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Corporate Service Corps

The IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) program was launched in 2008 to create leadership development opportunities for IBMers while delivering expertise-based service for the communities and organizations in emerging markets.

To date 1000 IBMers have participated in CSC projects that tackle issues from local economic development, entrepreneurship, transportation and education, to government services, healthcare and disaster recovery.

Corporate Service Corps teams now serve in over twenty countries around the world.

The First Corporate Pure Science Research Laboratory

“Think” was at the core of Watson’s being.

In 1944, he established the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University, the first corporate laboratory dedicated to pure scientific research.

There, a handful of scientists used machines previously dedicated to accounting to investigate everything from atomic fission to the orbit of the moon.

Embedding IBM within a university helped to develop a diverse new field of thinkers.

Today, eight IBM labs work with government and university research labs worldwide.

This new model of “collaboratories” allows the company to stretch its budget and access some of the best minds on the planet.

Automated Test Scoring

IBM pioneered the measurement of academic performance with 1937’s IBM 805 Test Scoring Machine.

This machine was able to score tests in less time than it took to manually mark the answer sheet, and was many times more accurate.

Its innovative pencil-mark sensing technology gave rise to the ubiquitous phrase, “Please completely fill in the oval.”

The innovation came into use just prior to World War II, when the government relied on the machine to process and place large numbers of applicants into jobs.

Scanning Tunneling Microscope

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) revolutionized our ability to manipulate solid surfaces the size of atoms.

Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM’s Zurich Research Center were awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the STM.

And the STM, in turn, has led to other discoveries on a “nano” scale, playing an essential role in the blossoming of nanotechnology.

It was vital in the 1990s discovery of fullerenes, which led to the development of the carbon nanotube.

The Nobel committee said the invention opened up “entirely new fields... for the study of the structure of matter.”

System 360

From Computers to Computer Systems

Few products in history have had the massive impact that the IBM System/360 has had—on technology, on the way the world works, or on the organization that created them.

The System/360 ushered in the era of computer compatibility—for the first time allowing models across a product line, and even from other companies, to work with each other.

It marked a turning point in the emerging field of information science.

After System/360, the industry no longer talked about automating particular tasks with “computers.”

Now, technology providers talked about managing complex processes through “computer systems.”