Peter Korst participated in a fascinating trip to Chile this past spring as a part of IBM’s Executive Service Corp. The following is an interview with Peter after he returned from the trip.
I understand that you just returned from a trip to Chile. How did you get involved and what was the purpose of the trip?… why Chile?
IBM is seeing its greatest percentage revenue growth in developing countries, termed “growth markets”. Infrastructure can often be a bottleneck for those countries’ growth. Things like adequate roads and transit, water quality, power availability, education and healthcare are examples of basic infrastructure that may lag behind potential explosive growth and ultimately limit the economy. IBM is investing over $50M in pro-bono projects around the world to address some of these issues. We launched a “Smarter Cities Challenge” where cities would submit applications to land one of these projects. 400 cities applied and Valparaiso, Chile was one of 100 selected. Their application was based on economic growth which has personal automobile purchases and usage skyrocketing but with very limited space to carry the traffic, due to the geography of the region. They needed help developing an action plan to address the movement of people, goods and services in the Valparaiso region.Continue reading→
We’re very sorry to pass on the news that Stephen Hill ’55 passed away last November. Stephen was originally from Springfield, IL but in his later years, lived in LaGrange. He was part of a great group of guys who became Gamma Zetas from Springfield at that time including Carl and Bob Baker, Bob Phillips, Dick Kurz, Paul Hayes and Dick Walbaum.
