This is a renewal of my blog to reflect my new job at Microsoft. My name is James Utzschneider, and I recently joined Microsoft's Unlimited Potential group to run marketing and communications there. For the last 5 years I worked on Microsoft's Dynamics...

Tuesday, October 2nd. While I was in Costa Rica I had the opportunity to visit with Eduardo Monge and Clotilde Fonseca at the Fundacion Omar Dengo , an NGO focused on discovering new ways to use technology to improve education. They've been doing this...

Thursday, October 4th I had the opportunity today to give a keynote speech at a technology and education summit for the Caribbean and Latin America hosted by Intel, Microsoft, and the Guatemala Ministry of Education. The venue was Antigua, Guatemala....

Friday, October 5th. I went on my first "Unlimited Potential" school visit today. It was a moving experience, but it also gave me a good example of what we mean by "S ustained Social and Economic Opportunity." (Photographs coming)...

In an earlier post , I talked about a visit I made to the Fundacion Omar Dengo, an NGO in Costa Rica. Eduardo Monge was kind enough to send me some more information. Below is a photo of their new facility in San Jose along with a photo of their resident...

CNET ran a nice interview with Will Poole today. It was based on a series of meetings we did down in the Bay Area a few weeks ago. Will is one of the VPs who runs the Unlimited Potential Group here at Microsoft. The interview includes a video clip of...

I just had a chance to read "The Bottom Billion",  a book by by Oxford University economist Paul Collier. He used to work for the World Bank and for the British Government and has created a model for why poor countries remain poor and then...

A group of us are in Central and Eastern Europe this week, starting with two days in Moscow. It's snowing. The highlight of our day yesterday was the official opening of an IDEA Center, a community-based computer center targeting unemployed, seniors,...

October 17, 2007 I began the morning in Bucharest today by going for a run and getting terribly and completely lost. I mean 45 minutes of " Do you speak English -- do you know where the Howard Johnson's Hotel is? " lost. The team ended the day...

October 18, 2007 We held our big press event in Budapest on Thursday and Friday this week. With most Microsoft events, we try to hold on to some important piece of "news" that we unveil at the show in order to make it easier for journalists...

October 19, 2007 I had a scary thought in Budapest today. What if the digital divide widens before it narrows? The thought occurred to me on Day 2 of our launch event here. I was attending a meeting of an informal group working on a program called "EUGA"...

Helsinki, October 29, 2007 I am attending the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum, a "Celebration/Competition" that Microsoft is holding in Helsinki as part of our Innovative Teachers Network , a grassroots community around the world that promotes...

Academic Program Managers (APMs) are the people at Microsoft responsible for implementing the Partners in Learning program I wrote about yesterday . We have about a hundred APMs around the world, working with local schools and education ministries on...