Ileana - Dublin Technical Intern Summer 2006
 Tell us about your experience with IBM and Extreme Blue
My experience with IBM began when I was a 3rd year student in DCU.
In the middle of Summer 2005, to my great surprise, I received a phone call from one of my lecturers to inform me that I had been short-listed for taking part to the IBM eBusiness Architecture Workshop to be held in London in September 2005. I was eventually selected amongst my faculty and I took part to the workshop representing Dublin City University.
As I began my 4th and final year in college, IBM invited me to visit the Campus. During this visit, I was first made aware of the Extreme Blue internship. I was very interested in the internship and I applied for the technical position in early 2006.
I completed my B.Sc. in Computer Applications (Software Engineering) exams in June 2006 (First Class Honour) and three days later began Extreme Blue. I still remember distinctively presenting my final year project on a Friday and starting in IBM the following week!
Within the first week we'd been welcomed into IBM, completed the short induction course, we were assigned to our respective projects, sat deep-dives with our mentors, visited the Server Manufacturing floor (where the solution to the project was to be deployed in), set up our machines and we were already presenting to senior management how we intended to solve the problem assigned!
I was assigned to the RFID project. The aim of the project was to find a solution to the problem of locating and tracking assets in a manufacturing floor environment using Radio Frequency Identification.
As a team, we were given enough freedom to drive our own project to whatever direction we wanted, and the mentors were there to help us achieve our goal. After 12 weeks, we had implemented a working solution, which we presented in the Irish Expo and in the French one, in La Gaude.
Tell us about your Extreme Blue project and what your responsibility was in the project?
As a team, we were given enough freedom to drive our own project to whatever direction we wanted, and the mentors were there to help us achieve our goal. We named our project 'RITA — RFID Integrated Tracking and Alerting.'
We integrated RFID (active) Technology with CEP (Complex Event Processor) to track movements of assets in a manufacturing floor / warehouse environment. RFID tags were attached to the assets, readers were placed in key locations in the manufacturing floor and as they read the tags movements and determined direction and speed, CEP sent alerts based on user-defined rules.
A user-friendly web interface was developed to allow the user to view the manufacturing floor and the position and movement of the assets. The user could specify the size and dimensions of the floor plan, the positioning of the RFID readers for an online configuration of the system and also, the user could create and customize events (such as an asset being idle for a certain period of time) for which he/she would receive an alert (typically an email) if the event occurred on the floor.
I was one of the technical people in the team and it has been my responsibility to develop the front-end, the communication means to the back-end (DB2 and CEP), the business scenarios and to prepare and host the presentations and demos.
What is the project that you are working on now in collaboration with IBM?
In mid-September, as Extreme Blue ended, I started working as a software engineer in the LWM team (Lotus Workforce Management) with Joe Fitzpatrick.
Recently announced in Lotusphere, LWM is a portal-based application that offers e-HR self-service solutions for both managers and employees.
I have been responsible for both the development of an extension to ESS (Employee Self Service — one of the 2 main components of LWM) and for bug-fixing. Since ESS is interfaced to SAP BAPIs, I have worked very closely with SAP and learned a lot about WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Portlet Factory.
What other activities or hobbies are you involved in?
Being an Italian national and Italian being my mother tongue, I have been teaching Italian for Beginners and for Improvers in the evenings, twice a week. Both Dublin and Meath Vocational Education Committee run these adult courses and I have been teaching them for the last four years.
Currently, I am preparing to undertake the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam for Java 1.5. With Extreme Blue starting again this year, I have volunteered to help out the students and will be a mentor in the IRobot team.
My fiancé (also an IBMer) and I got engaged last year and will be getting married this September, so I'm currently in the process of organizing the wedding!
Finally, in my spare time, I enjoy swimming. I participated to swimming competitions as a teenager and I've recently started training again.
What advise would you give to someone new to the organisation?
With all the policies and procedures in place, commencing work with IBM can be confusing, especially when you have to fill in all sorts of forms and request manager's approval for simple things like requesting a locker!
Don't be afraid to ask! You'll be surprised how people are happy to offer their help and advice; after all, we've all been there!
If you're a woman and in a technical position, you will know what it's like to work in an environment where the majority of computer scientists are male! I remember some people's surprise to hear that I was a technical and not a business intern! Don't let that get you! I believe it is also our job to make sure that attitude will change and to prove women can be just as successful! Best of luck with your career with IBM!
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