posted by Lila Ibrahim on September 30, 2009
I was at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting last week and as I reflected on my time there, two experiences stand out. One is the power of the event itself. CGI brings together people from corporate life, from government, from non-profit organizations, from Hollywood. These are people with a common interest in making change happen. They’re not at CGI to talk in theoretical terms about pressing global issues; they’re there to get things done. They bring their respective resources to the table — whether that’s know-how or contacts or proven programs — and figure out how they can work together to improve lives.
I think CGI members realize that no single company, country or organization can achieve significant change by itself. Making a big impact requires a multi-stakeholder commitment. It’s the kind of commitment our Emerging Markets Platform Group (EMPG) made at CGI this year to help Kenya advance its educational system, working with USAID, Microsoft, Cisco and Kenya’s government. This project is typical of CGI’s action-oriented focus. We’re pooling our resources to make change happen now, and we’re thinking about how we can provide better opportunities for the next generation in the changing 21st-century world.
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tagged: Clinton Global Initiative, CSR, Education, Education for All, Kenya, Lila Ibrahim, President Clinton, USAID
posted by Julie Clugage on September 25, 2009
This week I’m here in New York participating with the Intel team at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. It’s my third year here and each time I am thrilled to see the high wattage gathering of government leaders, private sector CEOs, NGO leaders and celebrities, all focused on coming up with innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. It’s an action-packed week of panels, discussions and side meetings that leaves my brain spinning with ideas and my eyes with large circles under them from lack of sleep.
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tagged: 1Goal, Bono, Clinton Global Initiative, CSR, Education, Education for All, Jessica Alba, Kenya, President Clinton, Queen Rania, USAID
posted by Brad Houser on September 23, 2009
After our week in Quang Tri, it was time to return to Ho Chi Minh City, which most people still call Saigon. The Mercedes passenger van that took us from Hue to the little village was ready to take us back. While riding to Hue, I tried to recall all the new sites and sounds of the little town with one hotel. There were memories of the children so eager to learn, and so well behaved. The morning ritual of Pho (pronounced ‘Fah’) for breakfast at the little two room storefront with the crowing roosters, and the bedroom in the back, will always be re-experienced when I have the tasty bowl of beef and rice noodle soup so popular in Vietnam, and fortunately in Silicon Valley. I will never forget the ceremonial Moon cakes, singing, and speeches after the last night of teaching, nor the final Sunday morning instructions to the teachers who will carry on our mission. With the Classmate PCs, they will hopefully take the kids to new levels of learning facilitated with camcorders and the internet. While the internet was pervasive, even in the little village, the need for more computers, mice, and software is evident. I know that both the teachers and the kids have been given tools to help them solve life’s problems, and to help them grow.
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tagged: Classmate PC, classmatePC, EdService, education, intel, vietnam, volunteering
posted by Sovinti Johnson on September 20, 2009
We are back in Saigon, a city of more 7 million people. Where as Quang Tri is a small sleepy town, Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City is like a modern day western metropolitan area. Like big cities everywhere, there are internet cafes, multi cultural restaurants, music clubs, and of course traffic everywhere. There always seems to be traffic no matter what time of day or night. Then there are the motorbikes. This is just me talking, but I think there is as many motor bikes as there are citizens. The riders vary from the elder to the young, from women in business attire to families of four. On numerous occasions we saw complete families on the same bike. How you ask? Well the smallest child sits nearest to the handle bars, then the dad, the second child sits behind dad, and mom behind the child. Everyone drives in the same rhythm.
Another difference is our teaching environment and students. Whereas in Quang Tri we taught at an orphanage, Ho Chi Minh City we are teaching at an education center named the Tu Xuong learning center. The building structure is little more than 17 feet by 7 feet at best. The room has several posters with sentence structure, job descriptions, and food all written in English. There are five older desktops in the room also.
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tagged: edservice; Vietnam; classmate pc; CSR; education; epals; Quang Tri; Ho Chi Minh City
posted by Jason Cheah on September 16, 2009
From Thi Kim Ly, a volunteer at Intel:
Time is flying quickly, just a blink of an eye and here we are; on the last day of training in Quang Tri. We’re all set to conduct the last training session to teachers for their reference, and for these teachers to train the students in turn. We gather all the sessions and passdown to them all today.
Teaching a bunch of hyperactive students isn’t easy, and teaching the teachers will be more difficult, so each of our volunteer group members will need to get together again the night before for our own session’s final review, in time for our training. We’ll try our best to deliver the training to both students and teachers as much as we can; there’s so much more to teach them but time does not permit - although we will still cover all the main parts and sessions, we’re hoping that the teachers together with their students will do their best to sustain the learning spirit.
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tagged: community building, IESC, intel, vietnam
posted by Suzanne Fallender on September 14, 2009
Conserving natural resources - including water - is something that we’ve focused on Intel at for many years now. While we’ve achieved significant savings in water through investments in conservation activities over the past decade, we know we need to still push ourselves to do more and also partner with others to address this global issue, that is also at it’s heart a local issue. So we continue to look for new and innovative ways to reduce the amount of fresh water required in our operations - from using reclaimed wastewater in cooling towers, to putting in place xeriscaping on our campuses, to redesigning manufacturing processes - but we’ve also collaborated with other organizations such as the City of Chandler in Arizona. To learn more, check out a recent interview with Tom Cooper, Intel’s corporate water programs manager by Roberto Michel of Business Manufacturing Technology.
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tagged: #CSR, Intel, Manufacturing Business Technology, Roberto Michel, sustainability, water conservation
posted by Sovinti Johnson on September 14, 2009
This was our last night in the city of Quang Tri. The city is very much alive as I write this story at 11pm local time. For tonight the city is celebrating Autumn festival. I’m sitting in the lobby writing this blog and reviewing the ePals presentation that Ly and I will be delivering an internet learning solution called ePals to the Oversees Orphanage tomorrow morning. ePals is an collaborative internet based site that encourages schools, families, and teachers to communicate, learn, and team together on educational projects. This learning solution allows for email and blogging to add to the learning process on various topics such as Geography, Global Warming, History and reading.
I take a quick break and let my mind wonder for second. I began watching the fireworks go off in the sky a few miles away. After the fireworks end I watch as the celebrants on motor bikes and on feet zoom passed the lobby heading home for the night. A bit of homesickness touches me. I haven’t seen my children in it seems like forever. Though its been only six days, I missed my nightly harangue: get your pjs on and brush your teeth, daddy will be upstairs to read a book and say prayers. Don’t let me repeat myself.
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tagged: edservice; Vietnam; classmate pc; csr; education; epals; Quang Tri; Ho Chi Minh City
posted by Brad Houser on September 13, 2009
Quang Tri Province, Thursday September 10
I awoke to a warm sunrise at 5:45 AM on Thursday, and soon after, the sound of truck horns blasting on the main highway through town permeated the air. A quick breakfast of Pho, (beef and rice noodle soup) was consumed a few doors down the street at a small place with a rooster in a cage out front, and one crowing in the back. We were soon in taxis taking the 1km ride to the orphanage, loaded up with 10 Classmate PCs, 10 mice, bottled water, and snacks.
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tagged: Classmate PC, classmatePC, EdService, education, intel, vietnam, volunteering
posted by Brad Houser on September 11, 2009
Things have been busy since my last blog, where you will recall, I had just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. It was late, and I was ready for sleeping off some jet lag. The plan was to meet for the complimentary breakfast at 10, and the rest of our team from Intel Vietnam was to meet us at the Hotel and we would take a taxi to the airport for our flight to Hue, near the central part of the country. Waking up Wednesday at around 6AM, I turned on the TV to see what was on. There were several Vietnamese language stations and some satellite channels in English, such as an Australian version of MSNBC, a Southeast Asia version of the Discovery Channel, ESPN, HBO, and a few others. I watched TV for about an hour, took a shower, and decided to take a walk around the downtown area of District 1.
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tagged: classmatePC, EdService, education, intel, vietnam, volunteering
posted by Jason Cheah on September 11, 2009
Hello everyone, I just had my first day teaching kids at Quang Tri orphanage here in Vietnam, and what a memorable day it has been for me! I’m very excited to tell you about my experience, as this is also the very first time that I have ever taught students in my life.
It’s no wonder I couldn’t sleep well the past 2 nights (it’s probably due to all the pent-up excitement)…in the nights leading up to Day One of our volunteering experience in Quang Tri, I couldn’t wait to see my first group of “students” with their excited faces and shy smiles.
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tagged: community building, CSR, vietnam
posted by Sovinti Johnson on September 10, 2009
We are in the beginning of the third day of our educational classmate PC program in Vietnam. The US volunteers spent literally the whole first day travelling to get here. A couple of us left from Phoenix on Monday to meet with a third US member of our team in San Francisco the same day.
We arrived at our destination - Ho Chi Minh City Tuesday night after 11:00 pm. We were extremely tired from the plane trip, but extremely excited about the pilot program and meeting our three Intel Vietnamese counterparts.
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tagged: edservice; Vietnam; classmate pc; csr; education; epals; Quang Tri; Ho Chi Minh City
posted by Brad Houser on September 08, 2009
After a long day spent traveling, I am writing this from my hotel room in Saigon, before trying to get some sleep. I took the Super Shuttle from my home in San Jose to SFO around 9AM Monday, with one stop to pick up a couple in Los Altos. A quick trip up 101 and I was at SFO by 10:30. I had plenty of time to make it through a light holiday version of TSA security, buy a book, and meet the rest of my team.
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tagged: Classmate PC, classmatePC, EdService, education, intel, vietnam, volunteering
posted by Brad Houser on September 06, 2009
San Jose, California
This is the first of several blogs on an adventure I am about to take with several of my Intel colleagues, as part of the Intel Educational Services Corps. (See the Introduction blog of the IESC from Julie Clugage here.) I wanted to capture some of my thoughts up to now, as I know there will be many new ones competing for my mental bandwidth in the next few days.
I have called it the Opportunity of a Lifetime. Where else could I have a chance to do something for less fortunate people in another part of the world, and still be an Intel employee? I have enjoyed volunteering at Intel, so much so that Rita Holiday and I are on a first name basis. When word of the chance to teach orphans in Vietnam came into my Outlook Inbox, I quickly completed the application process. I emphasized my passion for technology, teaching, and volunteering. Having been an Intel employee for almost 22 years, and being part of the startup and closing of D2, I was hoping something new would come my way, as the Jobs Online process wasn’t leading to much. I was thrilled to learn I would be part of the US team, including two other employees from F12: Todd Carroll and Sovinti Johnson. We will be joined by three Intel Vietnam employees: Thi Kim Nguyen, Trang Nguyen, and Nga Nguyen. (They will obviously be a big help in helping translate the lessons among other things.) The Journey begins tomorrow, Labor Day in the US, where my job will be to get to SFO, meet up with Todd and Sovinti, board a non-stop United Airlines 747 to Hong Kong, and change to another flight to Ho Chi Minh City two hours later. We will get in around 10PM local time on Tuesday.
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tagged: Classmate PC, classmatePC, EdService, education, intel, vietnam, volunteering
posted by Suzanne Fallender on September 04, 2009
I used to be involved in rating companies on their corporate responsibility and sustainability performance for a living. Now I am one of the rated. Luckily, I’m at a company that gets rated very well across most of the major ratings in this space. But that doesn’t necessarily make my job any easier.
A former colleague of mine once said, hey being number one on a list is great, but it means that there’s only one direction to go. Intel was named yesterday for the 11th year in a row to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (both the DJSI World and North American Indexes) and named Semiconductor sector leader in the index for the same time period. That’s a really long run and one I’m particularly proud of. For those who aren’t as familiar with their assessment process, they are collecting and analyzing a significant amount of data across multiple categories to develop their annual rankings and weight and assess companies in different sectors. Unfortunately, we failed to hold onto the other designation on the list that we’ve held for many years - the “Technology SuperSector” leader spot, as we were nudged out by Nokia. Of course, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed myself. But I’m also encouraged in another way. There are so many companies in our industry doing great work in this space, that it’s not surprising, or even a bad thing, when you move down a few spots when others move up. It means that others are also integrating sustainability and corporate responsibility practices into those global strategies and management practices. Nokia is doing a lot of great work in this space - and so congratulations are certainly in order.
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tagged: #csr, #sustainability, DESC, DJSI, Dow Jones, EICC, fallender, sustainability indexes
posted by Julie Clugage on September 03, 2009
Last week was a high point for me in my seven years with Intel. We launched the new Intel Education Service Corps, a program that will enable talented Intel employees from all over the world to travel to developing countries to work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support the deployment of Intel-powered classmate PCs for disadvantaged children. It’s sort of like starting the Intel version of the U.S. Peace Corps, with a focus on using our technical and human resources to improve the quality of global education. It has been a dream of mine for about five years now so it really was an occasion to do a little dance outside my gray cube when we launched this program.
And things have only gotten more exciting since then. The response from Intel employees has been amazing! We have received over 80 applications for the next 10 spots in the program as well as hundreds of employee emails, all during the first 10 days after we launched. The application deadline is not until end of day tomorrow so that number keeps growing. And what is particularly moving are the notes that come from employees in their emails. Just to highlight a few, they say things like, “In 19 years at Intel, I have never been so excited about a potential opportunity.” Or, “This program is so cool! I’m so proud to work for Intel.” Or one of my other favorites, “Thanks for taking such a bold approach in these turbulent economic times.” I wish I could include them all because some of them seriously brought tears to my eyes - to see all that employee passion for improving the quality of education around the world. I felt more connected to my wonderful Intel colleagues than ever before.
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tagged: classmatePC, EdService, education, Intel
posted by Suzanne Fallender on September 02, 2009
So, I’m sitting here, up way too late in a hotel room in Boston, listening to the jack hammering on the street right outside my window. Figured that I should try to make some use of my inability to sleep, and get in a quick blog post on why I’m even out here in the first place.
Each year for the past ten or so years, members of Intel’s CSR team, together with colleagues in our EHS and Investor Relations departments hit the road to travel to DC, New York and Boston to meet face to face with socially responsible investment and ESG research firms to get input on our CSR strategy, environmental performance, and business objectives. Although we do engage with these groups throughout the year over the phone, online and at conferences like SRI in the Rockies, setting aside one week each year to meet face to face and have more in-depth discussions has been extremely valuable. We discuss emerging CSR issues and areas where we still need to improve, hear directly from these firms what their priorities are for the coming year, and learn where they would like to see us to take more action or be more transparent in our reporting. The timing is such that we can incorporate this feedback into our annual strategic planning and budgeting process for the coming year.
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tagged: CSR, CSR Reporting, ESG, Intel, SRI in the Rockies, Stakeholder engagement
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