February, 2011

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Canterbury Province in New Zealand (population: 440,000) Monday just before midnight local time. There are approximately 75 fatalities confirmed with a potential for that number to reach more than 300.  The New Zealand government has declared a state of emergency and has been conducting search and rescue efforts throughout the day yesterday and overnight (local time). 

The structural damage is reported to be more significant than the 7.2 magnitude quake that impacted the area last September due to the depth and epicenter location, but assessments are ongoing. 

Microsoft activated its Disaster Response protocol and we are taking a number of steps, including ensuring the safety of our employees and offering customers, partners, and local response agencies technical support to help ensure business continuity.

We know from our work supporting response efforts for other disasters  in the past that technology can help response agencies to deliver aid more quickly and efficiently. We are working with lead government organizations and non-profits to assess where our resources can be most helpful.

In addition, Microsoft New Zealand is offering support to effected customers and business partners.  We hope this will help our customers as they respond to the disaster and rebuild their IT capability in the coming weeks and months. More information about our support offerings can be found here.

As with any disaster, we know our employees want to help, and we will direct them to donation and volunteer opportunities as they become available.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to the people affected by this devastating earthquake and hope that our support will help with relief and recovery efforts in the coming weeks and months.

Posted by Claire Bonilla, Senior Director, Microsoft Business Continuity and Disaster Response

By: Lauren Woodman, Microsoft General Manager, Partners in Learning

While you still have a few months to send your mom flowers for Mother’s Day, today we take time to appreciate our Mother tongue. As designated by UNESCO, International Mother Language Day reminds us of the need to preserve and respect the deep history and culture associated with the many languages spoken around our world. And rightly so. There are roughly 6,000 languages spoken globally, and half of those are projected to be in danger of being lost forever over the next century.

At Microsoft, we support the preservation of this element of culture through our Local Language Program (LLP), and in honor of today, International Mother Language Day, announce support for several new languages in Windows 7 and Office 2010. Dari (Afghanistan), Mongolian (Cyrillic - Mongolia), Turkmen (Turkmenistan) and Valencian (Spain) are now available with Windows 7 and for Office 2010, we added support for those same languages plus Maltese (Malta). With these additions, Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 are now available in nearly 96 languages, 60 of which are through the Local Language Program.

This program not only helps us to preserve local languages and cultures, but also helps in finding new ways to create economic opportunities and build IT skills. Through the LLP, we strive to help ensure that the identity of communities continues to thrive worldwide. As a matter of fact, nearly 1.7 billion people speak the languages that are supported by our most recently released products in the Local Language Program. We also work with Visual Studio to provide technology access in a variety of languages, including new support this year to speakers of Czech, Polish, Turkish, Brazilian Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian, Malay and Thai.

While in many parts of the world, technology has transformed the way people and businesses share and use information, improved the way children and adults learn, and helped governments address social and economic issues in ways never before imagined, people must first have access to the technology and the skills to use it. Through joint efforts by Microsoft Unlimited Potential, governments, universities, local language experts and NGOs, we’re working to reach all those currently underserved.

For a look at the real-life benefits of this tool, check out how Jan Martinovic, Associate Professor, VSB Tech University of Ostrava is using it to help his students learn programming. He shares that the “first programming language that our students learn is C/C++. When they start their study they have to not only learn this programming language or programming in general, but also how to use specific development tools and in the most cases they have to also learn English. Students study English during their education and eventually they get used to materials or tools in English. Usually English is not a problem for them after several semesters. But at the very beginning this can be a difficult situation for them and some of them even won’t make it because of their poor English. Using Visual Studio 2010 with native language pack can be crucial for such students. They can focus on programming and not on English using this language pack.” A video case study including his experience with the LLP support for the Czech language is here.

For more stories about the impact of the Local Language Program, visit the Worldwide Public Sector Virtual Press Kit.

Join me today in appreciation of the many cultures that make up our world and the ways we can help them thrive.

At GSEC: Black Bengal meats team presents sustainable community farming and better nutrition in Bangladesh to judges and visitors

Can business change the world for the better?  Yes it can if the student teams participating in this week's Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) are any indication.  With a deep commitment to solve a social issue through a sustainable business plan, there seems to be no stopping these individuals. 

GSEC, an annual competition hosted by the University of Washington Foster School of Business brings 10-15 student teams from around the world to Seattle.  These semi-finalist teams spend a week visiting companies, meeting with mentors, practicing their pitches and competing in a series of events leading up to the final competition.  This year the participants hailed from Bangladesh, India, Peru, Ukraine and the United States.  From clean toilets and waste processing in Kenya to water transportation and storage in India to sustainable fish farming in Ghana and skilled workforce training in Ethiopia, the range of business ideas is amazing.  Check on the full list of semi-finalists. 

Microsoft has been a sponsor of GSEC for seven years now and we are proud to see how far this competition has come.  From my perspective, one of the best aspects about GSEC is the opportunity for Microsoft employees to participate and support the event.  This year we had eight employees serving in various capacities as coaches, presenter, mentors and judges, including Lili Cheng, our GM at Microsoft FUSE (Future Social Experience) labs, who served as a final round judge.  Lili also presented the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) award at the GSEC Awards Banquet yesterday evening.

Over the past several years we have increasingly seen the use of ICTs across many of the GSEC semi-finalist teams.  In almost every case, technology is leveraged for greater efficiency and effectiveness and in many instances technology is the core component in the business plan.  Just think of mobile phones - with access increasing almost exponentially in developing and emerging markets (5 billion subscribers is a recent figure), they come into play in everything from marketing, to data collection to telemedicine.  And social entrepreneurs like those with us in Seattle this week are using ICTs in innovative ways that were unimaginable just 5 or 10 years ago.  Recognizing the growing use of ICTs in the GSEC business plans, we decided this year to sponsor a new award for innovative use of ICT, which comes with a $10,000 prize. 

The ICT award this year went to Next Drop - an innovative approach to alerting consumers to the availability of water in their neighborhood via cell phones.  By adding a cell-phone based reporting system among the utility workers tasked who open water main valves, Next Drop can now send advance alters to customers that water will be available in the next 30-60 minutes.  The time saved by freeing up consumers to go about other activities (including attending school for children!) rather than waiting at home in the hope that water will be turned on is a major improvement in the daily lives of these individuals.    

The finalist teams are off at a breakfast with potential investors this morning and having met these amazing teams I can almost guarantee they will be walking away with interested investors and invaluable connections.  It was again a please to participate in GSEC this year and we look forward to next year.

 "Wello - changing lives through a simple solution to a persistent problem, transporting and storing water"

 For more pictures and footage, you can check out GSEC's Facebook

For more information on Microsoft's Citizenship effort please visit:

Microsoft.com/Citizenship

To stay up to date on the latest Citizenship Stories:

Twitter.com/msftcitizenship (@msftcitizenship)

Facebook.com/MicrosoftCitizenship

Stephen Campbell is a man who doesn't let obstacles get in his way.  A swimmer since his youth, he lost his sight at the age of 16, but that didn't stop him pursuing his passion for the sport. He began competing in high performance swimming at the age of 17, breaking two swimming records when he competed in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in the 100m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle and the 100m Butterfly races.

"When I lost my eyesight, swimming helped me realize there's more to life than sitting at home. I can jump into the pool and not need any help from anyone. When I am in the pool, there is ultimate freedom."

Campbell's other accolades include winning the coveted President's Plate, awarded by the University of Ulster Sports Union to the sportsperson of the year for the University of Ulster's Coleraine and Magee campuses. In October 2009, he set three new Irish records at the International Paralympic Committee European Swimming Championships in Iceland and broke two Irish records at the U.S. Paralympics 2009 Swimming World Championships. In August 2007, Campbell won the Silver Medal in the final of the 200m individual medley at the International Blind Sports World Games in Brazil.

He has taken a similar approach to his other passion; technology.

Stephen, who is studying for a Bachelor of Science Honors degree in Multimedia Computing and Design, says he's always had a passion for technology. "When I lost my eyesight at 16, technology took over my life. When you can't see, technology can be a valuable tool," he said. 

He is a third-year student at the University of Ulster at Magee College in Derry in Northern Ireland recently worked with Ireland's Institute of Sport's Career Athlete Development Programme to secure a technical internship at Microsoft. The Programme, a partnership with the Irish Government and Microsoft, helps elite athletes gain real-world experience in the workplace.

Campbell's Microsoft internship started in September 2010 and will finish in July 2011. "I took to Microsoft like a duck takes to water," Campbell said. "High performance sports is so similar to working at this company. As an athlete, you need to be motivated and set yourself constant short, mid and long-term goals to know how you are improving. And that is the culture at Microsoft - it's a highly driven workplace." That discipline is also reflected daily in Campbell's tough schedule, which includes a two-hour early morning swim training session, then off to work and school.

As part of his internship, Campbell gets the opportunity to work across several Microsoft product teams, including Windows and Office. On the Windows Core team, Campbell worked closely from Dublin with the team back in Redmond, Washington to test Windows Narrator from an end user's perspective and give feedback on what could be improved. Windows Narrator is a light-duty screen reader utility included in Microsoft Windows 7 that reads dialog boxes and window controls in a number of the more basic applications for Windows.

Gary Keegan, Director, Irish Institute of Sport; Fiona Mullan, International Staffing Director, Microsoft Ireland; Mark Christie, Middle Distance Runner; Stephen Campbell, Paralympic Swimmer; Liam Harbison, CEO , Paralympic Council of Ireland (photo courtesy of University of Ulster)

"Hiring a talent like Stephen who is focused on realizing his potential by focusing on his ability rather than his disability, has proven to all of us the opportunity which exists here. Like his passion for swimming, Stephen has a passion for technology and is demonstrating just how enabling technology is," said Fiona Mullan, International Staffing Director, Microsoft Ireland.

"Working on the Narrator project was most exciting to me because I was able to come at the project from a user's perspective to help improve the application because I knew what would be successful. I also knew that millions of people with vision impairments will be using this application and I was thrilled be making a difference in their lives by helping to improve it," he said.

After working in Windows, Campbell then moved to a role on the Office International Product Group, where he is learning the ins and outs of program management - from how to manage a team of people to managing the delivery of a team project. He's also exploring new tests to perform to help future versions of Office.

Campbell will continue to compete in swimming. He is currently training for the European Championships in July 2011 in Germany, and is hoping to join the Paralympics team for the games in London in 2012. While Campbell says the London games will possibly be his last competition, his future in technology is just beginning.

You can read more about Stephen's story at the Microsoft Global Diversity & Inclusion site.

So you are a rising marketing star in the corporate world; could your ideas change the lives of others?

Maybe you used to rock marketing competitions in High School and college, or maybe you just love watching “The Apprentice” and wish Donald would give you the task of using your creative mind to solve interesting marketing tasks. If you have the will to help create change, and the talent to beat the rest, you might just win a trip to the beautiful south of France!

Microsoft Advertising, in association with USA Today, launched the 2011 Young Marketers Competition where you and a teammate can work together to develop marketing strategy for non-profit Kiva.

So if you are under 30, work client-side, live in the US, and fancy supping espresso, while exchanging ideas to help a charity who helps others around the world, and would love learning from the top creatives and digital marketers on the Cote d’Azur… What are you waiting for?

It really is as easy as un, deux, trois!

1 - Register your team of two by 24^th February 2011. Then, on February 25^th, you will receive your challenge, which will consist of creating a marketing plan for Kiva.org, the world’s first micro-lending website for the working poor that empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. Entries will be submitted online and judged by a panel of marketing professionals.

2 - Finalists will be selected and flown to Redmond, WA, for a full day at Microsoft. You’ll present your work, tour Microsoft HQ, visit the Home of the Future and meet with a Microsoft executive.

3 - One grand prize winning team will qualify to represent Team USA at the international Young Lions Competition at Cannes and compete against other teams from around the world.

Microsoft Advertising has sponsored the Cannes Lions for the last 8 years, not just because it’s one of the global advertising events of the year, but because it gives young people just these kinds of opportunities to have their work showcased, to learn and to shine.

So, if you’re eligible, check out our 2011 Young Marketers Cannes Lions Competition page and register. Then keep up-to-date with the latest on the competition by visiting us on our Facebook page.

Don’t miss this opportunity bathe in glory of helping others, and maybe the sunshine on France’s south coast.

Bonne chance!