Blue Cross Blue Shield Corporate Philanthropy Day

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Tim Broad with students
IBM volunteer Tim Broad works with students on a bridge building activity at the annual Technology Day with at Citizen School's Eighth Grade Academy held February 9, 2008 at the John D. O'Bryant High School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury, MA.

IBM - Citizen Schools Partnership

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an information technology company. IBM also provides business, technology and consulting services.

IBM has been a multi-faceted partner of Citizen Schools since 2002. Citizen Schools is a leading national education initiative that helps improve student achievement by blending real-world learning projects and rigorous academics after-school. The partnership includes major in-kind technology donations, volunteer engagement, curriculum and apprenticeship support, and other branded initiatives.

IBM has provided in-kind support of more than 160 ThinkPad notebooks and desktop computers to strengthen the delivery of the apprenticeship learning curriculum and support of Citizen Schools Teaching Fellowship program. These are the essential tools of the program, relied on to complete work in and out of the classroom. The support of start-of-the-art notebook computers and desktop computers has grown each year, along with the growth of Citizen Schools, in every region throughout the country.

In conjunction with National Black Family Technology Awareness Week IBM hosts events in several cities. In Boston IBM partners with Citizen Schools’ 8th Grade Academy to host a Tech Day in which more than 20 IBM volunteers engage in hands on science and technology activities with more than 100 urban eighth graders from the Boston Public Schools.

Volunteer employees have taught technology apprenticeships in robotics, computer programming and multimedia design. Citizen Schools has also introduced IBM’s TryScience curriculum to middle schoolers.

Finally, Citizen Schools is actively participating in the World Community Grid, an IBM initiative that links the world’s computers and donates computing power to humanitarian research projects. Citizen Schools headquarters and state office computers run the software.