Introduction: The Evolution of Unlimited Potential — Anoop Gupta

Just over one year ago at the Government Leaders Forum—Asia in Beijing, Bill Gates announced Microsoft’s commitment to Unlimited Potential, setting a bold goal to help bring the benefits of technology to the next 1 billion new users by 2015.

We have made tremendous progress over this past year towards reaching this goal, making major investments and announcements across our key areas of focus: transforming education, fostering local innovation, and creating job and economic opportunity.  It’s an extremely exciting time to be involved in creating and developing technology solutions that are relevant, accessible, and affordable for these 5 billion people: it’s a new world of limitless opportunity and innovation that is changing and evolving by the hour. 

The ability to harness the power of this change to better scale our efforts has been a critical part of Unlimited Potential’s success thus far.  By working in close partnership with communities, governments, NGOs, and local organizations, we’re helping to foster local innovations in technology and bring them to a global stage.  The potential of new technology solutions to transform the learning process is growing by the day, and we’re determined to help deliver on this potential in classrooms around the world.  And most importantly, for students and citizens to keep up with the rapidly accelerating progress of the global economy requires the accompanying 21st-century technology skills: the development of which we hold as an ultimate goal for all of our work through Unlimited Potential. 

Also announced last April was the formation of the Unlimited Potential Group (UPG) whose mission is to lead these efforts to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for the next five billion people.  In March, I was asked to help guide UPG through the next phase of its evolution: to develop a stronger synergy with our Health Solutions, Education products and vision and the long-cycle incubations that Craig Mundie’s organization is driving. This is a responsibility for which I am humbled and honored as Microsoft is one of the few companies in the world with the breadth of assets and the market perspective to play the role of both trusted advisor and solution provider for nations as they seek to make the leap into a flatter world. 

Earlier this week, this hit home for me as I had the opportunity to visit the Crescent Girls School in Singapore. At this school, every student has their own Tablet PC with specialized applications developed by local software companies and digitized textbooks that replace traditional hardcover books. They also have an interactive website that features assignments, class schedules and other resources for the students.

So what does a school in highly-developed Singapore have to do with bringing technology to the next five billion people? Everything, in fact. Microsoft can’t accomplish the lofty goals of Unlimited Potential alone – it is going to take the collective efforts of everyone from governments to other multi-national corporations to educators. The Crescent Girls School is a model for the notion of 1:1 computing and how to enhance the educational experience and augment curriculum and now, through their experience with Microsoft, they are serving as mentors to schools in 12 other countries who are implementing similar initiatives through the Innovative Schools Program. 

While talking with science teachers about the use of simulations and interactive applications to enhance the learning experience I mentioned the great work being done by a partner of ours in EDPG, Noble prize winner Carl Wieman, and his PhET group at the University of Colorado.  I was astonished to hear that one of the teachers already used the simulations and she proceeded to show me how she had integrated them into her curriculum.  To me, this is a powerful and early example of how learning networks will emerge to support teacher’s curriculum and content development along with a more student-centric approach to learning, which is one of the core pillars of our education strategy

Today, just a little over a year past when Bill Gates launched UP at GLF Asia in Beijing, I’m here in Jakarta, Indonesia, attending the 2008 GLF Asia, where I’ll be doing my part to continue the progress Unlimited Potential has made since.  This year, we’ll be making a number of announcements that further our commitment to transforming education and fostering local economic growth in the Asia Pacific region and worldwide.  I plan to check in here again over the next few days to talk about the details of this news and about my experiences in Jakarta, and I hope that you’ll join me.

Thank you, Anoop Gupta