Corporate Service Corps

Located on the Pacific Ocean in South America, Chile represents the first Latin American country outside of Brazil for the Corporate Service Corps. The first of two teams were assigned to Concepcion in May of 2011 and worked with non-profits that were involved in continuing the recovery and rebuilding efforts after the 8.8 earthquake in February of 2010.

• CSC Chile 1

  May 2011 – June 2011

  We were 12 participants coming from Australia, Canada, France, India, Lithuania, Netherlands, Spain and USA that all met in Concepcion, Region VIII, in Chile. The NGOs we were working in had all a common motto: get Chile into Sustainable & Smarter Communities.

  Two organizations out of the five are working to improve accessibility to property by leading construction and repairs programs, the missions for the CSC volunteers :

  • Un techo para Chile the mission was to work on the development of a platform for project and Customer Relations Management
  • JUNDEP requested to develop an internal project control and project management framework.

  Two other organizations are working to lower unemployment by brining education to new career path:

  • Accion emprendedora requested assistance to develop an application to link new graduates to the local job marketplace.
  • Infocap the mission proposed was to improve the analytics of their Database.

  The last organization is into Fauna and Flora preservation

  • CODEFF’s mission was to improve Capacity Building and Project and Strategy Management.
• CSC Chile 2

  06 August 2011 – 02 September 2011

  Chile 2 had 12 participants from 9 countries – Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Netherlands, Turkey, UK, and USA. The team worked with NGOs and local government in Gran Concepcion. These organizations aimed to improve their effectiveness in increasing employment and enabling local economic development by - improving processes and building better information management capabilities.

  Accion Emprendadora – A strong marketing structure was created and training provided, in order to improve quality of services, increase brand visibility and provide more growth opportunities.

  Manos Del Bio-Bio – Detailed Financial, Product and Organizational reviews were performed and a marketing workshop was conducted. A new inventory management system was created.

  TPH Concepcion - An in-depth study of internal systems and financial operations was undertaken to identify key areas of improvements. Recommendations were then made to improve the organization’s operational capacity.

  Municipalidad de Talcahuano – A Database Architecture was designed to consolidate data from five different offices into a single structured database. Process transformation was initiated by studying existing processes, identifying improvement opportunities and making recommendations.

  Favorite memories - visiting local microentreprenuers, talking about IBM’s CSC mission on local radio, the bonhomie with our clients, visiting the Atacama desert, climbing Villarica Volcano and exploring an undersea coal mine.
• CSC Chile 3

  May 4 – June 2, 2012

  Eleven IBMers arrived in Antofagasta bearing passports from Finland, Switzerland, the U.S., Canada, Spain, India and Hungary. The team was professional and composed of strong leaders from many IBM divisions. For 28 days we came together to help the people there address the challenges of a city quickly outgrowing itself and seeking a new status on the national stage:

  • The Instituto de Economia Applicada Regional asked us to deliver a strategy to better communicate its research with the public and to influence public policy.
  • CORFO Antofagasta asked us for a program to strengthen management skills in its professionals and executives and for improvements in their CRM process.
  • CDP asked us to help with a communication strategy for the local community and their board of Directors.
  • Corporacion GEN asked for a strategic business plan to help them realize the potential of their desert oasis.

  We listened, we sought out ideas from our colleagues and finally, we provided recommendations and solutions to the problems. Members of the team also helped to plant trees in a schoolyard landscaping project.

  The feedback we received from our clients was positive and we all hope they will have successful outcomes.
• ESC Chile 1

  6-28 May 2011

  The ESC team produced a Smarter City assessment that focused primarily on Water, which was the primary request of the Municipality of Antofagasta, with secondary observations / recommendations in other areas such as Energy and Quality of Life:

  1. Smarter Water: Short and Long Term Actions for Sustainable Water Strategy

  • Through optimization, Antofagasta could reduce irrigation water cost by up to 60% and total irrigation cost by up to 30%.

  2. Community Partnership: Actions to Strengthen Private, Public and Academic Partnership

  • Strengthening the Region’s public/private partnership ecosystem will foster a sense of social responsibility, collaboration and a stronger Smarter City image.

  3. Smarter Energy: Long Term Actions For Sustainable Energy

  • Create and invest in a renewable energy plan in collaboration with public, private and academia; will provide future power sources that support increased water usage and sustainable growth

  4. Quality of Life Projects: Other Considerations For "Calidad de Vida"

  • Addressing challenges such as green space expansion, transportation, healthcare, and environmental issues will improve image, and also attract and retain residents

  A roadmap was also provided to the city that focused on preparing for a Smarter Antofagasta by integrating data sources to enable collaboration and increase innovation capacity; leveraging integrated data and new instrumentation to fill information gaps, spot new patterns, and further increase innovation and collaboration capacity; and through the optimization and collaboration of a Smarter City through mass application of community insights and predictive analytics to enable intelligent decision support.