I am down in NYC.. (actually in Newark) after an Amazing Day.   I came down for the day to attend the years final event for the “call for code” (CFC)  event being held at the United nations.  (My mom worked here in the 50’s !) .  C FC is a technology for a good program that IBM sponsors.This was the big reveal of this years winners.  id been a judge in part of the competition . . It’s one of the types of events I loved from my days at IBM. There were so many friends from all over the place attending. There were students, educators, scientists. We were all there to see what university students around the world had done with IBM technology to address issues of sustainability. There were teams there from all over the world… India, Malaysia, Africa… And the US.   There were also teams there from black girls code… A wonderful organization that my friend Yolanda is involved with. There was one team there of these amazing young women… (One of them, Kennedie, gave me a great tip on using Microsoft code to do HTML/CSS editing)

 

I was seated at a table with two of the finalists.. it was so great talkign to the students and learning what they’d built !  One by one the teams and their projects were introduced. 

Then the moment everyone was waiting for.. the announcement of winners.  the winning teams were announced from 5th place up.. All teams in the top 5 got a cash award/
First the 5th place winner was announced, then the 4th. The team next to me from Montreal won 3rd ( loved their project.. a tool called “Near Buy”  that you allowed to watch your online shopping and  alerted you of any good used items available nearby that you could purchase instead of the new items you were looking at online. I loved the simple subversity of it !

 

Then the 2nd place winner was announde.. they were several tables away.. it took a few moments to register but then the other team at our table realize that they were the 1st place winner. They were getting eh  $200K and the technical help to develop and deploy their solution in the real world.
When it hit them , they all jumped up in tand started hugging each other.. some  of them were crying they were so happy. i The team were all international students from Augustana University in South Dakota..Two of the team members were from India, One from Ethiopia and one from Nepal. t was so wonderful to see their joy ! 

The rest of the night was fun.. we had a short concert from Vanessa Clarke (who sang 1000 miles).. and I got to catch up with friends. My freind John W drove me backl to Newark to the hotel which was really nice of him.. it was great gettign to catch up with him !

 

My friend Daryl snapped this picture of me.. really sums up the night for me.

It was a funny feeling jumping back into that IBM life for an evening.. it reminded me of so many things I love about the company.. .  and about the people and about the big world out there.. 

I have to admit.. I sometimes miss that stuff

nite all, nite sam

-me