From August to October 2010, two students from Ashesi University participated in the IBM Business Blue Project 2010 called “Smarter Global Collaboration”. This involved a virtual team of four university students from Ghana and Germany. The goal of the team was to identify key factors and process steps that influence the success of transnational collaboration in mature and growth markets. The project involved collecting data from small and medium scale enterprises in both Germany and Ghana.The project was also mentored and supported by the IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC). The team successfully presented to IBM stakeholders on October 15th, 2010 at the headquarters of IBM in Ehningen, Germany. In addition, the team was awarded the second most successful team at the closing ceremony.
The IBM Business Blue project provided an opportunity for top-notch students from around the world to explore their talents and skills working on a project with other students over three months. This year's project invited students from different fields of analysis to work together remotely, using social software and internet communication tools to solve a common problem. To work with remote teams successfully required excellent teamwork and communication skills.
Here, the team mastered not only cultural challenges, but also overcame technical challenges with the help of IBM solutions. One of the students commented “each day of collaborating has never been the same; it stretches my mind to learn a new thing each day”.
For their commitment and excellent results, IBM has offered the students a certificate and a Business Blue shadowing voucher. This voucher will enable our students to work closely with an executive of IBM to get further insight into IBM's work.