Posted by Brad Smith Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Over the past few months, starting with my January speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., I’ve talked a lot about the great potential for cloud computing to increase the efficiency and productivity of governments, businesses and individual consumers. To realize those benefits, we need to establish regulatory and industry protections that give computer users confidence in the privacy and security of cloud data.
Today, I returned to Washington to continue the discussion as one of the plenary speakers at the Gov 2.0 Expo 2010.
As I shared during my presentation, we are constantly seeing powerful new evidence of the value of cloud computing.
Today, for example, we announced that the University of Arizona chose Microsoft’s cloud platform to facilitate communications and collaboration among the school’s 18,000 faculty and staff. After initially looking at various supposedly “free” online services, the institution selected Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite to update its aging e-mail system and to provide new calendaring and collaboration tools. U. of A. officials concluded that, as a research university that conducts $530 million in research annually, it needed the enterprise-level security and privacy protections that BPOS could provide, but which the alternative services could not match.
Posted by Teresa Carlson Vice President, Microsoft Federal
(Cross-posted from the Microsoft FutureFed blog)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held an event last week that brought stakeholders in the federal IT community together to discuss cloud standards for data portability, interoperability, and security. It was called the Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop, and members of the Microsoft Federal team attended to brainstorm ideas on how we can best facilitate cloud adoption in the federal government.
Below is a great recap from Susie Adams, Microsoft’s Federal Civilian and IGO Chief Technology Officer.
Last week I attended the National Institute for Standards & Technology (NIST) Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop, and it was clearly a serious effort to kick off collaboration between government and industry to accelerate the use of cloud technology. Dr. Pat Gallagher, Director of NIST, believes that cloud computing can make the U.S. government “more effective, more efficient, and we believe more secure.” However, Dr. Gallagher indicated that the government is falling behind the private sector in adopting cloud services, and that he shares the concern of Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer, that government does not offer citizens and employees online services as robust as the commercial services of Facebook, for example.
Posted by Anthony Salcito Vice President, Worldwide Education
Six years ago in the Western Heights School District near Oklahoma City, nearly half of all students were dropping out before they could graduate. This was unacceptable, Superintendent Joe Kitchens decided, and began looking for a solution. He thought that by collecting data -- such as grades, attendance, socio-economic factors and other variables -- his teachers and counselors could better understand what was happening with students, why they would suddenly disengage and lose interest in class, and then proactively intervene with specialized programs to keep more students in school. The district deployed a new data system for tracking student progress, and today, Western Heights has reduced its dropout rate from 45 percent to 21 percent -- an amazing accomplishment.
I’m lucky enough to have traveled to hundreds of schools around the United States over the years. Nearly everywhere I’ve been, reducing high-school drop-out rates has been one of the leading educational challenges. About 26 percent of incoming high school freshman will not graduate high school on time, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And the overall graduation rate has changed little over the last three decades, despite advances in curriculum and teaching methods.
Posted by Peter Cullen Chief Privacy Strategist
Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce is holding a symposium in Washington, D.C. to examine the important nexus between privacy and innovation in the online world. The meeting, hosted by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, is part of the department’s recently announced comprehensive review of Information Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy.
I have been invited to participate on a panel at today’s event that will look at how U.S. and international privacy protections and enforcement are working in practice, and explore how the U.S. legal system can influence privacy protection in the private sector and abroad.
This review is coming at a critical juncture. Social media and mobile computing are pushing societal boundaries and expectations around privacy. At the same time, increasing flows and aggregation of data brought about by cloud computing, ambiguities in domestic privacy laws and fissures in the global regulatory framework are accelerating the need for updated online privacy protections. Each of these trends present challenges for organizations seeking to responsibly manage data across geographical boundaries while minimizing risk. Microsoft and our industry partners called on Congress to enact comprehensive federal privacy legislation four years ago, and the rapid pace of change in the Internet environment is making our call for baseline privacy protections even more urgent.
My comments today will focus on Microsoft’s fundamental belief that the right balance between innovation and privacy protection can indeed be achieved. To accomplish this goal, baseline privacy legislation needs to be flexible, applicable across sectors and technology neutral. It can build upon the current regulatory framework and should operate in tandem with elements of existing self-regulation, enforcement, privacy-enhancing technologies and sound business practices. Getting the balance right will also require close cooperation between industry, government, advocates and consumers. Today’s event is an important step in fostering that dialogue.
Posted by Pamela Passman Corporate Vice President, Global Corporate Affairs
Earlier today I attended the 2010 Voices of Courage Awards luncheon in New York hosted by the Women's Refugee Commission, an organization that advocates for laws, policies and programs to improve the lives and protect the rights of refugee and displaced women and young people.
The Women’s Refugee Commission emerged a decade ago as a leading advocate for protection of women and unaccompanied children in the United States. The Commission identified the need for legal representation for the thousands of children who were appearing in U.S. immigration court without a lawyer, despite the formal proceedings and the sometimes life-and-death consequences of the judge’s ruling. The Commission has also undertaken incredible work developing and identifying economic opportunities for refugee women and children. We share a common belief that providing sustained social and economic opportunities for underserved populations, especially young people, is key to building thriving communities and a better world.
During the event a number of incredible stories of how people and organizations are working to address the refugee issue were showcased.
Among those recognized was Amalia Guzmán Molina, who is originally from El Salvador and founded Families of the Incarcerated, which works with the families of those who have been detained by immigration services in the United States. Also honored was Deogratias Niyizonkiza, who was born in Burundi and spent time in the United States before setting up Village Health Works, a non-profit organization providing free health care in Burundi to more than 28,000 patients, many of them refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania.