To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Minecraft: Education Edition has launched new renewable energy lessons and immersive worlds. This content is available for educators and students using Minecraft: Education Edition as well as Minecraft players on the Bedrock platform. Students can explore different energy sources, solve a town’s power problems, and design and manage a sustainable city—all in Minecraft! For students learning from home during school closures, the Lumen City Challenge and Lumen Power Challengeprovide a fun way to bring Earth Day into the virtual classroom or home learning environment.
These two new lessons were developed by EIT InnoEnergy, Europe’s largest sustainable energy innovation engine, in partnership with the Minecraft creators at Blockworks. The Lumen City Challenge invites students to manage a city’s infrastructure, which involves selecting power sources and keeping budgets balanced. As students build their ideal city, they learn the challenges of energy storage and the delicate balance between cost, power output, and pollution. In the Lumen Power Challenge, learners repair a town’s energy infrastructure including offshore wind turbines, rooftop solar panels, and a hydroelectric dam. Each of these challenges offers students a unique opportunity to use critical thinking to solve problems in-game and learn about real-world energy issues.
Anyone with a valid Office 365 Education account can access Minecraft: Education Edition through June 2020. If you don’t already have Minecraft: Education Edition, you can get started here. Access the Lumen challenges in the in-game lesson library. (For those using other versions of the game, Minecraft Bedrock players can download the maps from the in-game Marketplace where they are available for free as part of a new Education Collection through June 2020.)
For the first time since its founding in 1970, Earth Day will be celebrated mostly online with learning resources like Minecraft: Education Edition, shared by organizations around the world to raise awareness of environmental issues and encourage people to act. Minecraft also supports the current need for distance learning with features and content that help keep students connected, engaged, and inspired. From the new Lumen renewable energy challenges to immersive lessons introducing topics like wildlife conservation and biodiversity, Minecraft: Education Edition provides educators and families with great options to celebrate Earth Day from home this year.
Everyone is looking for ways to give back, to support charities and organizations that are making a difference in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. We are so encouraged by the part Xbox gamers have already played and are energized knowing the community is continuing to make an impact.
Within the first few weeks of announcing Xbox One owners can use Microsoft Rewards points to donate to the CDC Foundation, our gamer community has come together with over a hundred thousand individual donations – an incredible showing of support for the CDC Foundation contributing to hundreds of thousands of dollars donated this month by Rewards members. We are incredibly inspired by the way the community is rallying to provide support in this time of need.
Which is why we’re pleased to announce that launching today in the U.S., Xbox One owners can now use their Microsoft Rewards points to donate to two new global foundations – the United Nations Foundation and GlobalGiving – in support of COVID-19 relief efforts.
Here’s a reminder of how it works: If you are not already a Microsoft Rewards member, sign up for free through the Microsoft Rewards app on your Xbox One or online at microsoftrewards.com and earn points simply by playing games on your Xbox. Then donate your Rewards points to your organization of choice. Hit the donation button on the Xbox One dash, or within the Microsoft Rewards app on your Xbox, to tell Microsoft you want to donate your Rewards points, then Microsoft will match your donation one-to-one. 1,000 Rewards points is equal to $1 donated.
Xbox One owners can earn Microsoft Rewards in many different ways, including but not limited to: completing the limited time “Support A Hero While At Home” punch card, playing select new Xbox games and completing Xbox Game Pass Quests – where new members can sign up for Xbox Game Pass for only $1, renting and purchasing movies and TV through the Microsoft Movies & TV app, exploring new content and entertainment apps, and shopping through the Microsoft Store on their Xbox.
In addition to Microsoft Rewards donations, Minecraft Partners recently announced a partnership with the United Nations Development Programme and their partner, Heart17, to share factual information about the coronavirus. Over the next week or so, Minecraft will be devoted to sharing important health advice from the World Health Organization via social media channels and in-game “Creepers.”
We are proud to support these organizations who are making a positive impact on the world and help empower gamers to give back by playing the games they know and love from home. You can learn more about Xbox COVID-19 relief efforts on Xbox.com. To support other causes you care about, Microsoft Rewards members can also donate points through the Give With Bing program to more than one million nonprofit organizations.
As you settle into remote teaching and learning, we’re devoting this episode of What’s New in EDU to sharing free resources that can support you as you lead virtual lessons, foster collaboration and engagement, and focus on accessibility.
Connect, communicate, and collaborate with Microsoft Teams
In this episode, we take a look at how Microsoft Teams, included with Office 365 Education, can serve as a great digital learning platform during distance learning. With Teams, you can create video calls and invite your entire class, set up small-group discussions, hold office hours, post assignments, and much more.
It’s easy to sign up for an Office 365 account if you don’t already have one. Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for free and get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. Use your valid school email address to get started today.
Professional learning through the Microsoft Educator Center
We’ve also created a learning path on the Microsoft Educator Center focused on using Teams and other free resources to support remote learning.
The first course centers around connecting with your students using Teams and additional Office 365 tools and provides ideas for establishing a remote learning plan and tracking progress.
The second course spotlights student engagement and building strong connections with help from Microsoft Teams; Microsoft Stream, the intelligent video service in Office 365; OneNote Class Notebook, an app that helps you set up OneNote in your class; and Flipgrid, which allows students and teachers to create and share videos.
The third course is focused on ensuring that the needs of students with learning differences are met. The course provides an overview of accessibility tools in Teams, Office 365, Windows 10, and other apps.
Learning Tools and accessibility
Everyone is working hard to adapt to remote learning, and as Mark Sparvell said in the video above, this may present particular challenges for students with learning differences. This is a great time to become more familiar with Microsoft Learning Tools, free resources that implement proven techniques to personalize learning and improve reading and writing for students.
These include tools such as:
Immersive Reader, a full-screen reading experience that improves the readability of content. It has a read-aloud function, enables students to tailor fonts and spacing, supports grammar and writing by identifying parts of speech, and more.
Dictation allows people to type with their voice. It’s available in Office 365 tools and can be helpful for learners with dyslexia, dysgraphia, or mobility impairments.
Closed captions help people who are hard of hearing, speak multiple languages, and who use captions to help focus and retain information. We recently rolled out a preview of OneNote that allows students to connect OneNote to Microsoft Translator captions. You simply use a Join Code and receive the captions and translation stream. This allows captions from the teacher who is speaking to flow directly into OneNote for reading, while still allowing the student to take notes.
Assessment strategies
We know you’re probably working through how to best assess student learning in this environment. Microsoft Forms can help. You can use it to easily create quizzes and surveys, and you can share Forms with your students from any browser or mobile device.
Forms has built-in analytics that allow you to see student progress immediately. For more on using Forms and creating quizzes and other assessments within Microsoft Teams, check out this You Can in :90 video.
Keeping students engaged
As Mark emphasized in this month’s episode, Flipgrid is a great student engagement tool. We’ve heard many stories from educators who are using Flipgrid as part of their distance learning strategy to coach students on reading, help them learn history and science, and even run theater rehearsals.
Students can view each other’s videos and respond to them. The latest update from Flipgrid also allows you to record your lessons and share those with students through the Screen Recording feature. This enables you to record what’s happening on your screen directly in the Flipgrid camera and guide readers through content on your device and more.
Other ideas from educators around the world include scheduling 1:1 time with students, assigning students to work together in small groups within Teams, and using tools like Microsoft Whiteboard for Education, the freeform digital canvas, to boost engagement.
For families
We know a lot of parents are asking for high-quality resources that they can use to help support their children during this challenging time. One way we’ve responded is by launching a Family Learning Center. Geared toward families with children ages 3-12, it offers a collection of free resources on topics ranging from art, coding, spelling, and more. Please share it with your students’ parents and guardians.
Taking a moment
As Mark notes in the video above, the current situation we find ourselves in is creating enormous educational challenges. The shift to remote learning has been sudden and disruptive. For teachers, remote lessons aren’t going to be the same as you planned and led when you were in the classroom with your students. And that’s okay. You’re making a big difference in kids’ lives every time you connect with them, even if it is virtually. They need you. But for you to show up for them, it’s important to take time for yourself too.
With that in mind, and because we all could use it, we’ve created a new You can in :90 video on mindful breathing led by Mark. Check it out, and consider sharing it with your students.
We love hearing from you, especially now. We value your feedback and want to know how we can help. One way to let us know what you think of this episode of What’s New in EDU, and the tools we’re highlighting, is through Twitter by tagging @MicrosoftEDU.
And if you haven’t done so already, please sign up to join our Remote Learning Community and connect with other educators and Microsoft Education experts who are sharing ideas around best practices in distance learning.
As everyone adapts to different and innovative ways of living, working, and organizing, we are here to help in that process. Today, we’re excited that Microsoft 365 has more to offer across free and premium experiences. Here are 10 ways Microsoft can help you and your family experience more efficiency, more enjoyment, and more ease—across your whole lives.
Connect with loved ones and friends over Skype—This continues to be critical in this time. Maintaining our relationships looks different for all of us. It could be wishing your friend a virtual happy birthday, setting up a weekend trivia night with family, or having a video happy hour with your neighbors. With the Meet Now feature in Skype, it’s easy to connect over video (for free) with up to 50 people in just a few clicks.
Become a better writer—Our desire and need to communicate during this time has not diminished, it has simply shifted. Quick café catch-ups are now social media discussions, and chats with coworkers are IMs. This is where Microsoft Editor can be a huge help. Now available as a browser extension in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, Editor offers writing assistance whether you are relaying a story on Facebook, writing an email to your child’s teacher, or posting on Twitter. Across the web, Microsoft Editor is your virtual assistant to help you write more clearly and concisely.
Discover resources for your family, job, and schooling—There are thousands of free and premium templates available for you to use across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, many of which are very relevant today. With kids learning from home, we’re proud to offer a variety of Home Learning templates like alphabet flash cards, a reading log in Word, or multiplication tables in Excel. When you’re looking for ways to connect with your kids and family at home, we have Family Activity templates including an animal doodle coloring book in PowerPoint and Sudoku puzzle solvers in Excel. For those working from home, or on the hunt for their next job, we offer wide range of Presentation templates as well as Resume and Cover Letter templates.
Multi-task with ease—The Play My Emails feature in Outlook can be a lifesaver for those with a lot going on. Taking the dog on another walk? Fixing an afternoon snack for the kids? Have your emails read aloud to you so you can multitask effectively. And in this home/work/life blend we are all experiencing, it’s as important as ever to stay on top of your schedule. Outlook allows you to share calendars (so you can coordinate schedules with family members) and add calendars (so you can plan around important events).
Keep a handle on your to-dos—For most, our homes are now a hub for much more than what they used to be. They’ve become our workspace, classroom, cafeteria, gym, and living area. Our realities and locations may have shifted, but that doesn’t mean we can’t remain organized. With Microsoft To-Do, you can create the grocery list and share it with your spouse so they can order it. You can make a task list for the kids to check-off before time on their Xbox. You can share workout routines with friends. Whatever you need to accomplish, we’ve got you covered.
Craft standout presentations—PowerPoint has always been a wonderful tool to help you get your ideas across. Now, as we share more information and ideas with each other digitally, a strong presentation can make all the difference. Using intelligent technology, PowerPoint Designer offers beautiful layouts, rich animations, cinematic motion, 3D models, and modern icons to bring your presentation to life with a few clicks. Your subscription unlocks access to over 8,000 beautiful images and 175 looping videos, plus 300 fonts and 2,800 icons to create high-impact and visually appealing documents.
Become a top-notch presenter—While we might not be standing in conference rooms or on stage for the time being, many of us are still presenting to live audiences on a daily basis. It could be a formal performance on a live stream to many, or simply talking through a document on a video call with your colleagues. Either way, verbal communication is a vital skill—as well as something many folks wish they were better at. Presenter Coach uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help your speaking. It aids with pacing, filler words, and speaking suggestions. Now, you’ll also get real-time feedback as the AI analyzes monotone speech and speech refinement—giving you tips on variation, grammar and phrasing.
Share special moments and keep up connections—Do you have some cute photos of the Easter Egg hunt that took place around the living room? The grandparents would love to see them. Maybe you had a birthday celebration and want your friends to see the incredible cake your boyfriend baked? With 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage for Microsoft 365 subscribers, you can store these photos and any other files, as well as share them with others, with the knowledge they are always secured and backed-up.
Get peace of mind when tech issues arise—Our homes have grown into bigger tech hubs with family members working and learning from home. With your Microsoft 365 subscription we’ve got your back with ongoing technical support for Windows 10 and all included Microsoft 365 apps readily available through chat or phone.
Learn, meditate, manage, create and control—With a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription comes access to incredible partner apps and services through free, limited-time offers. Find mindfulness with Headspace, create with Adobe, and learn new skills with CreativeLive. You also get access to TeamSnap, Bark, Experian, and Blinkist.
On the horizon, we have even more exciting news to debut. Money in Excel* will soon allow you to manage, track and analyze all your money and spending in a single place. Also, in Excel, you will be able to make sense of your data with informative and interactive visualizations of everything from food to movies to Pokémon**. Also coming soon is the Microsoft Family Safety App, which empowers families in a variety of ways with both free and premium offerings, including managing screen time across Windows PCs, Android, and Xbox. There will also be new features in Microsoft Teams that make it easier to connect, organize, and collaborate with family and friends.
Today, Microsoft is launching an Open Data Campaign to help address the looming “data divide” and help organizations of all sizes to realize the benefits of data and the new technologies it powers. We believe everyone can benefit from opening, sharing and collaborating around data to make better decisions, improve efficiency and even help tackle some of the world’s most pressing societal challenges.
The goal of our campaign is to advance a much-needed discussion about how the world uses and shares data. To start, today we’re announcing three steps:
First, we’re publishing new principles that will guide how Microsoft itself approaches sharing our data with others.
Second, we’re committing to take action by developing 20 new collaborations built around shared data by 2022. This includes work with leading organizations in the open data movement like the Open Data Institute and The Governance Lab (GovLab) at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. And we’ll seek to lead by example by making our Microsoft social impact initiatives “open by default,” beginning with sharing data on broadband access from our Airband initiative and combining it with data from others to help accelerate improvements in broadband connectivity.
Finally, we’ll invest in the essential assets that will make data sharing easier, including the required tools, frameworks and templates.
In recent months, we’ve again seen the benefits that better data sharing can bring not just for companies and other organizations, but also in tackling the world’s biggest challenges. From climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that data plays a critical role in helping us understand these challenges and in addressing them. To fully realize the benefit of data, we need to develop the ability to share data across organizational boundaries in a way that is safe and secure, and allows the data to be used effectively. If ever there was a time to accelerate the world’s efforts around open data, it is now. We hope our steps today can contribute to these efforts. We’re committed to the cause, and to learning from and working with others.
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What do we mean by the “data divide” and why now?
Despite the enormous growth in data and AI, both are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies. Indeed, fewer than 100 companies now collect more than 50% of the data generated by online interactions (based on analysis of similarweb.com, appfigures.com and alexa.com) and around half of all people with technical AI skills work in the technology sector (according to figures from LinkedIn). Not surprisingly, these businesses are then able to reap the enormous benefits of data and AI while others are left at a disadvantage. This data divide poses a serious challenge for society and, if left unaddressed, could lead to huge economic power flowing to just a few countries and companies. Based on current trends, for example, PWC predicts that around 70% of the economic value generated by AI will accrue to just two countries: the USA and China. But we do not believe that an ever-growing data divide is inevitable. By doing more to open up and share data, organizations can unlock value, share expertise and make data more useful for all, allowing everyone to benefit in ways they are not able to by going it alone. By acting now and joining together, more civil society organizations, governments and businesses of all sizes will be able to realize the full value of data.
Charting a principled course
To help guide our own efforts on open data, we are adopting a set of principles to inform how we at Microsoft open and share data in a responsible way. We’ve learned through our work on protecting privacy, responsible AI and sustainability that it is valuable to define a clear set of principles when engaging with important and complex societal issues. We hope these principles will inform the broader conversation on open data and that others can build on and improve them. The five principles that will guide our contributions to trusted data collaboration are:
Open – We will work to make data that is relevant to important social problems as open as possible, including by contributing open data ourselves
Usable – We will invest in creating new technologies and tools, governance mechanisms and policies to make data more usable for everyone
Empowering – We will help organizations generate value from their data according to their choices, and develop their AI talent to use data effectively and independently
Secure – We will employ security controls to ensure data collaboration is operationally secure where it is desired
Private – We will help organizations to protect individuals’ privacy in data-sharing collaborations that involve personally identifiable information
Each of these principles is important. However, as has become clear to us in our work in this area, one stands out as the most challenging but vital key to success: the need to make data more usable. Unless organizations are able to collect and categorize data in a standardized way, they will not be able to aggregate and analyze it in a manner that produces the transformative insights that shared data has the potential to unlock.
Committing to new collaborations
In addition to charting a principled course, we believe success will depend on building deep collaborations with others from across industry, government and civil society around the world. We want to try and lead by example and do more to learn firsthand about the challenges and solutions around open data. To this end, Microsoft is committing to launching 20 data collaborations by 2022, building partnerships to tackle the major challenges of our time. To help seed these collaborations, Microsoft will make its social impact initiatives “open by default” and explore whether our data related to initiatives such as Airband, AI for Good and our work on sustainability and accessibility might be able to be opened up and built on to help solve major challenges. We are excited to be partnering with the Open Data Institute in this effort, working together to develop our initial collaborations and share the lessons we learn with others so that they may also benefit. Our initial work will focus on:
Tackling connectivity challenges: Microsoft is publishing under open agreement on GitHub a small, but important, dataset around broadband usage in the United States, gathered as part of our Airband Initiative. We will be working with the Open Data Institute and BroadbandNow, a company that help consumers find broadband access in the U.S. to add to this dataset to help improve broadband availability. The BroadbandNow dataset provides county-level pricing and competition data.
Addressing COVID-19: As one of the most pressing challenges today, we will contribute to the work being done to use data to address the COVID-19 crisis. This includes expanding work Microsoft is doing with partner Adaptive Biotechnologies to decode how the immune system responds to COVID-19 and share research findings via an open data access portal for any researcher to use in the fight against the pandemic. More broadly, Microsoft has also built a COVID-19 tracker on our Bing search engine and is releasing aggregated data to those in academia and research. We are also working with GitHub, which is hosting a range of collaborative COVID-19 projects, including open source software, hardware designs, models and many leading COVID-19 datasets.
Helping cities collaborate around data: Microsoft will partner with Arup and the Oliver Wyman Forum on the London Data Commission, an open data initiative run by London First working with the Greater London Authority and others, to lead a data collaboration project around city-based data that can help address social and economic challenges in London.
Helping governments collaborate around data: To help governments better open up and collaborate around data, we will co-launch the Open Data Policy Lab with The GovLab at NYU. The Lab will provide a live repository of best practices and resources with a focus on: 1) analysis, in the form of comparative research of data initiatives that contribute to economic development; 2) guidance, to include toolkits, frameworks and best practices to support data sharing and data-driven decision-making; 3) community, of data stewards and other data stakeholders within the public and private sectors; and 4) action, to implement proof-of-concept initiatives.
Advancing data-driven healthcare: This work will enable the first global data collaborative to improve cardiovascular health, bringing together data from a range of sources to help address one of the world’s leading causes of death. Microsoft is working with the Novartis Foundation, Apollo Hospitals in India and Coala Life in Sweden to consolidate their respective cardiovascular datasets from hospitals and primary-care centers around the world. The collaborative aims to further develop and use the leading cardiovascular AI tool – AICVD Risk Score, created by Apollo Hospitals – to accelerate the use of data-driven decisions in tackling cardiovascular disease and informing the direction of health policy.
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Making data sharing easier and safer
If data is open and available but unusable, it serves little to no purpose. We are therefore committing to helping tackle the problems created by the lack of easy-to-use tools and frameworks for sharing data to ensure that we are able to help make data more usable. One big challenge we have seen in our work on data sharing and the analysis we’ve been doing to help fight the COVID-19 crisis is the difficulty around inconsistent data collection. Currently, data is collected in a variety of different formats and document types – some in Word documents, some in PDFs, some in spreadsheets, some still on paper. This makes it all but impossible to share and aggregate data in a way that is valuable and provides a huge barrier to collaboration. The campaign will work to address this challenge and also continue our work to develop scalable tools that any organization can utilize, reducing the friction around sharing.
In this work, there are valuable lessons to be taken from the world of open source software. While there are important differences between data and code, particularly around the steps needed to address privacy and security considerations when dealing with data, our experience with open source provides us with insights for enabling successful collaboration. A priority will be continuing our work on open data use agreements, providing templates that anyone can use to easily share data and continue to build on the governance, licensing and legal tools provided on the Open Data Campaign microsite. We will also continue to advance our work on differential privacy with Harvard’s IQSS, providing tools to allow people to extract useful insights from datasets in a way that safeguards the privacy of individuals.
Closing the data divide is a big challenge. But the benefits for organizations of all sizes, and the broader community are significant if we can work together to make progress on open data. We’re committed to making our contribution, and we look forward to working with, and learning from, others so that everyone can realize the benefits of data.
I am very pleased to announce that, today, Microsoft is committing to the Open COVID Pledge by making its patents available free of charge for use in efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic and minimize the impact of the disease. This step joins our other efforts to use technology and innovation to help track the disease and develop solutions, such as mobilizing AI for Health to fight COVID-19 and the Bing COVID19 Tracker. Additional information about Microsoft’s COVID-19 efforts can be found here.
We are always looking for ways we can use our patents to contribute to positive outcomes, and the fight against COVID-19 is one of the most urgent issues of our time. Pledges and open licensing of this kind can help spur innovation, especially in a crisis like this one. Researchers, scientists and others working to fight the virus should be able to develop and deploy effective solutions at scale without obstacles such as being threatened with patent litigation.
The terms and conditions of Microsoft’s COVID-19 patent license, which are effective immediately, can be found here. We encourage other intellectual property holders, including other technology companies and universities, to also commit to the pledge and ensure that their intellectual property is working for, and not against, efforts to stop the pandemic.
With a global health crisis compelling so many of us to work remotely, it’s more important than ever for leaders and communications to connect people across teams and organizations. Last November at Ignite, we unveiled the new Yammer, with a beautiful new design that powers community, knowledge-sharing, and employee engagement. The new Yammer includes a fully interactive Yammer app called “Communities” that brings your communities and conversations directly into Microsoft Teams. Put simply, it’s Yammer—in Teams.
Starting today, this app is available in the Microsoft app store. Here, I’ll go over how your team can use it for company-wide communication, knowledge-sharing, and employee engagement, as well as how to install it and where to find it. By offering the full Yammer experience right inside Teams, we want to help you keep everyone at your organization engaged, informed, and moving forward. Let’s get into it.
The new Yammer app for Teams keeps everyone connected to what’s happening in their communities conversations, share announcements, attend live events, and connect with coworkers just as you would in the Yammer web or mobile apps.
How to use the new Yammer app
More than 44 million people are now using Teams every day to get work done. And while many of us spend more time than ever collaborating with our own teams, we also often need to reach beyond our core work groups to chase down information, share experiences and expertise, and voice feedback.
With the Yammer app in Teams, customers can:
Communicate broadly
Leaders and communicators need modern solutions to ensure people have the information they need, wherever they are. The Yammer app enables them to share a poll or question at scale, and instantly notify people of important news by sharing an announcement targeted to the entire organization or specific communities. And the app offers easy visibility into the reach and impact of those communications, too.
Announcements and pinned posts increase visibility for important messages.
Connect with experts and answers
The familiar social experiences of Yammer make it easy to discover valuable conversations, ask questions, loop in experts with at-mentions, and mark best answers.
The personalized feed is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to show conversations and content that are relevant to you.
Host company-wide events
Leaders can use live events in Yammer to broadcast company-wide, town hall–style meetings with video, interactive conversation, and Q&A sessions to share vision, drive culture, and engage employees.
Users can attend company-wide live events in Yammer in the app.
How to install it
Starting today, admins and users can install the Yammer app, named “Communities,” from the Teams App store. Then, it can be pinned to the Teams app bar on the left. IT Admins can choose to deploy and pin the app for all users or particular departments through custom policies. Meanwhile, individual users can install and pin the app themselves using the options in the app bar.
Install the Yammer app, called “Communities,” from the app store in Microsoft Teams.
Further questions
Now, you may have some questions on where this app will be available in Teams and whether it will impact the places you use Yammer today. For instance, you be wondering if the new app will be in Teams for iOS and Android. The answer: not quite yet! But while it’s currently available today for Teams desktop and web clients only, we’ll be bringing it to mobile soon, too. Meanwhile mobile users can enjoy the new Yammer mobile apps today. And you can also continue using Yammer for Windows and Mac and Yammer on the web (currently in preview, due for worldwide release soon). The new “Communities” app is available to all Teams customers today, even if they haven’t used the preview of the new Yammer experience.
Looking forward
By bringing Yammer into Teams, we want to make it easier for leaders and communicators to quickly and effectively communicate with their teams and organizations, even when they need to work apart. We’ll continue to create a more seamless Yammer communities experience within Teams, including unifying notifications and search and bringing the Yammer app to Teams mobile. We hope you find them useful as you navigate your organization’s remote work experience.
As countries and companies focus on technologies such as tracking, tracing and testing to fight the pandemic, it’s critical that we also protect people’s privacy. Today, we’re offering seven principles as ideas to consider as we move into the next phases of helping to fight this pandemic.
Governments, public health authorities and industries spanning the globe are engaged in the hard and important work of identifying a path forward to get society back together again. Tracking individuals who are infected, tracing those with whom they have recently come into physical contact and making testing available to those contacts may play an important role in managing the next phase of COVID-19 around the world. As in all other aspects of modern life, digital technologies are likely to be used for tracking, tracing and testing. This requires special care, as sensitive data about our location and health status may be involved.
Preserving privacy as we develop and implement these technical solutions will be critical. Here are seven privacy principles that we offer for governments, public health authorities, academics, employers and industries to consider as we collectively move forward into this next phase of tracking, tracing and testing, and using similar technologies developed to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Obtain meaningful consent by being transparent about the reason for collecting data, what data is collected and how long it is kept. Data should only be collected with consent and used in the manner explained when people are making the decision to participate. Clear and user-friendly information serves to help promote voluntary participation and can ensure everyone interacting with the technology is making informed choices to participate in data collection and is aware of the purpose of the data collection, the type of data that will be collected, the time period the data will be held and the benefits of the data collection.
Collect data only for public health purposes. The data collected from an individual for purposes of tracing those who have been in physical contact with an infected person and other public health purposes is owned by the individual and should remain under that person’s control. As a general matter, this data should be used by public health authorities only for the articulated public health purposes, and not for unrelated reasons. Public health authorities should provide input regarding the types of data that will be most useful for fighting the pandemic.
Collect the minimal amount of data. Data that is collected by public health authorities for public health purposes, such as tracing, should be limited to only the specific data required, and should only be collected and used for the time period identified as necessary by public health experts.
Provide choices to individuals about where their data is stored. The data must be wholly in the individual’s control, including allowing the individual to choose where to store this data, such as on a device or in the cloud.
Provide appropriate safeguards to secure the data. Reliable security safeguards such as de-identification, encryption, rotating and random identifiers, decentralized identities or similar measures should be in place to protect people’s data from harmful exposure and hacking attempts.
Do not share data or health status without consent, and minimize the data shared. An individual’s data or health status shouldn’t be shared with the individual’s contacts or others without securing the individual’s meaningful consent. If such sharing is pursuant to legal requirements, then the sharing should be strictly limited by the scope of the law. When notifying individuals that they may have been in physical contact with an infected person, only share the minimum amount of data necessary to protect against inferences about the identity of the infected person.
Delete data as soon as it is no longer needed for the emergency. Individuals own their own data, whether stored on a device, a server or in the cloud. Copies of the data that were transferred to public health authorities and others for tracing and other public health purposes should be deleted when no longer useful for public health purposes, as defined by public health authorities. None of the individual’s information should be retained by the authorities or others for future unrelated uses or purposes.
These principles are designed to apply to any COVID-19 technological solutions that involve the collection and use of personal data such as health data, precise geolocation data, proximity or adjacency data, and identifiable contacts.
Our approach is grounded in the belief that, for technology to succeed, people need to be in control of their data, and be empowered with information that explains how their data will be collected and used. Furthermore, companies need to be accountable and responsible for this data. Policymakers, advocacy groups and regulators are starting to share their ideas about guidelines to preserve privacy in any deployment of tracking, tracing and testing technology. We don’t have all the answers, and we look for others to contribute additional ideas, but we hope our principles help advance the discussion.
We need to fight COVID-19 and protect privacy
Addressing global problems of this magnitude understandably creates an urgent need for innovative uses of data to fight the pandemic, and we believe these measures must take privacy into account. The good news is that, today, we have more tools and methods than ever – such as differential privacy, federated learning, decentralized identities, privacy-preserving contract tracing protocols and open source repositories, and other techniques for managing data privacy – to allow society to use data for good and be confident that personal information is kept private.
In the U.S., the need for this conversation in the midst of a pandemic underscores the urgency for a strong federal privacy law. An updated legal framework placing obligations on businesses that collect and use personal data would help provide the necessary guardrails for companies to know how to protect and respect personal data as they create tools and technologies to address urgent societal needs.
Considering the bigger picture
In the context of rising excitement about the possibility of leveraging computing technologies to help with mitigating the pandemic, we note that the issues with, and opportunities for, helping with COVID-19 are complex. Technical advances, such as the use of mobile phones to collect data of various kinds, need to be considered in the larger context of the complexity of the world, such as how comfortable people will be sharing data, the availability of testing resources, the efficacy of the methods under realistic situations of usage, and evolving local and national policies. Concerns over any technology or program include inclusion and the potential for systematic discrimination based on numerous factors. For example, different populations may face different challenges when attempting to participate in health-centric programs based on access to, and familiarity with, technology, depending on race, age, education and income levels. These are also vital issues to address as we move forward.
Privacy and ethical concerns must be considered as we move forward to use data responsibly to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft is committed to serving as a constructive partner in this fight.
The world is searching for ways to fight COVID-19, leading to a surge of research efforts to create effective therapies. Thankfully, as the human immune system learns to fight off the disease and people recover, we see some very promising ways that people’s naturally produced antibodies, which are present in convalescent plasma, can be used as treatment for others. The use of convalescent plasma is a technique dating back to the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and was effective more recently during the SARS outbreak. Today, there is mounting clinical evidence that plasma collected from those who have recovered from COVID-19 can be used to treat ill COVID-19 patients.
There are two core approaches to using convalescent plasma to fight COVID-19 – each serving a different need. First and most direct is the approach of gathering convalescent plasma donations and making transfusions available to patients, for either therapeutic purposes or, more frequently, as part of research studies and clinical trials. This is a pragmatic and meaningful effort and we applaud all the organizations involved.
A different approach is to use the plasma in larger scale to make a potential therapy called a polyclonal hyperimmune globulin (H-Ig). Through the product manufacturing process, multiple plasma donations are pooled together and the antibodies are concentrated to consistent and reliable levels, meaning the medicine can be delivered in lower volumes and therefore would likely take less time to administer to patients than plasma itself. The H-Ig process also minimizes risk of any known virus or bacteria passing from donor to patient, thanks to the rigorous virus inactivation and removal steps that are embedded in the plasma product manufacturing process. Finally, H-Ig also has a longer shelf life, which permits easier storage and shipping for any outbreaks in the future. These attributes also make H-Ig relatively easy for hospitals to manage and distribute this potentially lifesaving medicine to patients.
The question is, how can we scale up the manufacture and distribution of H-Ig treatment? One promising approach has been developed by the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, which has been formed by the world’s leading plasma companies: Biotest, BPL, LFB, and Octapharma along with CSL Behring and Takeda. The “I” and “g” in CoVIg-19 stand for immune globulin, which the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance will use to create an investigational medicine. With advisory support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, these leading scientists, innovators, and experts in drug manufacturing have joined together in an effort to accelerate the development of a potential H-Ig therapy for COVID-19. They are collaborating across key aspects such as plasma collection, clinical trial development, and product manufacturing. Plasma-derived therapies, like H-Ig, have already been shown to be effective in treating severe viral respiratory infections. The combined capability of these leading commercial manufacturers gives us hope for a scalable, reliable and sustainable treatment for COVID-19.
At Microsoft, we conducted a careful (but rapid) assessment, including consultation not only with our own experts but also several external partners. This assessment involved gaining an understanding of the underlying science and potential medical benefits. We are now convinced that the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance has a real chance to save lives, at significant scale, and possibly much sooner than other approaches currently being developed. We were also impressed that these alliance members had committed to working together for the public good, setting aside commercial and competitive goals. We are thus devoting our computing infrastructure, plus engineering and research personnel, to support this esteemed group and kick off the first phase: helping healthy individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 to sign up to donate plasma at licensed plasma collection centers across the United States. Together with the alliance partners, we’re launching the CoVIg-19 Plasma Bot, a self-screening tool that anyone can use to see if they qualify to donate their plasma. Like Microsoft did with the CDC Coronavirus Self-Checker bot and more than 1,300 other COVID-19 bots around the world, we’ve followed standard protocols to help guide individuals through the qualification and education process.
The Plasma Bot and the home page and donor recruitment site for the alliance will live at https://covig-19plasmaalliance.org/ and we expect to make the bot available through other web, social and search channels as well to maximize awareness for potential plasma donors. Donation should be fairly convenient in most cases: more than 50% of the eligible donor population in the U.S. lives within 15 miles of one of the 500 centers operated by CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance member companies. Recruitment will start in the United States, and then expand to Europe.
The sooner recovered COVID-19 patients donate convalescent plasma, the sooner the alliance may be able to start manufacturing a potential therapy and begin clinical trials. These trials will determine if this therapy could help high-risk COVID-19 patients recover and whether it could protect high-risk individuals from the disease. Time is of the essence: we’re now in an especially important but small window of opportunity with a critical mass of people hitting peak immunity as they recover from COVID-19.
Like many of you, we’ve felt overwhelmed at times by the changes that COVID-19 has brought on society. But even more so, we’ve felt incredibly encouraged seeing people across the planet coming together in truly heroic ways to respond to this pandemic. With this new program, we have a chance to make even more people heroes, starting with those who’ve survived COVID-19. Please take a moment to share this with potential donors, so we can all play our part in making a difference.
As school closures in more than 190 countries force over 1.57 billion students from their classrooms, the Learning Passport aims to keep children learning
NEW YORK, 20 April 2020 – UNICEF and Microsoft Corp. today announced the expansion of a global learning platform to help children and youth affected by COVID-19 continue their education at home.
The Learning Passport started off as a partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft and the University of Cambridge, and its departments Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment, designed to provide education for displaced and refugee children through a digital remote learning platform. It has now undergone rapid expansion to facilitate country-level curriculum for children and youth whose schools have been forced to close due to COVID-19. The platform will also provide key resources to teachers and educators.
“From school closures, to isolation, to a persistent sense of fear and anxiety, the effects of this pandemic are impacting childhoods worldwide,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “We need to come together and explore every avenue to keep children learning and help them through this difficult time. With long-term partners like Microsoft, we are able to swiftly deploy innovative, scalable solutions for children and youth. The adaptations made to the Learning Passport are a powerful reminder of what we can achieve together for children as the crisis deepens globally.”
According to the latest available data from UNESCO, 1.57 billion students have been affected by school closures in more than 190 countries worldwide.[1]
The Learning Passport, which has been in development for the past 18 months, was due to start as a pilot program this year. When the global pandemic hit and schools were closed worldwide, the program underwent rapid expansion of its reach. Now all countries with a curriculum capable of being taught online will be able to facilitate online learning for children and youth with devices at home.
Kosovo, Timor-Leste and Ukraine – which have closed their school gates in the past weeks to help halt transmission of the virus – are the first to roll out their online curriculum through the Learning Passport. The content available to schoolchildren includes online books, videos and additional support for parents of children with learning disabilities. “Just as COVID-19’s impact has no borders, its solutions must not have borders, as it requires the collaboration across public and private sectors to ensure every student stays engaged and continues learning,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. “UNICEF’s Learning Passport is uniquely positioned as a scalable learning solution to bridge the digital learning gap for millions of students to bring their classroom into their home during the pandemic.”
Children and young people continuing their education online can do so through a country-specific platform, accessed via their country’s learningpassport.unicef.org page. The platform for each country provides a digitized curriculum with textbooks and a selection of supplemental content, in national languages, that is jointly curated at country-level to best serve learners’ and educators’ specific needs. The Learning Passport captures a record of the curriculum subjects each student learns and guides learners with little additional support needed.
The Learning Passport is an example of how UNICEF partners with business – based on a shared-value approach, where producing social value and addressing its challenges also makes perfect business sense.
The Learning Passport is part of the Generation Unlimited Global Breakthrough on Remote Learning and Work that aims to use technology to address challenges faced by learners, facilitators and education providers, particularly in conflict-affected and humanitarian contexts. Generation Unlimited is a global multi-sector partnership to meet the urgent need for expanded education, training and employment opportunities for young people.
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Notes to editors:
All references to Kosovo shall be understood in the context of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999). About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
About Generation Unlimited
Generation Unlimited is global partnership working to prepare young people to become productive and engaged citizens. It connects secondary-age education and training to employment and entrepreneurship, empowering every young person to thrive in the world of work.
About UNICEF
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
UNICEF does not endorse any company, brand, product or service.
