Tech Citizenship
2008
Tech Citizenship: How we did it
Tech companies have had a bad rap when it comes to corporate philanthropy. For eight years, Mass High Tech has sought to break that stereotype by highlighting the unique ways in which the tech community gives back to people and non-profits in the communities where they, and their people, work and live.
Tech Citizens themselves are chosen through an exclusive MHT survey process: We ask for cash contributions, employee volunteer hours, in-kind contributions and total revenue. Companies that donate at least one half of 1 percent of gross revenue, or a minimum of $500,000 in total value, are then named Tech Citizens.
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Erica Topolski spent time in Ghana as part of IBM’s Corporate Services Corps, helping out and building leadership skills.
Thinking locally, acting globally
N.E. tech firms shine in how they give back — and how they define ‘community’
Like many altruistic businesspeople in the early stages of their careers, Erica Topolski faced a dilemma when she joined IBM Corp. — how to fulfill her philanthropic goals while building a career in the for-profit world.
Little did Topolski know, her employer had a solution. Dubbed the Corporate Services Corps and launched in 2007, IBM has taken a page from the Peace Corps, sending employees for one-month stays in developing countries where they apply their business and technology expertise to local nonprofit organizations.
By the end of this year, the Corporate Services Corps will have sent 600 employees in 20 teams to destinations around the globe, including Tanzania, Romania and Vietnam. Each team is made up of employees from throughout IBM, including software, hardware, administration and marketing, and each is assigned to work with in-country nonprofits, applying their own expertise to help the organizations succeed.
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Tumor sufferers gather on web, share information
After Samantha Scolamiero underwent successful surgery in 1990 to remove a cyst from her brain, doctors told her she was going to be able to live a normal life. Instead, the daughter of an MIT researcher became a couch potato.
“I used to have a Pentium 5 brain, and I was now a 386,” she said, referring to the Intel386, a microprocessor introduced in the late 1980s. “And what happens with a 386? If you open too many windows, it crashes,” she said.
At the time, support groups for internal brain injury survivors were almost nonexistent. Scolamiero set up a listserv that grew into The Healing Exchange Brain Trust (T.H.E. Brain Trust), an online support group based in Somerville that now serves 3,000 people.
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Hilf moves STEM ed with Raytheon
When thinking about Raytheon Co., one doesn’t immediately conjure up images of headphone-wearing gorillas and anthropomorphic hot dogs running through a surreal landscape solving math problems (Top-secret components of the defense giant’s Future Combat Systems project, perhaps?).
One person who does deal with the problem-solving gorilla and hot dog quite a bit is Raytheon’s vice president for community relations, Kristin Hilf. The cartoon characters are part of a math-based computer game, which is in turn part of Raytheon’s MathMovesU program, which Hilf oversees.
MathMovesU is more than a computer game — it is a charitable effort to encourage middle school students to get interested in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as a strategic investment in the company’s workforce of the future. MathMovesU also features a scholarship component. Hilf said the company has given out $1 million a year in what Hilf calls “camperships.” These are $1,000 scholarships middle school students can use for space, computer, marine biology or robotics camps, or save for college. The student’s school also receives a matching grant. This month, Hilf’s department announced that students who have won camperships in the past will be eligible for one of 30 annual, $20,000 merit scholarships if they major in a STEM field in college.
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IBM builds largest software lab in Mass.
Big Blue consolidates acquisitions to Littleton
IBM Corp. plans to stay at the top of the list of largest high-tech employers in Massachusetts with a new software operation, the company said.
Last week, the New York-based computing giant announced the opening of its largest software development lab worldwide, a facility divided between a building in Littleton and a building in neighboring Westford, together employing 3,400 of the 5,000 total employees the company has in Massachusetts.
The new facility will eventually consolidate eight or nine locations the company has scattered around the commonwealth, said Bob McDonald, vice president of technical support for IBM.
That will improve software development and innovation, and will also make IBM (NYSE: IBM) a more attractive place to work, McDonald said. “You can have a much more rich career experience when you’re in a location where there is innovation across the entire software spectrum,” he said.
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Local exec: Giving back is part of Microsoft’s fabric
Christopher Sakalosky, the Dynamics General Manager, East Region, for Microsoft Corp., came back to New England in 1997 from the South Central region of the U.S. where he managed sales and support for small and midsize business customers. He brought with him a commitment to giving back and now helps with Microsoft’s local efforts to support organizations such as the Timothy Smith Network, Boston Medical Center and the Dimock Community Health Center. He talked about Microsoft’s giving strategy with Mass High Tech staff writer Galen Moore.
Q: Why should a company give back to its community?
A: I think companies should give back to the communities that they’re in, quite simply because that’s where their people live. If you think about the fabric that the company is woven into, it’s the members of the community. That local presence is made up of its constituents. Giving back to the community is actually providing better service for employees.
Q: What advice can you give startup companies making their first move into charitable efforts?
A: Have a program that’s structured and flexible. It’s good to have structure for your organization — and the people within your organization — to work within, especially those who are looking for guidance. At the same time there are also those who have already made specific decisions about how they want to give back to the community. And encouraging both is the most important thing I think an organization can do when they’re trying to make philanthropy a part of the culture, not a mandate.
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Life sciences companies are well suited to giving
Focus on people and care makes charity an easy step
The core mission of biotechnology companies is to better the health of society, which puts them alongside the nonprofit world when it comes to social and medical causes. Because their work force includes doctors, veterinarians, researchers, and other health-care professionals, life sciences firms are uniquely positioned to be a special kind of corporate citizen.
“The typical life sciences company model for community investment combines funding with volunteerism, and is built on partnering with community organizations,” noted Judy Ozbun, vice president of strategic partnerships at the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI), based in Cambridge. Ozbun is also the former head of Cambridge-based Genzyme Corp.’s corporate community relations program and current chair of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation’s (MassBioEd) board of directors.
As examples of these partnerships, Ozbun cited the work MassBioEd has been doing with Rockland-based EMD Serono Inc. and Genzyme, which send their scientists to work with teachers and students in the local school systems. Other biotech firms, such as Dyax Corp. and Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. invest “both financial and human capital working with the Greater Boston Food Bank and other basic human service providers,” explained Ozbun.
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Tell about your giving with social media
Today in this column, where I usually write about the business, technology, and uses of video, I write to offer a suggestion that may help some businesses improve their marketing during the economic crisis: Tell the story of how your company and employees are helping your customers during their time of need. Allow your audience to participate in that story as it unfolds in online social networks.
In this age of social media, acts of kindness give you a story that can spread and last for a long time. They also give you an opportunity to bring your employees and customers together on the Internet’s social platforms, where good deeds can increase your presence and standing in an online community just as they do in your physical community.
If you have started an online social network to support your marketing, you know it can be a challenge. You can’t simply promote your products directly. Online communities don’t form around products per se; they form around people and common interests. A corporate philanthropy program can make it easy for employees and customers to have an open, online conversation and share it with their personal and professional networks. Participants will never forget your company’s campaign; nor will the Internet — where the web activity will increase your search engine rankings and attract visitors long after the campaign has ended.
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PTC’s giving is an investment in its future
John Stuart, the senior vice president of global education and community relations for Parametric Technology Corp. in Needham, has been working for years to find the best ways to implement PTC’s focus on education in its charitable efforts. He is currently deployed in Bucharest, Romania, on a one-year global initiative assignment, but took the time to respond to e-mailed questions from Mass High Tech freelance writer Amber Gay.
Q: Why should a company give back to its community?
A: There are various ways to measure a company — performance, drive for excellence, stock price — but there’s more to it than that. In order to be a really great company, you need to give back. You need to have a deep impact on the area in which you work and the community in which you engage.
Q: What advice can you give startup companies about making their first move into charitable efforts?
A: It’s got to be totally related to the context of the corporation. If it’s a feel-good cash donation, that’s fine and we do that, too. But the charities that have the most distinction are ongoing, sustainable programs that benefit both you and your customer. Cash and volunteer programs are not sustainable. Our education program, on the other hand, is ten years old.
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