Michael - Cambridge Intern
Summer 2001

"My Extreme Blue experience was outstanding," Michael explains, "I could not have asked for more cohesive and superb technical talent in my teammates or for a more solid technical mentor."

Michael was a member of the Extreme Knowledge Discovery Server (XKDS) team in Cambridge, Mass. in 2001. XKDS was a huge success and was able to deliver ten invention disclosures that were selected for patent filings in only 10 weeks.

Before coming to IBM, Michael, a Sun Certified Programmer for the Java™ 2 Platform, worked as a Java Developer for several small companies and participated in summer research projects at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. while only a sophomore. Michael presented the results of some his research projects at various student competitions, and was awarded First Place at several Student Research Competitions, including the ACM International Student Research Competition in 2001. He admires the Extreme Blue™ Program for allowing him to utilize his varied experiences into a cumulative effort.

"I think that IBM really has the right idea when it comes to combining technical ability with fresh thinking within the Extreme Blue program," he explains, "XKDS was unlike any of my previous experiences because it had a strong research focus to produce original, useful concepts. My team combined that focus with an unhindered requirement to produce tangible results."

Fortunately for IBM, Michael continued to work remotely while completing his junior year at Furman, pulling the patent applications together with his technical mentor. The patent filings pushed Michael onto the Second Invention Achievement Plateau while he was still an intern. The XKDS prototype produced by the Extreme Blue team was demonstrated at Lotusphere® 2002 in Miami, Fla.

Michael continued to work for IBM in the fall of 2002 at the Hursley Lab in the United Kingdom. At least one of the disclosures produced from this position has already been selected for Michael?s twelfth patent filing.

In August, 2003, Michael became the second member of XKDS to accept a position as a full-time employee at IBM. His teammate, Jason, also joined IBM in August of 2002.

When asked how he likes it there, Michael had expressed great appreciation for his new team. "My current team reminds me a lot of Extreme Blue because of the focus and passion that each of the team members demonstrate on a daily basis. I really love the fact that we are immersed in very technical projects, and that much of our work will be donated to the open source Web Tools Platform Project driven by Eclipse. It?s a pleasure to be surrounded by such passion and drive."

Currently, Michael is a member of the WebSphere® Application Developer J2EE Tools Team in Research Triangle Park, N.C.