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Girl with safety glasses working with robot in lab

People in the state of Texas, in the United States, have experience with extreme heat, hurricanes, tornados and floods, but very little with severe cold, ice and snow.

For two days in February 2021, more snow fell in Austin, Texas, than the city has seen in over 70 years—and the temperature there and in nearby Houston dropped to its lowest level in more than 120 years. Other parts of Texas set records for their lowest temperatures ever.

Snow and ice made roads impassable, and the state’s electric grid operator lost control of the power supply, leaving millions of people without access to electricity for days. Water became unsafe to drink. One hospital in Austin had to evacuate patients because they couldn’t rely on heat and water.

In all this turmoil, a team of IBM volunteers responded to an urgent call from an organization in Austin to connect citizens desperately needing help with those in a position to render aid.

The IBM volunteers accomplished their mission in a matter of hours, quickly developing and launching a website, in multiple languages, where people could identify their area of need—food, water, shelter, power—and link to information and resources for help.

The site received 5,000 visitors in the first 24 hours and, among other support activities, enabled food deliveries to over one hundred families. 

Answering an email and making a difference
When the winter storms hit Texas, Mina Adame, a software and UX designer for IBM, was trapped at home like most Austin residents. 

As a volunteer with Community Resilience Trust (CRT)—a collaboration of over 200 Austin organizations with a mission to bring equity to Austin—Mina received an email from a fellow volunteer at the organization: 

Even though her internet was down because of the storm, Mina used her mobile to share the request in various IBM business resource group and Slack channels that include developers. 

From that outreach, the final connection was made through the Austin Studio Design channel and by 10:00 AM Mina had a solid group of volunteers with the skills to get the job done. In addition to Mina, the team included:

James Xie, an IBM front-end developer, based in Austin, but working in California because of the pandemic.

Alex Melo, a UX engineer for IBM, working from New York, who James described as “good at building stuff fast.”

Josefina Mancilla, an IBM front-end developer, also based in Austin.


In some ways, their expertise and training had prepared them for the intense few hours they were about to spend creating, developing and launching austincold.com, in response to Community Resilience Trust’s urgent plea.

James, Alex and Josefina met in 2018 during IBM Patterns—an immersive multi-week experience for early career designers at IBM. The program provides UX, visual, research and content design specialists with the opportunity to build cross-discipline collaboration skills in a high-pressure environment.

With IBM Patterns as a shared experience, the team was also connected by their desire to help the Austin community, though they worked remotely in Texas, California and New York to get the job done.  

Quick action, quick results
Austin is a very diverse community, so in addition to language options—with selections in Arabic, English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Vietnamese—the site needed to account for different levels of comfort with technology. Simplicity was the highest priority for the project, with a user experience emphasizing big, easy-to-access buttons for visitors to either ask for help or offer help. 

By 6:00 PM, the site was up and running, and the final touches, including a partnership form and resources map, were live by 1:30 AM the next day.

“At the time the city was not prepared for the immediate impact of the severe cold weather conditions and could not respond fast enough to people without power, water, food and transportation,” Mina says.

She adds, “Austincold.com served as a catchall of resources for people impacted by the winter storms to access help from community organizations across the city of Austin. It also served as a tool for volunteers to sign up to help their neighbors.”

The site had over 15,000 page views in a week and played a role serving the needs of more than 2,400 individuals, including 11 drop-offs of over 100 meals. 

The site has a limited life span now that the crisis is over, but the quick response by Mina, James, Alex and Josefina is an example of the positive impact skilled IBM volunteers can have in their communities regardless of time and distance.

Join the conversation. Tag your tweets with #IBMVolunteers and follow us @IBMorg

In February, the worst winter weather in decades caused dangerous conditions for many parts of Texas. A team of IBM volunteers created a vital asset to connect people looking for and giving aid—and the IBMers only had a few hours to do it.

IBM volunteers turn up the heat in freezing Texas community

Plastic waste is invading our oceans and rivers, threatening sea life and aquatic habitats. But not all materials are created equal. A community in Florida is actually adding a specially treated, UV and marine-hardened plastic to its waterway—in the form of an artificial reef, which can be recycled—to attempt to revitalize the ecosystem. 

IBM retiree Margaret Jean Cannon is a volunteer supporting the needs of residents in Siesta Key on the west coast of Florida, near Sarasota. One of those needs includes protecting the canal system surrounding many of their homes.

In 2020, serving as secretary of the Siesta Key Association (SKA), Jean—as she’s known, together with her board colleagues and members of the community, decided they needed to take action on the quality of the aquatic ecosystem so vital to their neighborhood and others nearby. 

The solution: installing artificial mini reefs made out of polypropylene to mimic the natural ecosystem that attracts sea life and helps it thrive. The material, also called boat UV treated plastic, doesn't flake, fall apart or breakdown, is more resistant to water-damaging deterioration, can be recycled and is engineered to last 75 years or longer.

IBM Volunteers spoke with Jean to learn more about the Siesta Key Grand Canal Regeneration Project. The video below at the end of the interview provides additional information about the project. 

Jean, why is this such an important project?
Water quality, and improving it, is critical to our way of life, our health and this area's commerce depends on sea life and the quality of the water. And I know that’s true in so many places around the world.

In our case, Siesta Key is an island 8-miles long with limited resources surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota Bay, and the Intercoastal waterway. The nine-mile Grand Canal is at the center of the Island and has many dead-ends. It gets its water from Sarasota Bay and the Intercoastal, and there is one entrance and exit. Two studies done in the late 1990s pointed to the loss of sea life habitat, sediment and low flow as problems with the canal and the studies' summaries stated that if these problems were not addressed, the Grand Canal would dry up and parts of it could die.

I moved here 24 years ago to live on the beach and enjoy fishing and water sports. In recent years, this area has redeveloped, with more seawalls; and more people are visiting, moving and living on the water. We understand that development will happen, but the pressures it puts on the environment can be managed more sustainably—that’s what we’re trying to do.

How are you involved in the Grand Canal Regeneration Project as a volunteer?
I am the lead for Siesta Key Association and co-leader on the overall project. There are five other team members:

Phil Chiocchio is co-leader and brought the project to SKA's attention. He works with David Wolff. Phil taught at Ringling College and is involved with Sarasota Bay Estuary and Sarasota County Environment organizations.

David Wolff is the owner of the non-profit Ocean Habitats, Inc. He is an entrepreneur and the mini reef creator.

Dave Vozzolo is learning the science of water from a Florida Sea Agent assigned to the University of Florida project. Dave will have about three other volunteers joining the team to test the canal water and record observations.

Paul Westpheling is our lead on video and interviewing. He is a retired journalist and broadcaster and has helped us share our story with others.

Joyce Kouba manages the SKA website and she supports the team installing the reefs.

We also collaborate with Dr. Ryan Schloesser of Mote Marine Lab to help with the water science and identification of species.

When did the project start and what was involved in the decision to proceed?
We started in November 2020, with a plan that Phil and I presented to the SKA members and Board of Directors. The Board approved the pilot, which had a simple goal to obtain homeowners' agreement to purchase ten mini reefs to be installed in December. A mini reef costs USD 300, and we suggested that they could also be given as gifts since we were looking at the first installation around the holidays.

Well, we exceeded the initial goal when 23 reefs were ordered and had orders for more. 

The Board agreed we should continue, and we had two other installs in February and March of 2021. We are now starting the project’s science aspect to understand what is needed beyond the mini reefs.

Tell us more about the mini reef and what it does
David created the mini reef to mimic a mangrove environment, and it replaces lost habits for sea life. It attracts oysters, juvenile fish and crabs. It needs about two feet of water and is mounted under a dock, tied to the pilings with ropes and pulleys so it floats and moves with the tides. There are smaller sizes for low tide areas. Mini reefs can be installed quickly and last hundreds of years.

David had been looking for a large project to showcase what this product can do. Siesta Key's Grand Canal has over 875 homes, and the majority of the homes have docks. So we serve as a good model for similar canal environments in South Florida.

What's the significance of tying a red ribbon on the dock piling?
It identifies to the others  that the dock owner has installed mini reefs. We are encouraging neighbors to talk to other neighbors. And it also makes people smile. The first install was just before Christmas. We had some dock owners receive mini reefs as gifts for Christmas presents. We decided to keep doing it.

How are you coaching other communities to consider similar projects?
We  are collaborating with The Center of Anna Maria Island, which has been doing  installs for a few years. The Island of Anna Maria is mostly in open water  waterways rather than dead-end canals. We are sharing resources and data  collection templates. We both will submit our water data findings to the State  of Florida database.

Phil and I spoke to a community in Venice, the island south of us. We presented our installs and talked to them about planning theirs. Their Board also approved the project, and Phil intends to help with the install. They are also on a canal and have about 70 docks. 

On Siesta Key, we have an area called Riegle's Landing, located on the Intercoastal, with about 31 docks. I understand that they are also planning to install mini reefs. I have contacted them and will need to follow up. 

What do you hope will be the results of the project?
Solve the problem of lost habitats, improve our water quality, regenerate juvenile sea life in the canal’s water and be a model for other water communities revitalization.

Join the conversation. Tag your tweets with #IBMvolunteers and follow us @IBMorg.

IBM volunteer and retiree Jean Cannon, along with her colleagues and neighbors in Siesta Key, Florida, are using artificial reefs to help restore and revitalize the aquatic ecosystem surrounding their community.

Artificially natural: revitalizing a waterway in Florida with human-made reefs

While Fang Wang has advanced degrees in technology and extensive technical experience—she's a senior software engineer on the IBM Watson Health Imaging team—it's her deep interest in sharing that knowledge with young people that has motivated her to be a volunteer for nearly 20 years.

IBM Volunteers spoke to Fang to learn more about the hour of code event she just coordinated for MLK Day in the United States. 

Fang, before we talk about the MLK Day event, tell us about your background as a volunteer in STEM.
About 18 years ago, I started volunteering every summer for the IBM GIGAWOT camp, which introduces middle school girls to technology. After a few years, I started leading the robotics lab in the camp and got to know about the FIRST robotics program. I established FIRST robotics teams at multiple levels and have been coaching them for 12 years. My teams have been to super regional and world championship tournaments multiple times and my earliest team members are now in college, mostly in engineering—which in itself feels terrific.

I am grateful that IBM has supported my volunteering activities; it's helped me discover my  passion for robotics education and project-based training for kids. This season I am actually overseeing eight FIRST teams with ACP Foundation, and coaching my own FIRST Tech Challenge team, called Technicbots.

How did you become involved in this year's MLK Day of Service?
A few years ago, we connected with local Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC) in Dallas, Texas, after demo'ing robots during AT&T's Aspire Day campaign. After the event, we learned that even though BGC had grants supporting STEM, they were mostly missing people who could teach and lead their kids on those topics. So when our IBM corporate social responsibility manager, Sherry Wynn, asked for proposals for an MLK Day of Service, I suggested this event because my team had already conducted a full term of virtual teaching in Fall 2020. I knew from that experience it was do-able as a remote event. 

Coordinating what we called The MLK Day of Service: BGC Club Hour of Code was important to me for two reasons. I wanted to get BGC kids to work alongside IBM engineers and professionals to solve a challenge in a unique way. And I wanted to get my robotics team volunteers to see that they are not alone in promoting STEM to underrepresented communities; that there are IBM engineers and professionals also willing to volunteer their time for an effort like this.


Tell us about the event itself. What did you do?
For this event, we virtually connected BGC kids with IBM engineers at a more close and personal level—one to two kids per IBM volunteer. The task was to get the students to program a robot for a more realistic mission and then see how the robot performed based on their code and code changes. All the materials were free on Internet. 

There were 40 kids between third grade and eleventh grade who signed up from six BGCs.  The activity had three levels so we were able to match the kids to a particular level. 

The robots were to be programmed to collect garbage and each level had a different aspect to the challenge. For example, at level one the waste is always at the same positions, but at level three the robot must avoid hitting coral to locate and pick-up the garbage.

The event lasted for one and a half hours over Zoom, and the kids spent about 40 to 50 minutes in the breakout rooms with mentors after the main teaching session. There are various hour of code materials and we decided to use the activity released by VEX robotics during Computer Science Education week of 2020. We thought that material was better suited for teaching the same basic robotics concepts, especially the hour of code activity which is nicely framed to be accomplished in an hour!

Who helped you with this?
We had a fantastic team of IBM volunteers, including Rosie Lickorish from the UK who joined at midnight her time. And Jo Ann Hill, who volunteered to mentor and also helped with me coordinate.

We put out the event info on various Slack channels inside of IBM and also posted it as an opportunity in the IBM volunteering and giving portal [login required; IBM-only]. Others shared the opportunity with people in their network from previous volunteer projects. Also, the IBM site manager in Dallas, Gilbert Molinar, included it in his regular communication, which was a big help. 

Here are the names of the 11 amazing IBM mentors and volunteers who joined me. A huge thank you to each of them and a special thank you to Sherry Wynn.

Also, two organizations donated USD 650 worth of headsets for the kids to use: ACP and FLYSET. I'm very thankful for their support.

Was there training for the volunteers?
Yes, we conducted a training session for all IBM volunteers so they would be familiar with the programming platform and the three levels of activity. We also created an extensive set of slides to break down the activity for teaching. On the event day, Ellen Sun  and Anthony Wang, two students on my robotics team, taught the basics of the activities to everyone in the main Zoom session. In the breakouts, the IBM volunteers helped their mentees use the logic reasoning they had just learned to identify programming blocks and then guided them in debugging by watching the robot's action and brainstorming what could have  gone wrong. 

Do you have any success stories from the day?
I got several Slack messages from volunteers boasting about how much garbage their students' robots collected! I feel each volunteer would say it was a good experience for them and their students.

One of our volunteers, Preetha, mentored a 5th grade girl who was originally assigned to the level one activity. She finished that pretty fast and moved on to level two. By the end of the time, she had almost finished level three, which is normally assigned to grade 8 and above, and had scored the second highest of everyone. 

It's possible we helped that 5th grade girl—and all the kids that day—start a STEM career path.

Join the conversation. Tag your tweets with #IBMvolunteers and #GoodTechIBM, and follow us @IBMorg.

Fang Wang has been a volunteer for nearly a decade—helping kids appreciate STEM through robotics.  For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, she coordinated a team of IBM volunteers to mentor students during an hour of code.

Fang Wang has been a volunteer for nearly a decade—helping kids appreciate STEM through robotics. For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, she coordinated a team of IBM volunteers to mentor students during an hour of code.

Volunteer perspectives: An MLK Day event with Boys & Girls Clubs of Dallas

Planes, trains and automobiles took a backseat to walking, biking, running and scootering for IBM volunteers in Spain last September.

Over 60 IBM volunteers in Spain participated in the annual Urban Mobility Challenge, an initiative and competition from Ciclogreen. The program is designed to motivate companies and their employees to adopt transport habits that preserve the environment through the reduction of polluting gas emissions.

Transport represents one of the greatest threats to the environment, as it is a major user of energy and burns most of the world's petroleum. In Europe alone, it is estimated that transport is responsible for approximately 30% of CO2 emissions each year and, within that, 70% corresponds to road transport.

Through the challenge, Ciclogreen encourages individuals and organizations across Spain to adopt more sustainable transport habits that not only help the environment, but can also improve the health and quality of life of all. 

Healthier options for people and the planet
As leaders on the Madrid and Barcelona Go Green teams, IBM volunteers Paula Munoz Lozano, David Bigorra Puente and Julie Robin coordinated bringing the Urban Mobility Challenge to IBM. 

From 16 September 2020 through 16 October 2020, 60 IBM volunteers from several IBM Spain locations used sustainable transportation and registered all of the trips they took by bike, walking, running and electric scooters using a simple mobile app.

As a company, IBM came in 7th place with 7,283 sustainable kilometers recorded, 1,704 kilograms of CO2 not emitted to the atmosphere and EUR 1,457 saved through their mobility choices for the month. Of the 7,283 kilometers recorded—about the distance between Madrid and New Delhi, India—4,337 kilometers were for walking, 1,161 for taking the bus and 955 for trips by bicycle. 

Watch the video below to hear from three volunteers who took Urban Mobility Challenge. The top five IBM volunteers and contributors were:

Those who participated in the challenge were inspired to keep making sustainable transport choices and to encourage others to do the same. 

For one month, 60 IBM volunteers from across IBM Spain used sustainable transportation and registered over 7,000 kilometers by bike, walking, running and using electric scooters.

For one month last year, 60 IBM volunteers from across IBM Spain used sustainable transportation and registered all of the trips they took by bike, walking, running and electric scooters using a simple mobile app.

IBM volunteers across Spain take on sustainable mobility

Over 150 million people in India urgently need mental health interventions and care; a number so large it overwhelms the institutions desperately trying to deliver services. 

To further compound the situation, according to Thomson Reuters Foundation, India has the highest number of child sexual abuse cases in the world—leaving those harmed in both physical and emotional distress.

A volunteer team of IBM research scientists has created a framework using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help aid organizations identify and hire lay counselors who can provide comfort and relief; helping to close a widening gap between those in need and those who can help.

EmancipAction, an NGO working to disrupt child sex trafficking, is using the new model to identify and shortlist potential counselors who can help girls and women deal with the mental trauma of their experience. Over 700 candidates have been interviewed in a few months, significantly less than the one to two years it usually takes. 

Over 9,000 childcare institutions could benefit from the approach, which EmancipAction says also helps them hire more emotionally intelligent candidates.

The IBM volunteer team received the IBM Volunteer Excellence Award for their work.

Join the conversation. Tag your tweets with #IBMvolunteers, #GoodTechIBM and follow us @IBMorg.

Watch the video. Volunteers from IBM Research in India are helping an NGO use AI to identify counselors suited to support those recovering from the trauma of human trafficking. The volunteers received the IBM Volunteer Excellence Award.

IBM volunteers in India use AI to help NGO accelerate aid for victims of trafficking

The technology industry in Vietnam is experiencing a significant skills crisis—the demand for nearly 80,000 new IT employees each year is not being met, especially for skills in AI. 

To address the situation, IBM volunteer Le Nhan Tam led a multi-national team, in collaboration with the School of Information Communication and Technology at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, to develop an intensive ecosystem to train students in AI; the first and only training program in Hanoi that combines academic knowledge and industry expertise. 

The course framework has a foundation in IBM AI technology, and Tam recently trained professors in creating detailed AI lesson plans. He has conducted quarterly technical workshops with IBM researchers to showcase AI applications for university students and helped developed materials for high school students. 

Also, Tam has recruited five large banks in Vietnam to offer internships for final-year students. It is expected 1,000 university students will be trained on AI in 2020; 100 will obtain the IBM AI badge. Project materials are replicable and have been shared with Thailand and Indonesia to address their regional targets for developing digital skills.

Tam received the IBM Volunteer Excellence Award for his work. Watch the video below.

Watch the video. In Vietnam, IBM volunteer Le Nhan Tam is helping address a critical shortage of skilled IT professionals by leading an initiative to train students in AI. He received the IBM Volunteer Excellence Award.

IBM Volunteer Stories

IBM Volunteer Excellence Award stories

IBM volunteers in India use AI to help NGO accelerate aid for victims of trafficking

IBM volunteer in Vietnam helps create a much-needed ecosystem to train students in AI

Volunteer Stories

Learn more about what IBM employees and retirees are doing in their communities around the world.

IBM volunteers turn up the heat in freezing Texas community

Artificially natural: revitalizing a waterway in Florida with human-made reefs

Volunteer perspectives: An MLK Day event with Boys & Girls Clubs of Dallas

IBM volunteers across Spain take on sustainable mobility

What is your volunteer story?