IBM creates an innovative program

On Friday, IBM announced a new program called the IBM Transition to Teaching program (details found here). This program will encourage IBM employees who meet certain criteria (minimum 10 years of service, manager approval, degree in math or science, experience volunteering or teaching) to leave the company and become math or science teachers. Not only will those employees be encouraged to follow this career path, but IBM will reimburse them up to $15,000 in tuition and stipends and provide online mentoring services as they get started. The program launches in pilot phase, accepting up to 100 future teachers.

This program furthers a substantial to commitment to education; go here to see some of the other things IBM does. IBM, along with a few other tech companies like Intel, are at the front of the pack in terms of philanthropic and community relations-based support of education.

I would like to hear (and will do some digging) a couple things from IBM and other big corporate supporters of education. First, how have they integrated this support into their stakeholder relations efforts? They deserve recognition for their efforts - how is this work benefiting the company in terms of customer and employee relations, for example? And second, even with all of their resources, IBM cannot singlehandedly support every school in the country. What are they doing to make these programs replicable and showing others how to build/manage similar initiatives?