Intel’s World Mural Project Celebrates Intel’s 40th Anniversary

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

On Friday Intel celebrated its 40th anniversary, and as part of that, they unveiled the World Mural Project. The project is a Web-based digital art piece that includes visual and written contents from the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, which stretches around the world. More than 500 young people in 21 countries participated in the project, with approximately 300 Intel volunteers at 70 Clubhouses around the world working with them.

Prior to the unveiling, I had the pleasure of speaking to Favianna Rodriguez, the digital artist commissioned by Intel for this project, Peter Broffman, the manager of Intel’s Informal Education program, and Agnes Kwan, Intel’s international PR manager.

Working with the clubhouses, the idea was to create one piece of digital art all contributed to from all around the world. As I indicated, each contribution would consist of two parts: one part graphic and one part textual.

The topic of the mural: What does the future hold?

This project is also part of Intel’s attempt to give back 1 million employee volunteer hours during their 40th anniversary year. As Intel told me, they are always striving to encourage employees to give back to the community, but this year in particular, they are shooting for more.

(And yes, I did ask about employees giving back to the community during normal “working hours;” after all most of us feel overworked in this global economy. The response was that it was on a case-by-case basis.)

If you click the image above, you can see a larger image of the mural.

In their 40th Anniversary press release, Intel said:

Through this project, youth all around the globe are telling us that they expect computers will continue to change the world in positive ways for the next 40 years and beyond.

“As an industry, we have a responsibility to fulfill these expectations,” said Bruce Sewell, senior vice president for corporate social responsibility at Intel. “By providing opportunities for young people in underserved communities to learn technology literacy and problem-solving skills, we hope to secure the next generation of innovators, thought leaders and role models.”

For those interested, Intel also has a Flickr set to celebrate its 40th anniversary here, with some vintage stuff, like a picture of a 4004 CPU and the original IBM PC.

Happy Anniversary, Intel, and congratulations.