Insights

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) and IBM are continuing a long-time collaboration to make progressive strides within North Carolina’s entrepreneurial landscape. This ongoing collaboration highlights IBM’s concerted efforts to progress AI, automation, and hybrid cloud computing. “We at IBM are focused on working with our clients to integrate these transformative technologies into their core business strategies,” noted Sanjay Pal, Vice President and General Manager at IBM. 

Assisting other companies as a catalyst to make their organizations work better is at the core of IBM’s mission: to bring together all the necessary technology and services and co-create with their clients to solve their business problems. The alignment of this mission with CED’s objectives in mentoring and promoting the success of North Carolina-based enterprises amplifies the significance of IBM’s strategic relationship with CED.

“IBM is synonymous with technology innovation. IBM’s support for CED and our programs has helped to inspire founders in our network to build creative solutions and tackle big challenges. CED and IBM have been long-time collaborators, and we look forward to continuing our work together and supporting emerging companies in the region”, said Brennan Barber, CED’s Head of Business Development.

For CED and their robust network of partners, startups and entrepreneurs, there is great potential for the exchange of insights and resources between the entrepreneurial ecosystem in North Carolina and IBM’s teams. This exchange allows IBM to gain a deeper understanding of the focal points and solutions offered by various companies, aligning with IBM’s client-driven initiatives. This extends beyond the corporate sphere, aiming to enrich the entrepreneurial ecosystem, fostering growth and innovation in the region.

IBM works with CED to host local technology demonstrations and IBMers provide mentorship to other organizations within the community. 

IBM has also made extensive efforts to progress responsible generative AI within watsonx.ai, an end-to-end, all-purpose platform for enterprise AI builders built with the open-source hybrid cloud AI tools. This offering intersects seamlessly with CED’s emphasis on technology, underscoring the relevance and potential impact across diverse industries and clientele. “It brings together traditional machine learning and new generative AI capabilities powered by foundation models into a powerful studio that enables you to build AI applications in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the data.” Read more in this recent IBM blog post. 

As the CED/IBM relationship continues to evolve, this collaboration is a pivotal element that helps fortify North Carolina’s position as a thriving hub for technology, innovation, and entrepreneurial prowess.