IBM Helps Build a Smarter Planet by Funding Organizations Worldwide

Yesterday, IBM awarded almost $1 million in Smarter Planet grants to 11 organizations around the world. The IBM Centennial Grants fund innovative projects in areas such as healthcare, energy and food safety. Grants are both monetary and in-kind awards up to US$100,000 each.

According to Stanley S. Litow, vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs at IBM, “Non profit and education organizations are the lifeblood of local communities, and we want to help them by offering support to build a smarter planet.

In conjunction with our employees making their skills available through massive volunteer efforts, IBM’s Centennial grants will help non profits and educational organizations meet their key goals.”

IBM has just completed a Celebration of Service Day, a milestone in its year long commitment to skills based volunteering and a large event. More than 300,000 IBM employees donated 2.7 million hours of service time at 5,000 large scale activities, serving over 10 million people on one day. The organizations of the IBM Centennial grant recipients joined forces with a large numbers of IBM volunteers during the event.

During 2011, IBM is awarding a total of $12 million in grants worldwide to support employees’ volunteer activities to build a smarter planet. IBMers around the world continue volunteering their time and talent in unprecedented amounts throughout 2011 in support of smarter planet initiatives. These efforts make up a global ‘Celebration of Service’ platform.

Being one of the most sustainable world’s brands, in June IBM published the Smarter Buildings Survey. (Source: Popsop)