On 20th of May 2010 the Team 1 of the Executive Service Corps (ESC) programme finished its visit in Katowice. The IBM experts had worked in the City for three weeks. During that time the managers met more than 200 representatives of local government, business, academics and organizations to understand and define crucial challenges of Katowice and the Silesian Metropolis. Today, the Team 2 of IBM starts works to continue the initiative in the City.
In a final result of the May’s visit a set of recommendations were defined and presented to the City Hall and to a public opinion. City’s authorities took the Team 1’s detailed recommendations and reviewed it to determine which of them the authorities wants the next ESC Poland team to focus on.
As it was in May, the Team 2 will go further for three weeks with the selected recommendations which would be implemented for Katowice and the 13 other cities of Upper Silesia agglomeration.
The Executive Service Corps is a philanthropic programme that uses IBM employees to solve complex problems in cities of high growth emerging markets. For host cities, it is a chance to benefit from IBM’s expertise in working on economic, social and environmental sustainability challenges. For the participating IBM employees, it is a leadership development opportunity like no other.
In this program teams of IBM executives are charged with developing road maps that identify the best ideas, most scalable solutions and critical next steps in the economic, social and environmental sustainability of cities. The road maps will be created in collaboration with and presented to a network of senior public officials and key influencers in the targeted city. They will represent proposed solutions to pressing problems facing city leaders in the chosen areas.