Extreme Blue is IBM's premier internship program for both graduate and undergraduate students; it also serves as a placement opportunity for future IBM employment due to the significant effort put into placement of the interns.
Extreme Blue was created in 1999 by Jane Harper. It began at the Lotus Software site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2003, Extreme Blue participants filed 98 patents.
In 2007, 10,000 applications were received for 92 positions in the U.S.; over 10,000 students applied for 220 positions worldwide. At the 2008 National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) award ceremony, the UK Extreme Blue program received the "Over 250 Employees – Short term placement" award. In 2009, according to an Extreme Blue manager, over 10,000 applications were received for fewer than 50 US positions.
Since its inception, the program has expanded to include 15 active international locations.
Extreme Blue uses IBM engineers, interns, and business managers to develop technology and business plans for new products and services. Each summer an Extreme Blue team also works on a project. These projects mostly involve rapid prototyping of high-profile software and hardware projects. Publicly released projects include the following:
AmalgamR (2009) amalgamates social information from multiple sources, including Twitter, and displays relevant and timely group-based information.
BreadCrumbs (2009) is an iPhone application that scans grocery food barcodes and gives consumers information such as ingredients, manufacturing history, and product recall alerts with the use of food traceability servers.
SMS for Life (2009) fights malaria in Africa by utilizing cell phones, texting and web mapping technology to track and manage antimalarial drugs.
exSEL (2007) is an end-to-end marketing tool which provides a virtual tour and allows virtual interactions with the exhibits in the IBM Solutions Experience Lab.
SiSi Say It Sign It (2007) converts from spoken English directly into British Sign Language which is then signed by an animated digital character or avatar.
IBM Peridot (2004) checks web sites for broken links and assist in updating them. IBM, and the student inventors, have two patents (US 7290131 and US application 20040267726 ) on this technology.
GameGrid (2003) created a distributed computing MMOG based on the open-source version of ID Software's Quake 2 first-person shooter.
In 2004, there were 44 Extreme Blue teams in North America. In 2002, there were 101 interns in North America from 42 schools.
IBM Almaden Research Center located in San Jose, California, USA (2000-current)
4 teams in 2009
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (1999–2004)
Debut location of Extreme Blue
Did not host EB in 2001.
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA (2002–current)
Started 2002
Lab manager:
(2006-current) Ross Grady
Austin, Texas, USA (2001-current)
Started 2001
Lab manager:
(2015-current) Marjean Fieldhouse
Technical lead:
(2015-current) Matthew Glover
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
São Paulo, Brazil
Beijing, China
Bangalore, India (2004–?)
Started in 2004 with 9 students in 2 teams
Delhi, India (2010–current)Started in 2010 and is currently active.
IBM Haifa Research Laboratory located in Haifa, Israel
Dublin, Ireland
Cork, Ireland
Böblingen, Germany
3 teams in 2002
Brussels, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Uithoorn, Netherlands
La Gaude, France
Hursley, United Kingdom
Zürich, Switzerland
Rome, Italy
