First Extreme Blue internship programme in India

Abhinav Singh/Bangalore

Eighty percent of students who had joined the Extreme Blue programme have been absorbed into IBM Mary Keough Programme director Extreme blue, ibm

IBM Software Labs India recently organised its first Extreme Blue internship programme in India. The Indian leg of the programme was part of the Extreme Blue internship programme launched by IBM in the United States in 1999. The programme was held in India for the first time from May to July 2004. It featured seven Indian students from IITs and two from IIM Bangalore. The students worked on two projects namely Appliance-based delivery of manageable software infrastructure and X-Pro Technology featuring an XML component programming model and infrastructure.

The seven technical slots for the Indian part of the programme received around 100 applicants from different IITs. An initial screening was done on the basis of the student’s performance in their various departments at the IITs. This was followed by a telephonic interview, with the screened candidates and thereafter the final seven were selected. A similar exercise was carried to select the two business students from IIM Bangalore.

Mary Keough, programme director, Extreme Blue at IBM, says, “The aim of the Extreme Blue programme has been to give technical and business students a platform to work on new and innovative technologies and projects especially those concerning emerging markets. The programme has helped IBM in getting high calibre technical talent. Around 80 percent of the candidates who join our programme have now been absorbed in IBM.”

IBM had been running the Extreme Blue programme across the US and Europe from 1999 and wanted to extend it to Asia this year. The IBM senior management team reviews project work done by the teams as part of the Extreme Blue programme. Interns have filed 176 patent disclosures since the summer of 2002, which was the first time when IBM started tracking patents associated with the Extreme Blue programme. The aim of IBM to admit business students to this programme is to ensure that they study the business implications that new emerging technologies will have on business and whether new technologies will gain widespread acceptance in the market.