Mass High Tech Citizenship Awards: Giving Back Begins At Home

Along with employees from TRA360, I attended the Mass High Tech Citizenship Awards Breakfast this morning at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. TRA360 was honored as one of 23 organizations for our work with non-profits and charitable organizations. Read the Mass High Tech profile of TRA360 at http://bit.ly/f5GZyw and report of the morning event at http://bit.ly/fro4P1.

From left: Elizabeth Wenglin, Timothy Rosa, Marie Hoyt-Pariury, and Catherine Owens at the Mass High Tech Citizenship 2010 Awards ceremony.
From left: Elizabeth Wenglin, Timothy Rosa, Marie Hoyt-Pariury, and Catherine Owens at the Mass High Tech Citizenship 2010 Awards ceremony.

Even though the event started at 7:30am, there was huge energy in the room. Companies with fewer than 50 employees and as many as 250,000 were represented. This group of about 150 business professionals works hard at giving back. So many people I met were truly passionate about why they, as both individuals and companies, donate their time, technology, services, and “people strength” to doing community service. As Renee Connolly, Vice President, US Communications of EMD Serono said to me privately: “it’s important for us to walk the talk.”

Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot, charmed the audience by telling us what all 3-year-olds have in common: a love of dinosaurs, a love of whales, and a love of robots (even if they don’t yet have the words to talk about them). Angle told us about the challenge he gave his employees to do more good on the occasion of iRobot’s 20th anniversary. The results? “20 in 20,” a program to giving 20 interactive presentations about robotics technology to elementary, middle and high school students in 20 schools. We heard the mantras of “lead by example”, “get your employees involved”, “set big goals”, and “ask for help” from distinguished panelists at Wilmer Hale, EMD Serono, Verizon, Microsoft, and Citizens Schools. They shared their success stories and challenged all of us to do more.

As for TRA360, we’ll be doing more active charitable work in 2011 and involving a lot more people. Check back on the TRA360 blog for updates.