Today there are nearly 7,000 languages spoken around the world and scientists estimate that three languages become extinct every month and over half of all languages are in danger of becoming extinct before the end of this century.  Just think of the knowledge and history that’s lost when a language dies. Today is UNESCO's International Mother Language Day and a great time to celebrate the importance of language to everyone around the world.

There are many economic and cultural reasons why so many languages are at risk of extinction.  However, with the ubiquity of computers in our lives, one element that can help preserve language is technology.  At Microsoft we’ve committed to enable as many people as possible to work, communicate and collaborate using their native language through our Local Language Program.

While software is localized for the major world languages if you live in a smaller community you are often forced to use technology in a foreign language, adding yet another hurdle to protecting and developing your native tongue. Take Spain as an example. More than 74 percent of the country’s 47 million citizens speak Castilian Spanish, but 26 percent speak Valencian, Basque, Catalan or Galician. Through the technology of Local Interface Packs (LIPS) and Caption Language Interface Packs (CLIPS), which are part of the Microsoft Local Language Program, native speakers of Valencian, Basque, Catalan and Galician can now use technology such as Windows and Office on their own terms.

Today Microsoft offers Windows and Office in nearly 100 languages, reaching more than 90 percent of the global population.

In addition to providing these Local Language Packs, we also provide online dictionaries, translation tools and localized versions of our developer tools.

Ultimately these tools and resources help support language preservation and translation, which can lead to better economic opportunities through giving more people access to technology in their own language.

On International Mother Language Day it’s a good time to celebrate the wonderful diversity around our planet and recognize the importance those languages play in our culture and diversity. You can find a whole set of resources and download instructions for Local Language Packs at the Local Language Program website.

Some of the languages supported today by the Local Language Program.

Guest post by Ekaterina Fedotova, Director for “Your Course: Digital Literacy” (Tvoy Kurs) Project, PH International.

Editor’s Note: Tvoy Kurs is Russian program, supported by Microsoft, that focuses on giving people the skills they need to use technology with a view to finding employment.  Ekaterina Fedotova has kindly agreed to share some of the insights from their instructors who in 2011 trained a staggering 100,000 people.

We did it! We trained 100,000 people in Russia during 2011 through our Tvoy Kurs Project, supported by Microsoft, and we are very proud of it. You can see the numbers on our website.

With all the project deliverables, requirements, statistics, and reports we sometimes fail to acknowledge those who are making the digital inclusion possible - our trainers and volunteers. How do they work? What methods are they using? What are their approaches? In order to highlight the trainers' crucial role in the program, the Tvoy Kurs organized a contest to find the best trainer. So what did we learn?

Our figures show that Tvoy Kurs boasts more than 2,000 trainers – or, to be exact, 2,222 trainers registered in our official database as of today, working to bring technology skills and pathways to career success to regions throughout Russia. Our trainers, many of them volunteers, have proven again and again that they are people of high responsibility, professional excellence, and a kind and friendly attitude.

We have received fascinating contest applications from many trainers who told us glowing stories about their work and trainees, and shared their successes and challenges. We are very thankful to everyone who chose to take part in the contest, and since many of them deserve to win, our judges had a rather hard time choosing the very best.

Extracts from our participants' submissions best illustrate their work and we are pleased to share their simple but effective tips and observations:

Natalya Morgunova, Balakovo, Methodological Center of Balakovo municipal district, Saratov region, “Successful learning is the only source of energy and motivation for overcoming challenges. That is why creating success situations is so important in adult education as well as in teaching children. Besides, as 19th century German educator Adolph Diesterweg said, ‘bad teachers merely present the truth; good ones teach how to find it’ – and that’s why we seek to combine traditional methods of disseminating ready knowledge with new approaches that encourage independent discovery. The success of my trainees is my success!”

Еvgeniya Batuyeva, Perm, A. M. Gorky Regional Library, Perm: “I try to take into account my trainees’ personalities, age, educational background, and initial skills (or lack thereof) of using the computer – or, at the very least, the cell phone. This year our Tvoy Kurs Center has been working with residents of boarding houses for people with psychoneurological disabilities. It has been very tough, since most trainees suffer from attention deficit and other disorders and display general lack of training and self-training, and many of them are severely inhibited and intimidated. However, thanks to our learner-centered approach, carefully customized to individual needs, they were able to complete the course successfully. Thanks to the new computer skills, many of them now have a new source of entertainment and recreation, and some have even found their relatives or landed online jobs.”

Zhanna Gayevskaya, Volgograd, M. Gorky Regional Academic Library, Volgograd: “To merely state that teaching adults – i.e. people with established character, views, and habits – is a challenge is to say nothing at all. But since most our trainees start from scratch, even with the greatest desire to learn it is often frustrating for them, so I emphasize creativity. During the very first class we start MS Paint and learn to draw straight lines and various geometrical figures to get the hang of the computer mouse. My whole course is built around the principle ‘As much hands-on practice as possible’”.

Maksim Vasilyev, Volgograd, Volgograd State Agricultural University:“My work at the Tvoy Kurs Center has given me a much better understanding of people, their needs and problems. I have made many new friends, expanded my social network, and come to a firm conclusion: ‘There is no such thing as unteachable students – only bad teachers.’ This is our working motto, and we seek to customize our training for individual needs. I think I am becoming quite good at this, and it makes me very happy!”

Even though initially we intended to select just one winner, in the end the judges decided to recognize two best Tvoy Kurs trainers:

I. Anastasia Ershova, Togliatti State University: "I have realized that people work much better and try harder when you praise them for even slightest achievements. They have learned to click the mouse - Good Job! They have mastered a double-click - Great Job! One of our trainees confessed that he hadn't been praised that much in his whole life and that was the major reason for him to come to the center. ... I was born in a small village with the beautiful name Apple Ravine, and the Digital Age has come even there. When i came for vacation in summer I told my former school teachers about Tvoy Kurs. The word of mouth worked immediately. The next group of trainees were workers from a local factory. who were at risk of unemployment because of the new computerized equipment. Besides Digital Literacy they learned about e-government services, saving lots of time on getting the necessary documents online instead of going to the city. That is how i spent my summer helping my fellow-villagers solve social issues and fight the unemployment."

II. Yulia Zaitseva, Krasnoyark Regional Academic Library:"Our center works with various groups which differ both in social background and age, and we try to use individual approach with all of them. E.g., senior trainees is the most vulnerable, but at the same time a very demanding group, they prefer to do all the exercises together with the trainer and are interested in hobbies, leisure pastime, communication. When we work with medical workers, educators, and other working professionals we focus the training on Office applications and internet resources according to their professional needs. For the unemployed we have developed a special brochure with Internet job search sites and offer a special resume building training..... We have an endless flow of people, even from the nearby villages, despite the fact that there are many other training centers in our city. And we are ready and trying to help all!"

Anastasia’s and Yulia’s full submissions are available in Russian on the program website ycdl.ph-int.org/news/850/eng/

We are honored to work with such dedicated partners, who generously and regularly share their experiences, their learning while supporting one another in their work. Their best practices recently were highlighted at the third annual Your Course: Information Society Development Conference in Moscow on February 9-10, 2012, hosted together with Microsoft, where we celebrated the achievements of the eighty best performing Tvoy Kurs coordinators and trainers from all over Russia - and planned their further work!

And while celebrating our trainers within Russia, I would be remiss to not mention that our trainers are also globally recognized as outstanding. As a result of the Telecentre.org’s Global Search for 100 Outstanding Telecentre Women Managers, six Tvoy Kurs coordinators were named among the 100 best, and Lyudmila Ulyeva became the best Telecentre Manager in Eurasia. Coordinator Irina Kotkina from Naryan-Mar received the Best Telecentre Manager award from Telecentre-Europe in 2011.

We are looking forward to another exciting year of Tvoy Kurs, another year of partnership with Microsoft, and hope that we will all bring new ideas, new partnerships, and new victories while conquering new heights in 2012!

By Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director, Citizenship and Public Affairs, Microsoft

From time to time, we see stories about Microsoft contributing to nonprofit organizations that have views on public policy issues that are different than the company’s position.  These types of stories naturally raise questions, so I wanted to take a moment to explain why this crops up every now and then.

It boils down to a very simple explanation. Microsoft has a global nonprofit software donation program that provides donated software licenses to eligible nonprofit organizations upon request.  We recognize the important role that nonprofit organizations of all stripes play in society and we also recognize that nonprofit organizations often have limited resources, so we made the decision a number of years ago to make it easy and convenient for eligible nonprofits to receive donated licenses to our software products.

In Fiscal Year 2011, Microsoft donated $844 million in software to 44,000 nonprofits around the world. We don’t pick and choose which nonprofits receive donated software licenses.  This is a broad program designed to make technology available to the nonprofit community so we basically provide donated software licenses to eligible nonprofit organizations upon request.  To keep it simple our eligibility guidelines track to the same ones that the US government and governments around the world use in deciding who is a nonprofit.

Recently, one of our software donations has appeared in the news, and has raised questions about Microsoft’s position on climate change.  The amounts referenced in recent coverage reflect the retail value of software licenses provided to this eligible non-profit under the terms of our global nonprofit software donation program outlined above.

Our position on climate change is unchanged -- we believe climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate worldwide attention and we are acting accordingly. We are pursuing strategies and taking actions to reduce our own impact as well as the impact of our products, which are used around the world.  In addition, Microsoft has adopted a broad policy statement on climate change that expresses support for government action to create market-based mechanisms to address climate change.

Jon Fine – CEO United Way of King County

Bill Gates once said “It takes more than great products to make a great company.” It’s clear to pretty much everybody by now that Microsoft has that ”more” that Bill was talking about. Having been a partner with Microsoft for 30 years, United Way of King County has seen it first-hand. Our communities have benefited from Microsoft’s great vision, great passion, great generosity and most importantly, Microsoft’s great employees. After all, it is you who make it all happen.

The fact that Microsoft employees raised $100 million for non-profits in 2011 is striking to me – not only because you broke your own record of giving over the past 30 years, more because of what I know it will accomplish in our communities.

The tough economy has brought with it tough times, and we’ve all heard our fair share of stories about how people are struggling or how great the needs are. While the needs are great, I don’t think we’ve heard enough about the incredible accomplishments that our local business community and nonprofit partners have achieved during that time, or the innovative solutions we’ve launched together.

Gifts from Microsoft employees provided 1,183,512 food bank visits in King County during 2011. That’s more than one million times in the last year that a person or a family avoided going hungry because of you. That’s something that I think needs to be heard. Here’s another one. Last year at this time we had 160 families in our Parent-Child Home Program, but thanks to donations from you, and a $1 million donation from Microsoft, we’ve expanded the program to 500 families this year and will hit 1,000 families next. That’s future proof. That’s innovative. That’s Microsoft.

Volunteering. That’s Microsoft too. Of the 11,000 people that participated in United Way of King County’s Day of Caring, guess how many were from Microsoft? 6,000 volunteers. That’s not all though. Many of you are volunteering year-round, like Jill. Jill is a Free Tax Preparation Volunteer who helps low-income families find their way through the tax filing maze so they can save more money. She believed so strongly in the value of the program that she worked to establish another tax site on the Eastside of King County so more Microsoft employees could take part in volunteering. Our United Way staffer Kate has this to say about Jill and the other Microsoft volunteers:

“Those guys are crazy and they have a lot of fun, even hanging out together outside of tax prep. The clients can tell from the moment they walk in that they are in a safe and friendly place and they are going to get taken care of.” Let’s not forget either that our Free Tax Prep program brought back $19.1 million to the community and low income families last year.

So Bill had it right, it does take more than a great product to make a great company, and Microsoft has it. It has you, and you make the company and the community great. Let’s all try to focus on the positive this year and keep the innovative and great work rolling.

A number of you have already made the commitment to stand with us for Hunger Action Week in March, and I look forward to seeing the great things we will accomplish together in coming years.

Thank you all.

Jon

We share one the best part-time jobs in the world. As co-chairs of the annual Microsoft Giving Campaign, we get the opportunity to see firsthand how our colleagues bring passion, creativity and generosity to raise much needed funds for community organizations around the globe. In 2010, we raised an outstanding $96 million. We wondered if we could go higher in 2011 and we did, knowing our employees would rise to the challenge.

In 2011 Microsoft employees across the United States raised $100.5 million, which includes corporate matching. This marks our biggest year yet, and brings the total amount of money raised by employees to $946 million since our giving program started in 1983.

Each full-time, U.S. based Microsoft employee receives an annual $12,000 benefit that matches donations, dollar-for-dollar, to eligible nonprofits. In 2011, 35,500 employees donated to support more than 18,000 community organizations across the globe. If an employee wishes to volunteer their personal time, we honor that donation, too. Employee volunteer time is matched $17/hour to their chosen organization. In 2011, employees committed 426,671 hours which raised $7.2 million for nonprofits. That brings the total number of volunteering hours to 1.7 million hours since we started tracking in 2006.

While employee giving takes place throughout the year, October is a special month for our offices across the U.S. Over 50 percent of the fundraising takes place during that time. Every year we are amazed by the creativity demonstrated by Microsoft employees. From flocking a colleague’s office with pink flamingos; to running a 5K around the Microsoft campus or virtually around the world; to bidding on a coveted reserved parking space on campus through our online auction, it’s fun to watch it all happen.

Our employees assist thousands of nonprofit organizations through their donations and volunteering. For example, Adnan Mahmud founded Jolkona, a micro-giving nonprofit that supports grassroots organizations and has over a dozen employee volunteers who committed over 2,000 hours to building the technology platform. And then there are employees like Toby Velte who volunteers at his daughter’s school via EduConnect and teaches students about careers in technology. Toby rallied a team of Microsoft parents to raise money to fund a PC lab in their school district to teach students programming via the Kodu Games Labs.

We are so proud to share these results on behalf of Microsoft employees across the US. This $100,000,000 milestone is due to the many volunteers across our organization that worked tirelessly to help make it happen. Motivating and encouraging all of us every step of the way. We want to thank them for their contribution in making 2011 the largest year of employee giving yet!

It is our privilege to work alongside so many people that care so deeply and give so generously.