Ibm100 making the world work better

23rd March 2011

IBM100 Making the World Work Better

© 2011 IBM Corporation2

The IBM Centennial

On June 16, 2011, IBM will celebrate its 100th anniversary as a corporation.


In our Centennial year we would like to:

1. Share learning from our history to increase understanding of the contribution the modern IBM can make

2. Deepen our engagement with society, strengthening existing relationships and developing new ones to drive progress in the world

3. Shape a shared view of the future together with the clients and communities we serve in support of a smarter planet


What are the challenges that will occupy us for the

next 100 years?


How will we manage unprecedented urbanisation?


How do we reduce waste and inefficiency?


How do we make use of the many new sources of data available?


How can we prepare for the future?


How will we improve diagnoses and treatments?


How do we follow complex chains from cause to effect?


How will people and systems come together to create value?


We’ve answered these questions before


When we look at our past, we can seethat we’ve been addressing these kinds of challenges

for 100 years.

What have we learned?


We learned about . . .Pioneering the science of information

Firstly, we have always sought to create the tools and the knowledge to accomplish that ambitious work … and to capture its economic opportunity…specifically, the tools of computation and the science of information.

It is hard to write the history of the science of information without at each turn encountering the Scientists and engineers from IBM – the punched card, FORTRAN, System 360, Relational Databases, Deep Blue, the Internet and Blue Gene. Over the past 100 years, IBM has shaped enterprise computing.

Blue Gene - The driving strategy behind IBM’s five year, $100 million Blue Gene project in the 1990s was to bring Scalable Parallel Processing to practical purposes: weather prediction, oil exploration and complex manufacturing processes – and to dramatically increase a supercomputer’s speed and efficiency while decreasing its size.

The Rise of the Internet - The internet has transformed how people live, work, shop and communicate. In the 1980s, IBM was central to the establishment of NFSNET in the US developing new technologies, linking existing hardware and software to the network, and finding new ways to help create what was growing into the nation’s information backbone

Racetrack Memory: Future of Data Storage IBMer Stuart Parkin has created ‘racetrack memory’ utilising the spin of electrons and enabling mass storage that now requires a disk drive to fit on a thumbnail-size chip that barely uses any energy. A handheld device could hold a 1000+ movies, run for weeks at a time on a single battery, and be practically unbreakable.


Globally Integrated Enterprise – In 2006, Samuel Palmisano, outlined his vision of the new globally integrated enterprise – the successor to the multinational corporation -—locating operations and functions anywhere in the world, based on the right cost, availability of skills and supportive business environment.

Reinventing the modern corporation

Secondly, we have built a particular kind of organization to deliver this kind of value – and, importantly, to sustain it over time.

From the beginning, Thomas Watson Sr. saw that IBM was supposed to be different from the industrial companies that had come before it. He foresaw an era where intellectual work – thinking - would be the main enterprise of the business.

From that one notion, come many others—strategies on how businesses create value in the world, how they attract talent, how they engage with society and how they continually reinvent themselves.

Global Volunteer Network - IBM’s On Demand Community was established in 2003 as an online system for IBM employees and retirees to formalize and support their participation in volunteerism in education and not for profit organisations.

Patents and Innovation – IBM has topped the list of the world’s most inventive companies for 18 years. In 2010, IBM was the first company to be granted more than 5,000 U.S. patents in a year. It took IBM's inventors more than 50 years to receive their first 5,000 patents.

We learned about . . .


Making the world work better.

Finally, we have pursued the biggest, most transformational opportunities available to us. We have always aimed to drive progress in business and society at a large scale.

We take a systems-thinkingapproach. We work side byside with leaders in the systemsthat power the world: finance,energy, healthcare, public sector,transportation, retail, automotive,distribution, education, and onand on.

We collaborate withclients to design the futures oftheir organizations, the trajectoriesof their industries, and, ultimately,progress itself.

The Apollo Missions – IBM built the computers that made it possible for humans to explore space. As a monumental example, NASA used five System/360 machines to run mission-control during Apollo 11’s historic moon landing in 1969.

The Social Security System – In the midst of the Great Depression, there was really only one company that could provide that data processing backbone: of the new US Social Security System, IBM.

We learned about . . .

Tracking Infectious Diseases – IBM partnered with the Centers for Disease Control to model the spread of H1N1—the “swine flu”—and developed the Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeller for use in tracking bird flu, dengue fever, and other infectious diseases that threaten human wellbeing.


And along the way . . .We learned how to make progress happen

See Map Understand Believe Act

Intelligent Water SystemsIn 2009, IBM and the Marine Institute in Ireland completed the SmartBay pilot information system. The system monitors and analyzes wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels in and around Galway Bay.

Accurate Modeling of Weather Systems In Rio de Janeiro, we are creating an information command center to integrate data about weather, public safety, healthcare, traffic and more and be better prepared for the catastrophic mudslides that have devastated the city’s hillside favelas.

WatsonIBM’s latest computer, leverages Question-Answering technology, allowing the computer to process & understand natural language. It incorporates massively parallel analytical capabilities that emulate the abilities of the human mind.

Transportation FlowThe city fathers of Stockholm launched a pilot to persuade a sceptical legislature about the smarter traffic system in Stockholm. It worked -the public saw its reductions of congestion and pollution, and the city fathers saw the increasing use of public transit.

Smarter Healthcare ManagementIBM is helping Guang Dong Hospital in southern China deploy an electronic patient records system that offers access to a patient’s medical data from any location.


History shows us progress is possible. Forward-thinkers can build a smarter, more secure a nd

more sustainable planet.

What can we do together?


To learn more about IBM’s work:– Join the dialogues unfolding on ibm.com;

– Visit our Centennial Exhibit in [location]; [city] and

– Attend our Centennial Lecture on [theme].

An invitation to you . . .

Please tailor as applicable

To continue our conversation about your future:

– Participate in a Smarter Planet Exploration Workshop or an Innovation Discovery Workshop with your team; and

– Join us at our next [Industry/Executive] event in [location]; [city]

What can we do together?


Business

Ibm100 making the world work better