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New Azure Space products enable digital resiliency and empower the industry

Abstract Satellite demonstrating the connection to the cloud through Space.

Since the launch of Azure Space two years ago, we’ve announced partnerships, products, and tools that have focused on how we can bring together the power of the cloud with the possibilities of space.

Today, we are introducing the next wave of product advancements for this mission and announcing specific ways in which we are democratizing space and empowering our partners.

  1. Announcing the Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview
    • A brand-new service that brings the power of the Microsoft Cloud to wherever you need it most.
  2. Announcing the General Availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station
    • Since the launch of Azure Space in October 2020, we have talked about Azure Orbital Ground Station. Today, alongside our partner network, including KSAT, we are making this service available to all satellite operators, such as Pixxel, Muon Space, and Loft Orbital.
  3. Advancing the digital transformation of satellite communication networks
    • The first demonstration of a fully virtualized iDirect modem.
    • Together with SES we are announcing a new joint satellite communications virtualization program.

The collective impact of these announcements points towards two key outcomes. First, we are dedicated to democratizing the possibilities of space by unlocking connectivity and data with the Microsoft Cloud. Second, we can also help support the digital transformation for our customers and partners in the space industry by using the flexible, scalable compute power in Azure.

Announcing Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview

Azure Orbital Cloud Access.

Azure Orbital Cloud Access brings connectivity from the cloud wherever businesses and public sector organizations need it the most. Across the space ecosystem, we are seeing a proliferation of low-latency satellite communication networks. This massive new expansion of connectivity across fiber, cellular, and satellite networks demands a new approach to connectivity, one which intelligently prioritizes traffic across these options, and bridges resilient connectivity into a seamless cloud experience.

Today, we are announcing the preview of Azure Orbital Cloud Access. Serving as a step toward the future of integrated 5G and satellite communications, Azure Orbital Cloud Access is a new service that enables low-latency (1-hop) access to the cloud—from anywhere on the planet—making it easier to bring satellite-based communications into your enterprise cloud operation.

Specifically, the preview for Azure Government customers unlocks new scenarios and opportunities in areas with low or no connectivity, or where a failover connectivity option is needed. Azure Orbital Cloud Access delivers prioritized network traffic through SpaceX’s Starlink connectivity and Azure edge devices, providing customers with access to Microsoft cloud services anywhere Starlink operates.

“Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency global connectivity in conjunction with Azure infrastructure will enable users to access fiber-like cloud computing access anywhere, anytime. We’re excited to offer this solution to both the public and the private sector.”—Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer

Architecture diagram for Azure Orbital Cloud Access.

Additionally, Azure Orbital Cloud Access manages the entire solution for customers, charging on a simple monthly subscription basis and a pay-as-you-go satellite communications consumption model.

The product also natively integrates with SD-WAN technology from Juniper Networks, which enables customers to prioritize connectivity between fiber, cellular, and satellite communications networks.

The Azure Orbital Cloud Access Preview is currently available for Azure Government customers. To sign up, please contact your Microsoft account team.

Connecting First Responders and the National Interagency Fire Center with Azure Orbital Cloud Access

Azure Orbital Cloud Access enables new scenarios for diverse types of customers and situations. For example, we recently worked with the Wildland Fire Information Technology (WFIT) group at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. This work consisted of conducting a research test to address the challenge of bringing connectivity to wildland firefighters and incident management personnel, who often work in rural locations.

Tens of thousands of wildland fires occur throughout the United States each year. In many cases, these wildfires occur in remote locations with low or no connectivity, making it extremely difficult for firefighters and fire managers to communicate. Connectivity enables personnel to share information and helps ensure a coordinated response to these fires.

In collaboration with Microsoft, the National Interagency Fire Center conducted a test of Azure Orbital Cloud Access capabilities integrated with SpaceX’s Starlink LEO satellite constellation. The goal of this test was to enable wildland firefighters’ connectivity to Microsoft Azure services in remote locations to provide uninterrupted support for firefighting operations and coordination.

This demonstration enabled access to FireNet (a cloud-based application for collaboration and management of wildfires using Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint) and remote access to wildfire data to share key insights to decision-makers in a secure and rapid manner. Through Azure Orbital Cloud Access, we achieved resilient communications and failover capabilities with intelligent prioritized traffic through cellular, fiber, or satellite.

Enabling digital resiliency through 5G and space with Pegatron and the Taiwan Hsinchu Fire Department

Digital resiliency is a key area of focus for Azure Space, and a critical use case for connectivity. As we look ahead at the future of possibilities for combining different pathways for connectivity, we partnered with Pegatron and SES to explore a scenario for natural disasters that brings together the power of 5G and space for the Hsinchu Fire Department.

Using space technology, mobile infrastructure, and Azure’s global footprint, we determined that we could offer alternative pathways for connectivity that exist outside of the reliance on local infrastructure—which is at risk of being damaged in a natural disaster.

“Communications on the front line are critical during natural disasters, but infrastructure is often destroyed, and connections are disrupted. This space-enabled 5G network would give us a much-needed tool allowing our first responders to effectively and efficiently focus on our fight to save lives and property.”—Director General Shi-Kung Lee, Hsinchu City Fire Department, Taiwan

In partnership with Pegatron, an emergency response vehicle was built that could be rapidly deployed to disaster zones. Microsoft’s 5G core, Microsoft Teams, Pegatron’s 5G O-RAN base station, and SES’s MEO satellite communication constellation were integrated to create high-bandwidth, low-latency communication for first responders across command sites using Azure, strengthening the Hsinchu Fire Department’s response.

Announcing the General Availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station

An Azure Orbital Ground Station.

Today, we are announcing the general availability of Azure Orbital Ground Station—our fully managed ground station as a service offering which is now available to all customers. Get started today.

The mission of Azure Orbital Ground Station is to work together with our partner ecosystem to enable satellite operators to focus on their satellites and operate from the cloud more reliably at lower cost and latency, allowing operators to get to market faster and achieve a higher level of security with the power of Azure. Through Microsoft’s unique partner-focused approach, we are bringing together a deep integration of ground station partner networks to enable our customers’ data delivery to an Azure region of choice at zero cost, thus reducing their total operational costs and ensuring data is available in the customer’s Azure tenant for further processing.

Pixxel

Pixxel is a space data company focused on building a constellation of hyperspectral earth imaging satellites and the analytical tools to mine insights from that data in the cloud. With the partnership of KSAT and Microsoft, Pixxel can minimize its time to market, access world-leading ground coverage, and lower its operating costs.

Microsoft’s integration with KSAT’s extensive network around the world enables Pixxel to stream their data directly to the Azure Cloud with zero data backhaul costs, and then further process it using Azure’s AI/ML services to generate customer business insights.

Loft Orbital

Loft Orbital is a space infrastructure company offering rapid, reliable, and simplified access to space as a service. We previously announced a strategic partnership with Loft Orbital for on-orbit compute to enable a new way to develop, test, and validate software applications for space systems in Microsoft Azure, and then deploy them to satellites in orbit using Loft’s space infrastructure tools and platforms. The first Azure-enabled Loft satellite will be launching next year and will be available for governments and companies to seamlessly deploy their software applications onto space hardware within the Azure environment.

Today marks the next step of our partnership. Alongside the launch of Azure Orbital Ground Station, Loft Orbital and Microsoft will support end-to-end customer missions as a service. Working with Microsoft, KSAT demonstrated how an existing customer, Loft Orbital, can test and onboard to Azure Orbital Ground Station and benefit from Microsoft and KSAT ground stations to support their specific mission needs.

Muon Space

Muon Space is developing a world-class satellite remote sensing platform to power data-driven decisions about the climate. Muon provides organizations with a turnkey solution to collecting datasets needed to achieve their environmental goals.

Many of these use cases are unlocked by global coverage and rapid cadence of observations. Azure Orbital Ground Station will support Muon’s coverage needs and operation by increasing the number of ground locations to ensure multiple contact opportunities on every orbit.

In addition to our ground stations, Muon Space is partnering with Microsoft’s sustainability product team to develop products targeting enterprise Environment Social Governance (ESG) analytics derived from their Earth Systems data.

Accelerating the pace of digital transformation for satellite network operators

Digital transformation is central to the DNA of how Microsoft operates. We believe in the power of the Azure cloud to transform industries—from healthcare, to retail, and even space. Satellite network operators and the communication they provide are unique in their digital transformation and transition to cloud technologies.

The future of the space industry depends on a way to realize the flexibility and scale that virtualization provides, transitioning away from capital-intensive hardware procurement cycles, while continuing to support existing non-virtualized networks. Azure Space is building a platform to enable the industry to make this transition seamlessly.

ST Engineering iDirect

Last year, we announced our partnership with ST Engineering iDirect, one of the industry’s largest ground segment providers. And today, we are showing progress on that partnership by announcing the first demonstration of an iDirect high data-rate modem running fully virtualized as a piece of software on Azure. This innovation is an example of Azure Space approach to digital transformation for space: bringing what was custom hardware into software that runs on standardized cloud computers—enabling flexibility, elasticity, and cost reduction for satellite operators.

SES

Two years ago, we announced our partnership with SES to bring cloud innovation to the Space industry and to ensure that our customers will have access to Azure services regardless of where they are.

This expanded into our selection of SES as the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) network partner for Microsoft Azure orbital and co-locating ground stations of O3b mPOWER, SES’s second-generation MEO constellation, with Azure Cloud regions which will ensure customers one-hop and direct cloud access for secure and reliable delivery of Azure services and applications.

Today we’re announcing an expansion of that partnership through a new joint Satellite Communications Virtualization Program.  Through this program, Microsoft and SES will create the world’s first fully virtualized satellite communications ground network by focusing on software-defined hubs, customer edge terminals, new virtual network functions, edge cloud applications, and more. This virtualization will align cloud and satellite network architectures and enable 5G technology to be used in commercial satellite networks—bridging the gap between terrestrial and non-terrestrial connectivity networks. A virtualized architecture also allows for quicker standardization of system interfaces, which promotes more automation, API-based control, and cross-industry interoperability.

In the near term, this program will define and implement the pre-production architecture for a fully virtual SES ground station, which ultimately will serve as the blueprint for future fully virtualized ground station sites that bring the power of Azure to the Space ecosystem. For instance, a virtualized ground network will create a new paradigm where modem and antenna partners focus on developing software-defined networking technologies as opposed to hardware-centric offerings. This improves the velocity of ground system deployment and reconfiguration to match customer service needs. 

“To truly cloud-enable space networks, satellite ground networks need to be open and programmable. This is especially critical since the customer edge for satellite networks is often in remote locations or in industries such as aviation and government with stringent security and certification requirements so upgrading disparate, proprietary equipment is costly and slows the delivery of new value-added services. Together with Microsoft, we will virtualize all aspects of satellite ground networks with standard, open hardware, software-defined radios, virtualized network functions, and edge cloud applications that can be dynamically programmed to create a virtual ground network.”—John-Paul Hemingway, Chief Strategy and Product Officer of SES

Microsoft and SES will release a request for proposal (RFP) in the fourth quarter of this calendar year for the first cohort of program participants to seed this new, all-virtual ecosystem.

Conclusion

Azure Space democratizes access to and the power and capabilities of satellites to empower every organization on the planet to achieve more. These announcements are focused on what Azure and Microsoft do best—function as a platform for our customers and partners to unlock new business opportunities, empower our customers to digitally transform, and work closely with industry leaders to innovate. They forge what we aspire to enable—a future for the cloud where our customers combine the power of Azure with the possibilities of space.

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Working together on a resilient foundation for the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The world is now at the halfway point in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and it has never been more important to accelerate the move from pledges to progress. In fact, in the 2022 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Report, Secretary-General António Guterres cautioned that, with “cascading and interlinked global crises, the aspirations set out … are in jeopardy.”  The SDG financing gap was estimated at $2.5 trillion before Covid-19, with additional needs of $1 trillion for Covid-19 spending in developing countries.

As heads of state gather in New York for the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, they face several urgent global challenges. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – set forth when the 17 goals were adopted by UN member states in 2015 – remains a cohesive roadmap for action for the world. It establishes a common view of the urgent need to work together to improve the wellbeing of everyone, everywhere, and sustain our planet for the future. It also puts a spotlight on the role technology must play to create a more equitable world.

The 2030 Agenda recognized technology as a “means of implementation” for the SDGs, along with global partnerships that bring together “governments, civil society, the private sector, the United Nations system and other actors.” The Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation stated: “Of the SDG’s 17 goals and 169 targets, not a single one is detached from the implications and potential of digital technology.” Technology can be a positive force in transforming our world and people’s lives when it is developed and used in trusted, responsible and inclusive ways.

Microsoft has been committed to the SDGs from the beginning and remains steadfast in our efforts to making them a reality. This is consistent with our history of supporting and advancing the UN charter in line with our mission: to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We have engaged with UN agencies to help address virtually every SDG goal, including our work on connectivity, digital inclusion and humanitarian crises, and our participation in the UN Global Compact since 2006. Microsoft President Brad Smith reiterated the need for “partnering with governments, industries and civil society on the UN’s 17 SDGs” when he was appointed an SDG Advocate in 2021.

Our report Microsoft and the UN Sustainable Development Goals shares examples of how digital technology, innovation and partnerships are essential to advancing the SDGs. For example, we are partnering with UNICEF to further SDG 4 – “quality education” – via The Learning Passport, a digital platform created to address challenges in accessing quality education experienced by millions of children and youth in times of disruptions, such as war, crises and displacement. It is portable education, accessible online, offline and on mobile devices; the platform is now live in 26 countries. To support SDG 8 – “decent work and economic growth” – Microsoft launched a digital skilling initiative in June 2020 to lessen the impact of Covid-19 on workers worldwide; by the end of 2021, 42 million people have gained critical digital skills through the programs. We have also made bold commitments on SDG 13 – “climate action” – including working on the Carbon Call with ClimateWorks Foundation, UNEP and more than 20 other leading organizations to address the reliability and interoperability of carbon accounting for the planet.

But we must do more. Building on Microsoft’s 20-year history of working with the UN, a team was created in 2020 to deepen and expand the company’s commitment to the UN’s mission and its agencies, multilateral and regional institutions, development banks, governments, local communities and stakeholders. I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this team for Microsoft as Vice President of UN Affairs and International Organizations (UNIO). We aim to help address ongoing global challenges and advance the SDGs through responsible development, deployment and governance of digital technology. This UNIO team will focus on enabling realization of the SDGs and inclusive economic growth; encouraging evidence-based development of policy to facilitate digital transformation; and accelerating adoption of digital technologies in supporting the international systems and their missions.

The scale and complexity of the challenges the world faces today – pandemic recovery, food security and climate change – mandate that the world comes together in a multilateral effort to leverage our respective insights and derive innovative solutions. Throughout my career, I have engaged in multilateral work: from seeing Nelson Mandela, accompanied by Graca Machel, tell G7 finance ministers of the urgent need to act to support development in Africa in 2005, to my time as Dean of the Ambassadors at the OECD. I appreciate the value of multilateral processes – particularly when they are informed by multistakeholder insights that are driven by evidence and practical experience – and when they are centered on inclusive and sustainable economic development as clear outcomes.

Two issues are central in our work to help realize the SDGs: the critical importance of supporting progress in the least developed countries (LDCs), and the need to address issues at the intersection of technology and society.

The LDCs face unprecedented challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic: climate change, global recession, rising energy costs and food insecurity. At the same time, they need to drive inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery and growth. Alongside the important role of official development assistance for LDCs, private sector investment will be essential for these countries. We are stepping up our commitments to work with the UN to help expand its private sector reach and to identify innovative solutions to the most pressing problems with our co-chairing of the 5th UN Conference on LDCs Private Sector Forum in 2023. In the leadup to the meetings in Doha, we have worked with companies across a variety of sectors to outline the main challenges facing LDCs in connectivity, blended finance, skilling, multistakeholder partnerships and good governance, and provide recommendations on what is needed to drive increased private sector investments to further progress in the SDGs. In close partnership with Microsoft Tech for Social Impact colleagues, we’ll continue to deepen our work on the empowerment of UN organizations for a fit-for-purpose use of technology to solve big societal problems and advance the SDGs, while increasing our focus on digital development of LDCs.

Ensuring that digital technology can be a resilient foundation for enabling the SDGs will require that critical issues at the intersection of technology and society are addressed. Industry needs to work with governments, civil society, the technical community and other stakeholders so that together, we can create a trustworthy digital foundation that can lead to inclusive economic opportunity and protect fundamental human rights – and enable a more environmentally sustainable future. This is an important undertaking for our team – offering the UN, international organizations and governments a perspective on the role of digital technology in realizing the SDGs, while helping to enable policy frameworks that will promote responsible development and facilitate adoption of such technologies systemically.

For example, Microsoft participated in the launch of the UN and World Bank’s Joint Call to Action on the need for further data investments in April 2022. We highlighted the work of our data scientists in addressing global challenges, including mitigating the impact of the pandemic, solving environmental challenges and supporting disaster responses and other humanitarian crises. We also shared lessons from our open data collaborations and best practices to help close the “data divide.” We will continue to work with the UN and World Bank on their efforts to strengthen data systems and to improve the capabilities and policies of countries and organizations globally to produce, share and consume high-quality data responsibly, thus helping governments to enable measurement and realization of the SDGs.

We know that there is a real opportunity for organizations and governments to use digital technology responsibly to do more with less, and to make more effective and accountable use of scarce resources while building a more resilient foundation for the future. Microsoft looks forward to contributing to Secretary-General Guterres’ “booster shot for the Sustainable Development Goals” as mentioned in the UN’s Our Common Agenda talks and working with the UN and other international organizations to continue building a resilient foundation for realizing the SDGs and for continuing the realization of pledges into progress.

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Discord Voice now available for everyone on Xbox consoles

In July we announced that we were working with Discord to streamline your audio experience so that you can play with friends from all your gaming communities right from your Xbox. Starting today, Discord Voice is available on all Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles.

Discord Roster Final Image

With this update, you can now chat with anyone on Discord via voice channels or group calls directly from your console, making it easy to connect with friends across mobile, Xbox, and PC. This means that you will be able to see who is in the call and speaking while you are playing on your console. You’ll also be able to adjust the sound and switch between Discord Voice and Xbox game chat while you play all your favorite games.

To get started, head to the Discord mobile app and link your Discord account to your Xbox. You’ll need to do this step even if you’ve linked accounts before. After that, you can join any Discord voice channel or call and transfer it to your Xbox.

Thank you to all our Xbox Insiders who gave feedback to help shape the experience. Stay tuned – we’re excited to bring more Discord experiences to Xbox in the future!

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Podcast: Tackling the toughest challenges at the intersection of tech and society

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About

Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business and culture to explore the world’s most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

As a 30-year veteran of an industry driven by disruption, Brad Smith hosts candid conversations with his guests that examine, reframe and explore potential solutions to the digital issues shaping our world today, including cybersecurity, privacy, digital inclusion, environmental sustainability, artificial intelligence and human rights.

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After a devastating cyberattack, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians became one of the world’s most technologically advanced nations

On a narrow, twisting road in the Great Smoky Mountains, a young woman lost control of her small car in the middle of the night. Her Ford Fiesta careened off the pavement and smashed into a tree.

Despite wearing a seatbelt, the woman was severely injured by the impact and needed urgent help. She was only about 10 minutes from her home in the valley town below, Cherokee, North Carolina, where word of the crash soon reached paramedics.

But there was a big problem in Cherokee, capital of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), a federally recognized tribe of more than 16,000 members.

Hours earlier, a ransomware attack against the tribe’s IT infrastructure had knocked the EBCI network offline – including 911 dispatch and the geolocation system used by paramedics and police officers.

As a result, first responders from Cherokee were forced to spend an extra 18 minutes searching for the driver and her car. By the time they reached her, the woman had died from her injuries. She was 23.

US-441 in Cherokee, North Carolina
A cyberattack in 2019 knocked 911 dispatch offline, causing a delay in reaching a car accident on this highway.

“Would that person have survived (without the delay)? Perhaps. We don’t know,” recalls Richard Sneed, principal chief of the EBCI. “But the reality is, when there’s an emergency, every minute counts. And when you’re delayed 18 minutes, that’s somebody’s life.”

The attack on Dec. 7, 2019 was the result of vulnerabilities exploited by Russian cybercriminals to encrypt all tribal data. The hackers also left a text file in the victims’ computers, demanding that a ransom be paid to recover the data.

Digital forensics work led tribal police to arrest a former employee, who was alleged to have played a role in increasing those vulnerabilities. A jury later found him guilty of misusing tribal property, a felony. Prosecutors chose not to pursue other charges, including charges specifically related to the 911 outage. He served 454 days in jail.

Some justice was served but the breach inflicted a heavy price. In addition to slowing the search for the injured driver, the EBCI lost a library of irreplaceable Cherokee language audio and video files. Tribal members worked for eight months to fully restore all core services.

Ultimately, the EBCI’s cyber-insurance carrier paid the Russian cybercriminals several hundred thousand dollars in ransom to decrypt the data.

“It was surreal from start to finish,” Sneed says. “Very much like a movie script.”

Prior to the cyberattack, the EBCI had established a business relationship with Microsoft, but the tribe had implemented only Microsoft Outlook at that time.

The hack prompted EBCI leaders to reevaluate their entire IT infrastructure – two banks of on-premises servers. After several conversations with Microsoft, they moved their IT system to Microsoft Azure to fortify data security and better prevent future attacks.

To achieve that cloud migration – and start reestablishing 911 dispatch and other services – EBCI leaders invited Microsoft cloud solutions architect Elliot Huffman to work onsite at tribal headquarters in Cherokee. He arrived in March 2020.

“An absolutely beautiful place,” Huffman says. “It’s a bustling community with small shops and the best views.”

Museum of the Cherokee Indian
The EBCI’s move to the cloud will help preserve crucial pieces of tribal history and culture.

The foothills town in Western North Carolina inhabits traditional Cherokee homelands. Once part of the far larger Cherokee nation, the Eastern Band descended from about 800 Cherokee who resisted joining the Trail of Tears – forced federal displacements of some 60,000 indigenous peoples between 1830 and 1850.

Those EBCI ancestors remained on the original Cherokee homelands, hiding in the North Carolina forests and foothills. During the 1870s, they purchased that same stretch of land, which became known as the Qualla Boundary. Today, the EBCI homeland spans more than 50,000 acres.

The tribe is federally recognized as a sovereign nation with its own laws, elections and governing institutions. But the sophisticated cyberattack decimated that foundation, taking an entire nation offline in one night.

Immediately after the hack, EBCI leaders declared a state of emergency. They contacted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, part of the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the FBI and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation helped conduct a criminal investigation.

Still, months of work lay ahead to rebuild the tribe’s IT functions.

“When I got there,” Huffman recalls, “they were basically screaming for help: ‘We lost everything.’”

The hacker had encrypted every computer with a different key. Those keys were sent back to a command-and-control structure managed by the hacker’s counterparts in Russia. Simply put, the bad guys possessed a database listing of every machine, workstation and server on the EBCI network.

With that database, the criminals built a universal decryption tool, which could be used to reverse the effects of the attacks. After the ransom was paid, EBCI leaders received access to that decryption tool, then went machine by machine to retrieve most of their data.

But one irreversible loss involved the audio and video files of tribal members speaking the Cherokee language. The EBCI had invested 15 years collecting those recordings, which demonstrated the proper enunciation and inflection of Cherokee words, Sneed says.

“There is a way to speak the language and we’ve only got 160-some fluent speakers left,” Sneed says. “That data is lost and gone forever. It’s priceless. It carries a long-term cultural impact that I don’t think most people give thought to. It matters.”

Richard Sneed, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Richard Sneed, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The EBCI’s move to the cloud, Sneed says, will help preserve other crucial pieces of tribal history and culture.

In the spring of 2020, Huffman began working side by side with the tribe’s IT employees at the EBCI emergency operations center. They dug into system repairs and, soon, cloud migration.

“We scrambled to get everything together,” Huffman says.

Their immediate priorities: revive both 911 dispatch and the tribe’s financial system. Twice each year, every EBCI member receives a disbursement of several thousand dollars – an amount based on revenues from two tribally owned casinos. The cyberattack had delayed those per-capita payments.

Huffman logged about 10 to 12 hours each day on the restoration effort. At night, he stayed at a nearby hotel. Each weekend, he commuted home to South Carolina. During his stay, he learned selected Cherokee words, such as “Sgi,” which means “thank you.”

“We got their most critical things operating first. Then we started tackling other multiple workloads,” Huffman says.

One project was a full tech refresh on the workstations of EBCI government staffers. The tribe purchased $2.1 million worth of Microsoft Surface laptops for its employees and equipped each with Microsoft Teams. That enabled employees to work remotely and securely weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced social distancing.

“After Elliot arrived, we spent some time talking with him and, at that point, we decided we’re all in on the cloud,” recalls Bill Travitz, the tribe’s previous IT director who held the position at the time of the cyberattack. “Once we made that cloud decision, we never looked back.”

Members of the EBCI IT team.
The EBCI IT Rebuild Team, from left to right: Josh Oliver, Windall Toineeta, Rick Colcord, Doug Chase, Anthony Brown, Michael Lambert and Jeremy Brown.

Travitz, a 37-year IT veteran, is a true evangelist for zero trust architecture.

That set of principles is rooted in the doctrine that data security is not merely a perimeter defense but must be viewed in terms of people, services and the movement of data, Travitz says. Under the zero trust umbrella, data is always authenticated and authorized at all available data points, including user identity, location and device health.

In the spring of 2022, Travitz penned an article in TribalNet Magazine, titled “The Holy Grail of Modern Security,” reflecting on the EBCI’s zero trust journey in the Microsoft cloud ecosystem.

“Having zero trust is such a comfort,” Travitz says. “We know our security posture is modern. I’m not going to say we’ll never get hacked – that’s a fool’s errand. But in terms of the damage they could cause, it’s so limited in scope. Now I sleep better at night.”

With the tribe’s IT system hosted in Azure, and further secured by Microsoft Sentinel, which sees and helps stop threats before they cause harm, the EBCI tech team has “full visibility into who’s doing what, when and where,” Travitz says.

“There’s not a soul in that organization who would ever go back to the way it was,” he adds.

After the cloud migration, Travitz often received calls from IT leaders at other U.S. tribes. They asked how the EBCI achieved zero trust architecture. Travitz told them: “It was our partnership with Microsoft and Elliot being able to build those things out.”

Says Huffman: “They’re now one of the most technologically advanced sovereign nations and mature governments on the planet from the point of view of cybersecurity and cloud implementation.” He continues to work with the EBCI as needed.

Not long ago, Sneed took his first vacation in about six years, traveling to Mexico for some R&R. Along with some beachwear, the chief took along his laptop to monitor his work emails during the getaway.

But when he tried to read those correspondences, the tribe’s Azure-based IT system stopped him cold.

“At first, I was mad. But then I was like, ‘Hey, this is good.’ I was trying to log in from another country and it would not let me access the network, period. I understood the reason why,” Sneed says.

“This crisis laid bare all the areas we thought were secure, all the shortcomings. Many people probably thought, just like I had, that it would never happen to us.”

Photos by Madison Long.

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Sign documents in real time during Microsoft Teams meetings

With Microsoft Teams being the preferred platform for real-time collaboration, signing documents during meetings was a need to be covered. Teams Store has many integrations with e-signature providers and by offering them a ready to implement solution so their customers can sign documents during meeting was a common ask.

Teams Ecosystem Engineering developed a proof of concept so any ISV or customer can implement signing documents during meetings. This application will let the document owner select the document to sign and add it to a meeting. Depending on the role of the attendees (signers or viewers), users will be able to sign or see the document during the meeting. The authentication will be seamless since it’s using Teams SSO. Some common documents to be signed during meetings are purchase agreements, incoming invoices, or NDAs.

Signing-Clip.gif

The code is customizable so ISVs can select the type of signature the customer needs to use (manual signature, electronic signature or certificate-based signatures). Moreover, the POC can be customized for other scenarios like accepting changes in documents or in code reviews.

This is currently available in desktop client. Mobile and web clients are coming soon. In addition, this only works for users from the same organization or tenant with availability for guest and anonymous users coming soon.

Below is a list of useful resources to start using this proof of concept:

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Making elections more accessible — because every vote counts

According to data released earlier this month, an estimated 1.95 million people with disabilities had trouble voting in the 2020 election. Today marks the beginning of Disability Voting Rights Week 2022, an annual effort coordinated by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) to make sure disabled voters in every community across the country are registered, ready to vote and have access to the ballot. Additionally, it’s a day to engage with candidates and community leaders on issues impacting people with disabilities and to discuss better accessibility inclusion programs.

Today, the Microsoft Accessibility and Democracy Forward teams also celebrate the launch of the Center for Civic Designs’ Disability Voting Index. This new tool offers a single, centralized location that makes it easy to quickly search and understand accessibility options in all 50 states so that more people with disabilities can participate in the electoral process.

At Microsoft, this work is a direct result of listening to, and working closely with, disability communities to understand specific challenges and what was needed to garner greater civil society participation. We gauged the availability and accessibility of election information in all 50 states, plus DC, during an equitable Microsoft Global Hackathon by combing all 51 state election websites to see what information was available, how easy it was to find and if the website passed a basic accessibility check. What we found reflected what our partners in the community have been saying – information about accessible voting was very hard to find.

We are thrilled that the launch takes place during Disability Voting Rights Week. While nearly 62% of people with disabilities voted in 2020, up from 56% in 2016, finding accurate voting information can still be a challenging process for these populations. Currently, every state not only has different rules and options, searching for voting information can vary greatly based on terminology and location. Twenty-one states had info pages using the term “voters with disability,” 16 used “accessible voting” and 11 states had no dedicated page whatsoever. The Disability Voting Index is the first step to solving this problem.

Collectively, we plan to continue to update the site to expand its comprehensiveness and utility. Currently, it provides in-depth information describing the available resources for voting in each state. It also provides information on rights for a voter with a disability, vote by mail, in-person election day voting details, as well as, where applicable, descriptions of the types of voting machines in use (at one’s polling location) with links to instructional videos. We recognize that state laws affecting the 2024 general election are still changing, and we will continue to monitor and update the website as they are amended.

In the future, we’re hopeful this initiative continues to grow and provide the basis for evaluating not just what accessible options are available, but how well they serve their intended audiences. We also hope to enable quantitative and qualitative performance evaluations in order to spur innovation and more rapid adoption of effective techniques, analogous to the Elections Performance Index but with a focus on accessibility.

Join us in celebrating Disability Voting Rights Week as we continue to raise the disability voice and increase civic participation across the country in 2022 and beyond.

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Colorado district attorneys partner with Microsoft, others to expand access to data-driven insights

In the United States, some communities have very different experiences in their interactions with the justice system. There are policies, programs and practices within the criminal legal system that exacerbate racial inequities and disproportionately impact Black and African American communities.

At Microsoft, through our Justice Reform Initiative, we provide support to organizations using data and technology to develop alternatives to incarceration, accelerate the adoption of new models of public safety and expand access to data driven insights.

Today, Microsoft is partnering with the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI), a national effort led by researchers at Loyola University of Chicago and Florida International University, to expand access to data-driven insights via new, publicly available data dashboards created in partnership with Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver and Colorado district attorneys’ offices. In the spirit of promoting transparency, prosecutors worked together with researchers, and with input from their communities, to create the data dashboards that will enable community members to gain a better understanding of the work going on in their local office, including trends in cases filed and resolved over time, identify patterns in how individuals are treated and evaluate how they are addressing serious crime and protecting and serving victims.

Prosecutors hold significant decision-making power, and the public wants to know what their local prosecutors are doing, especially given the increasing scrutiny on prosecutors and ongoing concerns that disparities in charges and sentencing recommendations are often correlated to race, ethnicity or wealth. However, most district attorneys’ offices are not able to aggregate, review, interpret or share data publicly.

“The move to create prosecutorial data dashboards was sparked by public demand for greater accountability and impartiality, along with a focus on community well-being and fairness,” said Don Stemen, PhD, Loyola University Chicago professor and co-manager of the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) project. “Increasingly, prosecutors are expected to take proactive, engaged responses to community problems, reduce disparities in justice outcomes, build greater trust through community engagement and increase transparency and accountability. This requires robust data-driven prosecutorial work.”

“Transparency and easy public access to data are two items that can go a long way in nurturing trust and faith between prosecutors and the communities they serve,” said Jeremy Shaver, a spokesperson for Hate Free Colorado, a diverse group of community partners dedicated to countering hate crimes in Colorado. “We appreciate that the participating district attorneys’ offices held meetings with community leaders to learn what they want and expect out of this project. We look forward to how the dashboards may increase awareness on how prosecutorial decisions are made in Colorado.”

The collaboration between prosecutors, researchers and community members was a critical factor in ensuring these dashboards provide relevant and useful information for all stakeholders. Denver District Attorney Beth McCann says, “We are committed to transparency and embrace prevention-oriented approaches to public safety; approaches that are rooted in data and facts. By using our existing data, we can be smart on crime, think about new ways to maximize public safety, ensure fairness and create new systems of accountability to the public.”

Each dashboard also utilizes indicators to assess prosecutorial progress toward three goals: capacity and efficiency; community safety and well-being; and fairness and justice. Robust data is needed to identify and prioritize the possible actions at points of prosecutorial discretion to improve community safety, reduce disparities and ensure prosecutors are treating defendants and victims fairly. These dashboards are now available in eight judicial districts.

“There is a commitment in Colorado generally, and certainly among the judicial districts, to data-driven decision-making,” said Lauren Gase, PhD, senior researcher and project director for the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab. “The dashboards are a way to take the data from the case management system and make meaning of it, and display it in ways that support transparency and use within each office.”

With support from the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative, these data dashboards were created as part of the pilot phase of the Colorado Prosecutorial Dashboards project. This is the first statewide initiative for the PPI and is a collaborative effort between PPI, the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver and district attorneys’ offices across the state. The project was also supported by data stored and shared by the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council (CDAC). This project, which started with eight judicial districts, will next aim to expand to all judicial districts across Colorado.

I’m proud that Microsoft can contribute to this historic initiative and look forward to seeing how this work continues in the months and years ahead. This work is not easy, but it is necessary to ensure fundamental rights like access to justice are protected and equitable outcomes are guaranteed for all.

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Microsoft Advertising launches redesigned Smart Campaigns with new multi-platform feature

It’s become increasingly clear in the past few years how integral small and medium businesses (SMBs) are to the success of our global societies—and yet, we hear from you that being a small business today is harder than ever. In our always-on digital reality, SMBs need smarter solutions to grow their online presence and acquire new customers. And those solutions need to be easy to use, time-saving, cost-efficient, and reliable. Today, Microsoft Advertising is proud to announce that we’ve launched a newly redesigned Smart Campaigns experience with a new Multi-platform feature in the United States to make online advertising for small businesses easier, smarter, and better at helping you reach more customers across leading advertising and social media platforms.

New Smart Campaigns make getting started simpler and easier than ever

Time is money, right? We know that how you spend your time matters to the success of your business, so we’ve enhanced our Smart Campaigns to save you time and reduce the stress of promoting your business online. Smart Campaigns are a simple and efficient way for small businesses to get started with digital advertising and connect with relevant customers who are ready to engage with their business. It’s a streamlined and guided campaign experience to run ads on Microsoft Advertising, and optionally on other advertising platforms. From onboarding to optimizing your campaign, our support team is available through a prevalent chat experience across our site, and setting up ads is easier than ever with a simplified setup workflow. You can create your own ads or have us generate options for your review.

Optimization is key to the new Smart Campaigns experience. With your revenue growth in mind, we’ve refined the artificial intelligence (AI) built into the solution. This can help you easily optimize your campaigns to meet your goals while budgeting for a strong return on investment.

Extend and scale your reach with Multi-platform

Reaching new audiences and optimizing campaigns across many digital channels used to be hard, but we’re making it easier. Multi-platform, an all-in-one Microsoft Advertising feature now available in Smart Campaigns, is built to help you connect with customers across leading advertising and social media platforms.

Extend your reach at scale by running ads across any mix of Microsoft Advertising, Google, Facebook, and Instagram—all from one interface within the Microsoft Advertising platform. Not only do we provide a single place for the management and analytics of your campaigns across platforms, but we also bring the power of Microsoft AI, which automatically optimizes your budget for the best performance across all these platforms.

Text showing Well Life’s founder’s opinion about using Smart Campaigns

Well Life recently used the Multi-platform feature in Smart Campaigns to achieve growth and optimize campaigns easily. Read more about how Well Life used Microsoft Advertising tools for their success.

Smart Campaigns and Multi-platform can also help with your website or organic social media efforts. Build a brand-new website from scratch or generate one from your business’s Facebook page in seconds. And use our powerful social media management tools to schedule posts and respond to your customers across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from a single interface. The best part? These tools are free to use—you only pay for your ad spend!

Text showing Royal Apple’s Marketing Manager’s opinion about the Multi-platform feature

Royal Apple found efficiency in managing campaigns with the Multi-platform feature. Learn more about how Multi-platform helped Royal Apple reach new audiences and easily interact with their customers across platforms.

Simplify your marketing approach and grow your business with Smart Campaigns

  • New to Microsoft Advertising? Sign up here or connect with our team of specialists to get started.
  • Existing Microsoft Advertiser? We’ll give you the option to migrate to the new experience in the coming months. If you’d like to be considered for early access to Smart Campaigns, let us know here.
  • We also have a webcast on Smart Campaigns and the Multi-platform feature happening on September 20th. Register here to watch.

Stay informed

Sign up for the weekly Microsoft Advertising Insider newsletter to keep up with the latest insights, product news, tips and tricks, thought leadership, customer success stories, and more resources.

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Microsoft’s first Circular Center in Asia opens in Singapore, helping reduce electronic waste

Another step towards eliminating electronic waste and responding to the needs of our planet

Here at Microsoft, our unwavering commitment to sustainability continues with the opening of a new Circular Center in Singapore.

Microsoft’s Circular Centers enable us to reuse and repurpose decommissioned cloud computing hardware from our datacenters to find new life in schools, as resources for skills training programs, and much more.  The goal of our Circular Center program is to reuse 90 per cent of our cloud computing hardware assets by 2025.

The launch of our first Circular Center in Asia located in Singapore is an important milestone towards that goal, while also creating local employment opportunities.

Intelligently executing a zero-waste solution

The Microsoft Cloud is powered by millions of servers in hundreds of datacenters around the world, and demand for cloud services is growing exponentially.

At our Centers, decommissioned servers and other types of hardware can be repurposed or dissembled by our technicians, and the components and equipment moved on to another phase of life.

Our Intelligent Disposition and Routing System (IDARS) uses AI and machine learning to establish and execute a zero-waste plan for every piece of our decommissioned hardware, at scale.

IDARS also works to optimize routes for these hardware assets and provide Circular Center operators with instructions on how to dispose of each one.

YouTube Video

Collaborating to find new repurposing opportunities

The Circular Centers are transforming the sustainability credentials of our datacenters, but Microsoft hasn’t done it alone. We work closely with partners to find new opportunities for our end-of-life parts and equipment.

That has seen repurposed servers being donated to schools or used for job training.  Reclaimed memory cards have also been used by companies making electronic toys or computer games, to mention just a few examples.

While our new Singapore Center will produce ground-breaking environmental improvements, it will also create employment opportunities. At other Microsoft Centers around the globe, the processes used during repurposing have resulted in the creation of new jobs, including fresh job categories and many entry-level positions.

Contributing to positive climate action for Asia

In 2022, nations everywhere have been confronted with the need to accelerate their net zero ambitions. That includes Southeast Asia, where eight out of ten countries are already committed to net zero targets. But despite recent progress, a new study reveals that there is still a large emission gap of three gigatons to be closed by 2030 if the region is to meet its net zero goals.

The same study also  found that Asia is well positioned to address these challenges and capture the opportunities that come from managing climate risk effectively. It estimates, for example, that annual green economic opportunities worth USD$1 trillion by 2030 exist in Southeast Asia alone.

Singapore, with its strong government and private sector commitments and agile  policy environment, has already laid the foundations for creating an advanced recycling infrastructure that can help it take advantage of those opportunities.

The arrival of a Microsoft Circular Center in Singapore is in line with this approach. By re-using and repurposing components, our Center will help reduce waste and carbon emissions. In our pilot Circular Center in Amsterdam alone, Microsoft contributed to the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 145,000 tonnes CO2 equivalent.

Towards a more sustainable future for all

Microsoft’s first ever Circular Center opened in Amsterdam in 2020. Since inception, we achieved reuse and recycle of 83 per cent of all decommissioned assets and aim to reach 90 per cent by 2025.

Its success saw Microsoft being named the winner of the 2022 Gartner Power of the Profession Supply Chain Awards in the Social Impact of the Year category.

Since achieving this outstanding result, Microsoft has established further centers in Dublin, Ireland, and Virginia in the US.

Along with the Singapore Center, plans are now underway to expand the program in Washington, Chicago, Sydney and to other sites.

We’re exceptionally proud of these facilities. But we also know this is only the beginning.

We have been operating in Singapore and Asia for over 30 years and are present in 23 markets in Asia today. Through this tenure, we have become a go-to partner for Asia’s businesses, governments, partners, communities, and individuals.

The Singapore Circular Center is a further testament to our commitment to Asia’s future. We will continue to collaborate and co-innovate with our partners the world over, and power towards our global goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

Additional Video Content:

(External) Explainer: How circular centers will help Microsoft achieve zero waste by 2030 – YouTube

(External) We Live in the Cloud | Microsoft Story Labs