerson