Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog: Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog

I recently had the honor of learning more about Computacion Olidata in Washington D.C. during the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Olidata is the winner of our Citizenship Partner of the Year award and exemplifies an exceptional commitment to social responsibility. The Partner awards honor Microsoft Registered, Certified and Gold Certified partners for delivering exceptional solutions and services in a number of categories. Award winners and finalists were chosen from nominations from around the world. There was stiff competition this year with nearly 3,000 entries for 67 categories submitted by partners from more than 110 countries.

It is always incredibly inspiring to read about the great work shared by our partners in the area of citizenship, using their expertise and resources to solve societal challenges and create opportunities. This year, our finalists included Training Camp from the United States and CTTC from Pakistan. Both of these companies should be congratulated for their passion and commitment in supporting economic growth in their respective countries through technology training.

Olidata has a longstanding focus on social responsibility, and that is one of the reasons they were chosen as the overall winner. Along with Microsoft and other local partners, they have supported the technology skills training of more than 600,000 individuals in Chile since 2003.

Their response to the earthquake in Chile in February of this year truly exemplified their commitment to helping their local communities. Olidata supported “ChileConect@Chile” to quickly restore public access to the internet via semi-permanent Community Technology Centers (CTCs), connecting victims with their loved ones through digitally equipped mobile containers (pictured below) placed in some of the most devastated communities. This initiative was carried out under the National Digital Literacy Program executed by the Rural Life Training Foundation (Fundacion Vida Rural) and supported by the Chilean government. The effort provides access, digital literacy skills and expanding opportunities for those impacted by this natural disaster. There are plans to install 50 container CTCs in the earthquake zone.

There is a growing expectation for the private sector to actively engage society to drive positive social and economic change. Judging by the volume and quality of submissions for this year’s Citizenship Partner of the Year award it’s clear that our partners are taking this responsibility very seriously.

Fred Humphries

Vice President, U.S. Government Affairs

Frank Schott, the global program director for NetHope has written a blog post over on Wired’s Haiti ReWired site about the chronic shortage of local information and communication technology (ICT) professionals in the country.

Frank writes:

ICT can be used to support health, education, economic development and conservation -- telemedicine, distance learning, epayments, mapping for deforestation are all well within reach. ICT solutions are needed to facilitate the rebuilding of Haiti, but there is a serious shortage of ICT professionals in the country.

To address this issue, Nethope is launching a new in-country initiative in Haiti:

NetHope Academy is launching an intern program that will give Haitian computer science students an opportunity to get on-the-job training while working for humanitarian organizations and corporations. Haiti is no different than anywhere else. It’s hard to get hired if you don’t have any work experience. The NetHope Academy can help, but we need your support.

To find out more, read Frank’s post or visit the NetHope Academy site.

As I mentioned in my last post, we wanted to share some of the content from our recent Accelerator Summit event.

Our first session was themed around how innovation can help to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. The session was split into two sections.

Part 1: PhotoDNA

Tim Cranton, Associate General Counsel at Microsoft and Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science, Dartmouth College discuss how technology such as PhotoDNA is being used to combat the distribution of child pornography online.

Part 2: How technology can address environmental challenges

Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft provides an overview of how we are approaching environmental challenges focusing on three primary areas; enabling energy efficiency gains, accelerating scientific research and breakthroughs, and operating our business responsibly. Rob’s talk includes a video on the Brazilian Rainforest Sensor Network project — a joint effort from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Johns Hopkins University, the São Paulo Research Foundation, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, and Microsoft Research.

Troy Batterberry, Product Unit Manager for Microsoft Hohm provides an overview how we’re working to provide consumers with tools to manage their energy usage.

I hope you find these sessions interesting. We’ll be posting videos from our nonprofit, employee and workforce development sessions in the coming days.

In 2005, Microsoft started working with the Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) of the George Washington University in Washington, DC on a program supported by the Andean Development Corporation to incorporate an ICT and Governability content module into the school’s special program on Governability and Political Management.

The ICT module, created with help from Microsoft, has been instituted in the school’s various seminar sessions in Washington D.C. and Peru. Its goal is to help close the digital gap in Latin America and the Caribbean by training political leaders to incorporate ICT at the government level and to familiarize their citizens with it.

By the beginning of 2008, approximately thousand students from the region – mostly professionals receiving additional training – had participated in the program and enrollment rates continue to grow. GSPM is in talks for expansion to all Latin American and Caribbean countries, as well as Spain and Russia.