In the combined TechSpark region of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, manufacturing dominates the economy through assembly plants and low-wage jobs. The region’s distance from tech-rich cities and the global headquarters of companies that own the plants makes it tough for startups to claim a larger part of the massive manufacturing market.
But the Bridge Accelerator, a partnership between TechSpark and Technology HUB, a binational business incubator, is making inroads. More than 20 companies have gone through the program and learned how to think globally.
Ricardo Mora (photo courtesy of Mora)
“A lot of them are doing amazing work, but they’re only selling locally,” says Ricardo Mora, CEO of Technology HUB, which is based in both Juárez and El Paso. “We’re saying, ‘Listen guys, we’re going to train you, and you’re going to learn how to sell to global companies.’”
The region’s cross-border identity is a source of strength, with a young, largely Hispanic population of people who understand cultural differences, are often dual citizens and “want to make better opportunities for themselves every day,” says J.J. Childress, Microsoft TechSpark manager in El Paso.
“This is truly a binational effort,” he says of the Bridge Accelerator. “How do we create a soft landing for companies that want to access Latin American markets? How do we take the innovation from Mexican companies and give them access to North America?”
The training helped Rene Pons, an entrepreneur in Chihuahua, Mexico, meet a community of like-minded businesspeople and learn how to approach global companies.
“For a startup, a really huge problem is connecting with a big corporation and having them trust you,” says Pons, who co-founded PPAP Manager, maker of a digital solution that helps streamline automotive supply chains. He says establishing trust with global customers is even harder for companies in Mexico, which isn’t known for digital innovation.
“The Bridge Accelerator is opening the door to start conversations and getting an opportunity to be trusted,” Pons says.
Southern Virginia
South Boston, Virginia (photo by Brian Smale)
The tiny town of South Boston, Virginia, hasn’t seen new construction in nearly 40 years, so the rise of a new building where tobacco warehouses once stood is exciting news.
Even better is that it will house the SOVA Innovation Hub, a partnership between TechSpark and Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities, whose open-access fiber networks have provided broadband access to help bridge the digital divide in southern Virginia. The building will house the nonprofit’s headquarters, a Microsoft experience center and space to help digital skilling nonprofits. That’s good news for an economy built on manufacturing and still struggling with the loss of tobacco and textile industries.
“Job stability is very difficult. Internet access is difficult. There’s a tremendous amount of poverty,” says Paul Nichols, superintendent of Mecklenburg County Public Schools.
The majority of his students qualify for a free or reduced lunch, and while fiber networks have changed the commercial landscape, many residents still don’t have broadband.
Krystal Patton teaches programming and Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification courses in Mecklenburg County with the support of TEALS. (Photo courtesy of Paul Nichols)
“It’s like years ago when we had the same issue with electricity in rural areas,” Nichols says.
He’s looking forward to the economic investment and is grateful he’s been able to offer high school computer science classes with the support of Microsoft’s TEALS program. The classes help students think creatively to solve problems in all subjects, not just computer science.
“It’s challenged students to think and learn in a new way,” Nichols says. “With technology being foundational for all careers, we’re now looking at how to make computational thinking a part of all of our classes.”
Accenture and Microsoft’s unique partnership began in the year 2000, when the two companies co-founded Avanade to create a center of innovation for the Microsoft platform. Today, we truly believe there is no greater partnership in technology and consulting.
“It’s about bringing together the power of the Microsoft technology suite with Accenture’s industry know-how to really address the challenges our clients are facing,” says Emma McGuigan, Global Lead, Accenture Microsoft Business Group, “and all of that is powered by Avanade.”
Building on our longstanding strategic alliance to serve clients and deliver technology-based solutions, we are excited to share that Envision, Microsoft’s event for business leaders, has been reimagined as Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft present Envision, a digital broadcast series.
Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft present Envision is where business leaders can engage and learn from one another as they navigate change. This series will bring together thought leaders, industry executives, and members of our combined leadership team for in-depth discussions on the topics that are top-of-mind for business decision-makers today.
It is a challenging time right now for many organizations. As Avanade CEO Pamela Maynard recently put it, “There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has had both a devastating human impact while at the same time being a catalyst for change. Today, our clients are readying themselves for the new reality and looking to build organizational resilience and drive their growth.” If the past several months has taught us anything, it is that no business is 100% resilient, but those that are fortified with some digital capability are more resilient than others.
As companies look to respond, recover and reimagine their businesses for the future, there is no doubt that technology will be central to that effort. Envision is a chance for us to come together as leaders to talk about these challenges and share our own experiences in this period of rapid change.
Our first episode of Envision for business decision makers will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Register now at envision.event.microsoft.com. We look forward to connecting with you and having you as part of this conversation.
The role of the Windows PC and trust in technology are more important than ever as our devices keep us connected and productive across work and life. Windows 10 is the most secure version of Windows ever, built with end-to-end security for protection from the edge to the cloud all the way down to the hardware. Advancements like Windows Hello biometric facial recognition, built-in Microsoft Defender Antivirus, and firmware protections and advanced system capabilities like System Guard, Application Control for Windows and more have helped Microsoft keep pace with the evolving threat landscape.
While cloud-delivered protections and AI advancements to the Windows OS have made it increasingly more difficult and expensive for attackers, they are rapidly evolving, moving to new targets: the seams between hardware and software that can’t currently be reached or monitored for breaches. We have already taken steps to combat these sophisticated cybercriminals and nation state actors with our partners through innovations like secured-core PCs that offer advanced identity, OS, and hardware protection.
Today, Microsoft alongside our biggest silicon partners are announcing a new vision for Windows security to help ensure our customers are protected today and in the future. In collaboration with leading silicon partners AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., we are announcing the Microsoft Pluton security processor. This chip-to-cloud security technology, pioneered in Xbox and Azure Sphere, will bring even more security advancements to future Windows PCs and signals the beginning of a journey with ecosystem and OEM partners.
Our vision for the future of Windows PCs is security at the very core, built into the CPU, where hardware and software are tightly integrated in a unified approach designed to eliminate entire vectors of attack. This revolutionary security processor design will make it significantly more difficult for attackers to hide beneath the operating system, and improve our ability to guard against physical attacks, prevent the theft of credential and encryption keys, and provide the ability to recover from software bugs.
Pluton design redefines Windows security at the CPU
Today, the heart of operating system security on most PCs lives in a chip separate from the CPU, called the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The TPM is a hardware component which is used to help securely store keys and measurements that verify the integrity of the system. TPMs have been supported in Windows for more than 10 years and power many critical technologies such as Windows Hello and BitLocker. Given the effectiveness of the TPM at performing critical security tasks, attackers have begun to innovate ways to attack it, particularly in situations where an attacker can steal or temporarily gain physical access to a PC. These sophisticated attack techniques target the communication channel between the CPU and TPM, which is typically a bus interface. This bus interface provides the ability to share information between the main CPU and security processor, but it also provides an opportunity for attackers to steal or modify information in-transit using a physical attack.
The Pluton design removes the potential for that communication channel to be attacked by building security directly into the CPU. Windows PCs using the Pluton architecture will first emulate a TPM that works with the existing TPM specifications and APIs, which will allow customers to immediately benefit from enhanced security for Windows features that rely on TPMs like BitLocker and System Guard. Windows devices with Pluton will use the Pluton security processor to protect credentials, user identities, encryption keys, and personal data. None of this information can be removed from Pluton even if an attacker has installed malware or has complete physical possession of the PC.
This is accomplished by storing sensitive data like encryption keys securely within the Pluton processor, which is isolated from the rest of the system, helping to ensure that emerging attack techniques, like speculative execution, cannot access key material. Pluton also provides the unique Secure Hardware Cryptography Key (SHACK) technology that helps ensure keys are never exposed outside of the protected hardware, even to the Pluton firmware itself, providing an unprecedented level of security for Windows customers.
The Pluton security processor complements work Microsoft has done with the community, including Project Cerberus, by providing a secure identity for the CPU that can be attested by Cerberus, thus enhancing the security of the overall platform.
One of the other major security problems solved by Pluton is keeping the system firmware up to date across the entire PC ecosystem. Today customers receive updates to their security firmware from a variety of different sources than can be difficult to manage, resulting in widespread patching issues. Pluton provides a flexible, updateable platform for running firmware that implements end-to-end security functionality authored, maintained, and updated by Microsoft. Pluton for Windows computers will be integrated with the Windows Update process in the same way that the Azure Sphere Security Service connects to IoT devices.
The fusion of Microsoft’s OS security improvements, innovations like secured-core PCs and Azure Sphere, and hardware innovation from our silicon partners provides the capability for Microsoft to protect against sophisticated attacks across Windows PCs, the Azure cloud, and Azure intelligent edge devices.
Innovating with our partners to enhance chip-to-cloud security
The PC owes its success largely to an immensely vibrant ecosystem with OS, silicon, and OEM partners all working together to solve tough problems through collaborative innovation. This was demonstrated over 10 years ago with the successful introduction of the TPM, the first broadly available hardware root of trust. Since that milestone, Microsoft and partners have continued to collaborate on next generation security technologies that take full advantage of the latest OS and silicon innovations to solve the most challenging problems in security. This better together approach is how we intend to make the PC ecosystem the most secure available.
The Microsoft Pluton design technology incorporates all of the learnings from delivering hardware root-of-trust-enabled devices to hundreds of millions of PCs. The Pluton design was introduced as part of the integrated hardware and OS security capabilities in the Xbox One console released in 2013 by Microsoft in partnership with AMD and also within Azure Sphere. The introduction of Microsoft’s IP technology directly into the CPU silicon helped guard against physical attacks, prevent the discovery of keys, and provide the ability to recover from software bugs.
With the effectiveness of the initial Pluton design we’ve learned a lot about how to use hardware to mitigate a range of physical attacks. Now, we are taking what we learned from this to deliver on a chip-to-cloud security vision to bring even more security innovation to the future of Windows PCs (more details in this talk from Microsoft BlueHat). Azure Sphere leveraged a similar security approach to become the first IoT product to meet the “Seven properties of highly secure devices.”
The shared Pluton root-of-trust technology will maximize the health and security of the entire Windows PC ecosystem by leveraging the security expertise and technologies from the companies involved. The Pluton security processor will provide next generation hardware security protection to Windows PCs through future chips from AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm Technologies.
“At AMD, security is our top priority and we are proud to have been at the forefront of hardware security platform design to support features that help safeguard users from the most sophisticated attacks. As a part of that vigilance, AMD and Microsoft have been closely partnering to develop and continuously improve processor-based security solutions, beginning with the Xbox One console and now in the PC. We design and build our products with security in mind and bringing Microsoft’s Pluton technology to the chip level will enhance the already strong security capabilities of our processors.” – Jason Thomas, head of product security, AMD
“Intel continues to partner with Microsoft to advance the security of Windows PC platforms. The introduction of Microsoft Pluton into future Intel CPUs will further enable integration between Intel hardware and the Windows operating system.” – Mike Nordquist, Sr. Director, Commercial Client Security, Intel
“Qualcomm Technologies is pleased to continue its work with Microsoft to help make a slew of devices and use cases more secure. We believe an on-die, hardware-based Root-of-Trust like the Microsoft Pluton is an important component in securing multiple use cases and the devices enabling them.” – Asaf Shen, senior director of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
We believe that processors with built-in security like Pluton are the future of computing hardware. With Pluton, our vision is to provide a more secure foundation for the intelligent edge and the intelligent cloud by extending this level of built-in trust to devices, and things everywhere.
Our work with the community helps Microsoft continuously innovate and enhance security at every layer. We’re excited to make this revolutionary security design a reality with the biggest names in the silicon industry as we continuously work to enhance security for all.
Coinciding with this week’s Kubecon and Open Azure Day virtual events, today we’re announcing the general availability of Azure Hybrid Benefit functionality for Linux customers, allowing you to bring both your on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses, as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) subscriptions to Azure.
During the preview period, over 1,500 Linux virtual machines have already been migrated to Azure using the new Azure Hybrid Benefit capabilities, helping to significantly reduce the costs of running enterprise Linux workloads in Azure.
While previous Bring-Your-Own-Subscription cloud migration options available to Red Hat and SUSE customers allowed them to use their pre-existing RHEL and SLES subscriptions in the cloud, Azure Hybrid Benefit improves upon this with several capabilities that are unique to Azure and makes enterprise Linux cloud migration even easier than before:
Applies to all Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server pay-as-you-go images available in the Azure Marketplace or Azure Portal. You don’t need to provide your own image.
Save time with seamless post-deployment conversions—there’s no need for production redeployment. You can simply convert the pay-as-you-go images you used during your proof of concept testing to bring-your-own-subscription billing.
Lower your ongoing operational costs with automatic image maintenance, updates, and patches—Microsoft maintains the converted RHEL and SLES images for you.
Enjoy the convenience of unified user interface integration with the Azure CLI, providing the same UI as other Azure virtual machines, as well as scalable batch conversions.
Get co-located technical support from Azure, Red Hat, and SUSE with just one ticket.
Combine with recently announced Red Hat and SUSE support for Azure shared disks to lift-and-shift failover clusters and parallel file systems—like Global File System.
Fully compatible with Azure Arc, providing end-to-end hybrid cloud operations management for your Windows, RHEL, and SLES servers in one solution.
“We’re pleased to have worked closely with Microsoft to bring Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Azure Hybrid Benefit,” said Gunnar Hellekson, senior director, Product Management, Red Hat Enterprise Linux at Red Hat. “Giving customers more, and easier, choices as to where and how they run the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform and the foundation for our hybrid cloud portfolio is especially beneficial today, as organizations evolve digital transformation initiatives in response to dynamic global conditions.”
“Azure Hybrid Benefit for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will give our joint customers improved flexibility and ease of use when running SUSE Linux on Azure,” said Rachel Cassidy, SVP Global Channel & Cloud at SUSE. “Whether used with mission-critical workloads like SAP on SUSE Linux, or high-performance computing, Azure Hybrid Benefit for SUSE Linux will help customers simplify, modernize and accelerate their infrastructure and make running SUSE Linux on Azure more cost-effective than ever.”
To see a demonstration of Azure Hybrid Benefit and how it works for Red Hat and SUSE, check out this video:
Learn more about Azure Hybrid Benefit. For additional information about how Azure Hybrid Benefit applies for Linux, you can read more here.
When Microsoft announced its plan to build an underwater datacenter, Lathish Kumar Chaparala was excited.
“During the initial rollout of Project Natick, I used to log on to their website and watch the live feed of the underwater camera that was mounted on the datacenter,” says Chaparala, a senior program manager on the networking team in Core Services Engineering and Operations (CSEO), the engineering organization at Microsoft that builds and manages the products, processes, and services that Microsoft runs on.
Little did he know that he and his team would later be brought in to extend the network connectivity of this underwater datacenter so it could be safely fished out of the sea.
But the story begins much earlier than that.
We saw the potential benefit [of developing an underwater datacenter] to the industry and Microsoft. People responded to our work as if we were going to the moon. In our eyes, we were just fulfilling our charter—taking on challenging problems and coming up with a solution.
– Mike Shepperd, senior research and development engineer on the Microsoft Research team
The idea of an underwater datacenter came out of ThinkWeek, a Microsoft event where employees shared out-of-the-box ideas that they thought the company should pursue. One creative idea was put forth by employee Sean James, who proposed building an underwater datacenter powered by renewable ocean energy that would provide super-fast cloud services to crowded coastal populations.
His idea appealed to Norm Whitaker, who led special projects for Microsoft Research at the time.
Shepperd (right) and Samuel Ogden test the underwater datacenter from the power substation where the datacenter connects to land, just off the coast of the Orkney Islands. (Photo by Scott Eklund | Red Box Pictures)
“Norm’s team was responsible for making the impossible possible, so he started exploring the viability of an underwater datacenter that could be powered by renewable energy,” says Mike Shepperd, a senior research and development engineer on the Microsoft Research team who was brought on to support research on the feasibility of underwater datacenters.
It quickly became a Microsoft-wide effort that spanned engineering, research, and IT.
“We saw the potential benefit to the industry and Microsoft,” Shepperd says. “People responded to our work as if we were going to the moon. In our eyes, we were just fulfilling our charter—taking on challenging problems and coming up with solutions.”
Researchers on the project hypothesized that having a sealed container on the ocean floor with a low-humidity nitrogen environment and cold, stable temperatures would better protect the servers and increase reliability.
“Once you’re down 20 to 30 meters into the water, you’re out of the weather,” Shepperd says. “You could have a hurricane raging above you, and an underwater datacenter will be none the wiser.”
The Project Natick team partnered with networking and security teams in CSEO and Arista to create a secure wide-area network (WAN) connection from the underwater datacenter to the corporate network.
“We needed the connectivity that they provided to finish off our project in the right way,” Shepperd says. “We also needed that connectivity to support the actual decommissioning process, which was very challenging because we had deployed the datacenter in such a remote location.”
In the spring of 2018, they deployed a fully connected and secure datacenter 117 feet below sea level in the Orkney Islands, just off the coast of Scotland. After it was designed, set up, and gently lowered onto the seabed, the goal was to leave it untouched for two years. Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in CSEO, supported these efforts.
Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in CSEO, and his team came up with a network redesign to extend the network connectivity of the underwater datacenter. (Photo submitted by Chakri Thammineni | Showcase)
“Project Natick was my first engagement after I joined Microsoft, and it was a great opportunity to collaborate with many folks to come up with a network solution,” Thammineni says.
Earlier this year, the experiment concluded without interruption. And yes, the team learned that placing a datacenter underwater is indeed a more sustainable and efficient way to bring the cloud to coastal areas, providing better datacenter responsiveness.
With the experiment ending, the team needed to recover the datacenter so it could analyze all the data collected during its time underwater.
That’s where Microsoft’s internal engineering teams came in.
“To make sure we didn’t lose any data, we needed to keep the datacenter connected to Microsoft’s corporate network during our extraction,” Shepperd says. “We accomplished this with a leased line dedicated to our use, one that we used to connect the datacenter with our Microsoft facility in London.”
The extraction also had to be timed just right for the same reasons.
“The seas in Orkney throw up waves that can be as much as 9 to 10 meters high for most of the year,” he says. “The team chose this location because of the extreme conditions, reasoning it was a good place to demonstrate the ability to deploy Natick datacenters just about anywhere.”
And then, like it has for so many other projects, COVID-19 forced the team to change its plans. In the process of coming up with a new datacenter recovery plan, the team realized that the corporate connectivity was being shut down at the end of May 2020 and couldn’t be extended.
“Ordering the gear would’ve taken two to three months, and we were on a much shorter timeline,” Chaparala says.
Shepperd called on the team in Core Platform Engineering, a division of CSEO, to quickly remodel the corporate connectivity from the Microsoft London facility to the Natick shore area, all while ensuring that the connection was secured.
The mission?
Ensure that servers were online until the datacenter could be retrieved from the water, all without additional hardware.
Lathish Kumar Chaparala, a senior program manager on the networking team in Core Services Engineering and Operations, helped extend network connectivity of Microsoft’s underwater datacenter so it could be safely retrieved from the sea. (Photo submitted by Lathish Kumar Chaparala | Showcase)
“My role was to make sure I understood the criticality of the request in terms of timeline, and to pull in the teams and expertise needed to keep the datacenter online until it was safely pulled out of the water,” Chaparala says.
The stakes were high, especially with the research that was on the line.
“If we lost connectivity and shut down the datacenter, it could have compromised the viability of the research we had done up until that point,” Shepperd says.
A seamless collaboration across Microsoft Research and IT
To solve this problem, the teams in Core Platform Engineering and Microsoft Research had to align their vision and workflows.
“Teams in IT might plan their work out for months or years in advance,” Shepperd says. “Our research is on a different timeline because we don’t know where technology will take us, so we needed to work together, and fast.”
Because they couldn’t bring any hardware to the datacenter site, Chaparala, Thammineni, and the Microsoft Research team needed to come up with a network redesign. This led to the implementation of software-based encryption using a virtual network operating system on Windows virtual machines.
It’s exciting to play a role in bringing the right engineers and program managers together for a common goal, especially so quickly. Once we had the right team, we knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle.
– Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in Core Services Engineering and Operations
With this solution in tow, the team could extend the network connectivity from the Microsoft Docklands facility in London to the Natick datacenter off the coast of Scotland.
“Chakri and Lathish have consistently engaged with us to fill the gaps between what our research team knew and what these networking experts at Microsoft needed in order to take action on the needs of this project,” Shepperd says. “Without help from their teams, we would not have been able to deliver on our research goals as quickly and efficiently as we did.”
Lessons learned from the world’s second underwater datacenter
“Whether a datacenter is on land or in water, the size and scale of Project Natick is a viable blueprint for datacenters of the future,” Shepperd says. “Instead of putting down acres of land for datacenters, our customers and competitors are all looking for ways to power their compute and to house storage in a more sustainable way.”
This experience taught Chaparala to assess the needs of his partner teams.
“We work with customers to understand their requirements and come up with objectives and key results that align,” Chaparala says.
Ultimately, Project Natick’s story is one of cross-disciplinary collaboration – and just in the nick of time.
“It’s exciting to play a role in bringing the right engineers and program managers together for a common goal, especially so quickly,” Chaparala says. “Once we had the right team, we knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle.”
Earlier this year, two journalists from Nigeria, Kelechukwu Iruoma and Ruth Olurounbi, teamed up to explore and document the impact of oil contamination on communities in the Niger Delta where millions of barrels of oil had spilled decades ago.
Their investigation revealed that oil spills in the region of Ogoniland, home to more than 850,000 people, continued to have negative and dangerous health effects on the Ogoni people, some of the oldest settlers in the area who rely on farming and fishing for their livelihoods.
Today, their work has led to a commitment by government to provide safe drinking water to the townships affected by oil contamination – which studies have previously linked to cancer, childhood malnutrition and low fertility – resulting in the poisoning of their water.
The journalists visited four communities where wells were contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen at levels over 900 times above the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline. They engaged local leaders to enlist 50 non-smoking, non-alcohol-drinking residents to give blood samples, which the reporters brought to a lab in Lagos for evaluation. Lab testing conducted by health professionals working with Iruoma and Olurounbi reported that more than half of the residents who gave blood samples had dangerously high levels of an enzyme that is a marker for liver damage.
While the land and water vital to the support systems of those who live there are contaminated by the oil spills, moving elsewhere is not an option for many. “In our culture, land is very important to us. And, if you are left a piece of land […] you are left something very dear. You are left a legacy and you don’t move away from that,” says Olurounbi. “But every year harvesting there is less and less to harvest because the land will not reproduce.”
This is why restoration of the area is crucial to the lives of those who call Ogoniland home. However, government’s promise to hire contractors to provide potable water has come nearly a decade after a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report called on the Nigerian government and oil companies to share the cost of extensive restoration of the area.
“The speed of the clean-up has been so slow that the desired results will not be achieved,” an environmental scientist and Ogoniland resident told Iruoma and Olurounbi. “This is what the people have been living with all through their lives. This is suicide.”
Restoration is vital to supporting the betterment of public health in the region which has been devastated by multiple oil spills.
In their investigation, the two journalists leveraged technologies such as drones to show the extent of environmental wreckage in the area, and interviewed residents, leaders and local scientists. Olurounbi and Iruoma received an ICFJ Alumni Reporting Grant which included $7,500 plus hands-on training in using drones, capturing still and video photography of the contaminated areas, and creating infographics. The funds from the grant were used to pay for the blood tests and travel to the region.
“We have pictures and videos that show the contaminated soil and rivers. Rivers where people fish or where they go to take water, even now,” Iruoma says. “We used the drone photos and video to show clearly how the oil spill affected the livelihood of the people.”
Backed by Microsoft’s News Labs, the grants were created to support data journalism and immersive storytelling in ways that promote transparency and understanding.
Applications were open to alumni of previous ICFJ programs. Iruoma participated in ICFJ’s Reporting Fellowship on Migration and Climate for Nigerian Journalists in 2017. Olurounbi is a member of the Nigerian chapter of WanaData, a network of female journalists developed by ICFJ and Code for Africa that is driving digital storytelling across the continent.
This story has been shortlisted in the Excellence in Environmental Journalism category of the Fetisov Journalism awards, the most lucrative journalism awards in history. The winning list will be selected by December 1, 2020.
Over the past year, the pandemic has dramatically changed the way we live and work. Organizations around the world adopted tools like Microsoft Teams to support working-from-home and hybrid work. Today, over 115 million people use Teams every day. And while video conferencing was a key driver for Teams rapid growth and adoption, our customers quickly realized the need to digitally transform beyond meetings to support a new way of work. They want to integrate apps and business processes into where work happens—to better serve customers, streamline work, and improve employee productivity and wellbeing.
Teams is designed to enable this new way of working. It is the only platform that brings together chat, meetings, calling, file collaboration, and apps you need, all in one place. You can easily customize Teams with apps to fit your specific needs—whether that’s adding apps from the Teams app store, or creating custom line of business apps, workflows, or bots to use in Teams.
Today, we’re announcing new Teams apps that will make your everyday work more seamless.
New apps to make your meetings more productive and engaging
While all teams need a place to communicate and collaborate to move work forward, every team does it differently. That’s why you can customize Teams with apps you can bring into for chat, channels, and now, meetings. We are excited to announce the availability of Teams apps for meetings along with nearly 20 new Teams apps for meetings in the Teams app store, such as Asana, HireVue, Monday.com, Slido, and Teamflect, as well as familiar Microsoft apps such as Forms. If you’re a developer, learn more about creating Teams apps for meetings.
For example, many customers use Asana in Teams chat and channels to manage projects and track tasks. Now, you can add the Asana app into your Teams meeting invite so that during a meeting, you can easily create new action items. After the meeting, everyone can see the action items in the project plan and start working through them.
Another great tool that customers can use in their meetings is Slido, With Slido, you can use to plan and conduct live polls, quizzes, and Q&As in the Teams meetings experience without having to toggle back and forth between the app and the meeting.
These new apps for meetings join the more than 700 Teams apps already available in the Teams App Store that our customers use every day. For example, DevOps teams use apps like Jira Cloud and GitHub to build, test and release software directly in Teams. HR and Finance teams use market leading apps like Workday and Adobe Sign to streamline common workflows in Teams. And customer service and support teams use ServiceNow to respond to and manage support requests in Teams.
In fact, this month the Now Virtual Agent app by ServiceNow will feature new capabilities that will help improve employee productivity with seamless self-service and faster case resolution, allowing employees to submit support requests, view open ticket approvals, take action on notifications, chat with virtual agents for automated assistance, and streamline communication between agents and employees—all while staying in the flow of work in Teams.
Build and integrate custom apps into your digital workspace
Adding apps from the Teams App Store is just one way to customize how you work, but every organization has processes and ways of working that are unique to them, and often require custom solutions.
Teams is an extensible platform with a broad set of capabilities and entry points, so you can also easily create custom apps to fit your organization’s needs. For example, EPIC Systems, a global healthcare software company, recently built a connector that will allow clinicians and patients to schedule and launch virtual visits in Teams from within patient and provider portals – increasing access to vital services during a challenging time.
To build these custom apps, partners and developers use our professional grade developer tools like the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, which provide developers everything they need to jump start Teams app development. We’ve made great advancements in these toolkits since their debut at Build earlier this year and will continue doing so, ensuring developers have a frictionless experience building Teams apps. Learn how to get started with these tools.
Thousands of organizations rely on enterprise apps built on SharePoint, so we’ve made significant strides in integrating Teams app development with the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), our largest and fastest growing UX extensibility model in Microsoft 365. By building Teams apps using SPFx, IT can save costs on hosting infrastructure and simplify the deployment and operation process – while SharePoint developers can expand the breadth and use of their apps using the framework they know and love. Learn how to get started building Teams apps with SPFx.
Drive agility with low code apps, workflows, and chatbots in Teams
Many of our customers are looking to digitally transform the workplace, but do not have enough developer capacity or time to build fully custom apps. For these customers, we’ve brought together the Microsoft Power Platform and Teams. Microsoft Power Platform provides low code tools to build apps, workflows, and chatbots, as well as deploy and manage them—all without leaving Teams.
We are excited to announce that the new Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents apps for Teams are now generally available.
Power Apps forTeams allows users to build and manage low code apps right within Teams. With an approachable user experience, anyone can now build apps to simplify work.
Power Automate app for Teams contains a simplified workflow designer and a number of templates to help anyone get started automating routine tasks.
Power Virtual Agents app for Teams makes it easy to build and deploy bots to support a range of scenarios, like IT helpdesk, operations FAQs, and HR issue resolution.
And with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams, a low code data platform that is also generally available today, you now have what is needed to easily build and deploy apps and chatbots in Teams. Dataverse will also improve application lifecycle management and allow greater control over the data you use to build your apps, bots, and workflows in Teams.
Teams customers are using Power Platform to create low-code solutions to simplify work. For example, Lumen Technologies used Power Apps in Teams to build apps that improve HR processes and help file technicians respond to outages faster. Office Depot built Power Apps with Teams to help improve payroll management for their store associates and is building a community of apps and workflows to further improve business processes and keep employees in the flow of work.
As you can see, Teams makes it easy to customize your workspace – whether that’s adding SaaS apps from the Teams app store, or creating custom apps, workflows, or bots to use in Teams.
We are humbled by the fact that Teams is used by millions of people around the world every day. Teams enables a new way of work, and our Teams apps integrations make work even easier.
Using supercomputing and new tools for understanding quantum algorithms in advance of scaled hardware gives us a view of what may be possible in a future with scaled quantum computing. Microsoft’s new Quantum Intermediate Representation (QIR), designed to bridge different languages and different target quantum computation platforms, is bringing us closer to that goal. Several Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories are using this Microsoft technology in their research at the new National Quantum Initiative (NQI) quantum research centers.
As quantum computing capabilities mature, we expect most large-scale quantum applications will take full advantage of both classical and quantum computing resources working together. QIR provides a vital bridge between these two worlds by providing full capabilities for describing rich classical computation fully integrated with quantum computation.
QIR is central to a new collaboration between Microsoft and DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) born out of NQI’s Quantum Science Center (QSC) led by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The goal of the PNNL project is to measure the impact of noisy qubits on the accuracy of quantum algorithms, specifically the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE). In order to run it in simulation on the supercomputer, they needed a language to write the algorithm, and another representation to map it to run on the supercomputer. PNNL used Microsoft’s Q# language to write the VQE algorithm and then QIR provides the bridge, allowing easy translation and mapping to the supercomputer for the simulation.
Q# and QIR are also helping to advance research at ORNL, which is accelerating progress by enabling the use of the Q# language for all QSC members, including four national labs, three industry partners, and nine universities. ORNL is integrating Q# and QIR into its existing quantum computing framework, so ORNL researchers can run Q# code on a wide variety of targets including both supercomputer-based simulators and actual hardware devices. Supporting Q# is important to ORNL’s efforts to encourage experimentation with quantum programming in high-level languages.
The ORNL team is using QIR to develop quantum optimizations that work for multiple quantum programming languages. Having a shared intermediate representation allows the team to write optimizations and transformations that are independent of the original programming language. ORNL chose to use QIR because, being based on the popular LLVM suite, it integrates seamlessly with ORNL’s existing platform and provides a common platform that can support all of the different quantum and hybrid quantum/classical programming paradigms.
Since QIR is based on the open source LLVM intermediate language, it will enable the development of a broad ecosystem of software tools around the Q# language. The community can use QIR to experiment and develop optimizations and code transformations that will be crucial for unlocking quantum computing.
Microsoft technology is playing a crucial role in DOE’s NQI initiative connecting experts in industry, national labs, and academia to accelerate our nation’s progress towards a future with scaled quantum computing.
Learn more about the latest developments in quantum computing from Microsoft and our QSC national lab partner PNNL in these virtual SC20 conference sessions.
Complex quantum programs will require programming frameworks with many of the same features as classical software development, including tools to visualize the behavior of programs and diagnose issues. The Microsoft Quantum team presents new visualization tools being added to the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit (QDK) for visualizing the execution flow of a quantum program at each step during its execution. These tools are valuable for experienced developers and researchers as well as students and newcomers to the field who want to explore and understand quantum algorithms interactively.
Dr. Krysta Svore, Microsoft’s General Manager of Quantum Systems and Software, is on this year’s exotic system panel. The SC20 panel will discuss predictions from past year sessions, what actually happened, and predict what will be available for computing systems in 2025, 2030 and 2035.
As quantum computers evolve, simulations of quantum programs on classical computers will be essential in validating quantum algorithms, understanding the effect of system noise and designing applications for future quantum computers. In this paper, PNNL researchers first propose a new multi-GPU programming methodology which constructs a virtual BSP machine on top of modern multi-GPU platforms, and apply this methodology to build a multi-GPU density matrix quantum simulator. Their simulator is more than 10x faster than a corresponding state-vector quantum simulator on various platforms.
Enjoy game night online Puzzles. Word games. Card games. Board games. Games of all types are a hallmark of the holidays. Since gathering the whole group around a living or dining room table may be out of the question this year, it’s time to get creative. Discover new ideas with some of the best online games to play remotely like Sea of Thieves, Roblox, and Minecraft.
Kick off an adventure with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Board games are fun, but maybe video games are more your style. You can get together with family or friends across distances using Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Play directly on your PC, console, and Android mobile devices from the cloud (beta), and hunt for lost treasure, defend against alien invasions, race supercars, and more. There are hundreds of games waiting to be played and more are added all the time.
And if you need to make sure “one more hour” of Minecraft really means one more hour, you can set screen time limits that work across devices, apps, and games with Microsoft Family Safety.
Watch a movie together
Holiday movie classics. Comedies. Action adventures. Sometimes the fun of watching a movie is talking about it with your friends afterwards. You might not be going to movie theaters this holiday, but you can still enjoy a movie together using the new Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party) extension on Microsoft Edge.
This extension works with your favorite streaming services including Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO GO, Disney+, Netflix, and more. Use it to sync video playback with your group so you can discuss and react together in a chat—no matter how far away they live.
And, through our partnership with Netflix, Microsoft Edge is currently the only browser that delivers 4K UHD video streaming. Teleparty is available on the Microsoft Edge add-ons site. Download and install Teleparty now to host your next virtual viewing party.
Build your own laptop
Yes, you read that correctly. Keep your child(ren) busy by having them build their own powerful computer.
The Kano PC comes disassembled with a set of simple instructions, so your kids can learn to build it themselves. You’ll inspire them to learn how computers work, plus they’ll come away with a powerful 2-in-1 laptop they can use for class or for fun. Along the way, they’ll also gain skills in coding, design, 3D modeling, and more.
Learn something new
If you’ve been meaning to learn a new skill, another language, or how to play an instrument, go ahead and make that happen now. Just choose what you want to learn from home with these handy apps.
If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription or have been meaning to get one, don’t forget to make use of the great additional benefits from our partners that are available with your subscription, such as:
CreativeLive: Want to learn how to play guitar, take great family photos, or learn skills you can add to your résumé? Explore over 300 hours of classes ranging from photography and music to business, design and more.
Blinkist: Learn anytime, anywhere with fast 15-minute audio bits from over 4,000 top nonfiction titles.
While you might not be able to gather with everyone you want in person this year, you can still stay connected through online games, video games, and virtual movie nights. And if you want more “me time,” you can choose to use the time to learn new skills or listen to an acclaimed nonfiction book. Whatever mindfulness or connection you seek, there are many creative ways to find it this holiday season.
Online fraud, hate speech, discrimination and other divisive online risks are on the rise globally, according to results of a new Microsoft study. We’re releasing these findings in conjunction with World Kindness Day in an effort to turn that tide and encourage safer, more empathetic and tolerant online interactions among all people.
Some 31% of respondents in 32 countries1 say they’ve been exposed to hoaxes, scams and fraud online, up two percentage points from last year, and up three percentage points since the fraud risk was first included in this study in 2017. Meanwhile, one in five respondents (20%) say they’ve been the target of hate speech online, and 15% say they’ve experienced discrimination. These latter two risks are up four and five percentage points, respectively, since the survey began in 2016. All three risks are at their highest levels on record for this research.
Strangers and people whom respondents say they know online only continue to be the primary sources of digital risk – a theme that has prevailed since 2016. In fact, anonymous bullying-type behaviors jumped in this latest poll. Among those respondents who said they had been subjected to bullying, harassment or mean and cruel treatment online – 33%, 47% and 37%, respectively – said those behaviors were exhibited by strangers. Still, risks from those identified as “friends” have been inching steadily higher, as well. This year, 22% of respondents said risks were perpetrated by friends, compared to 13% four years ago when 14 countries were included in the research.
The findings are from Microsoft’s latest research into aspects of digital civility – encouraging safer, healthier and more respectful online interactions. The study, Civility, Safety and Interaction Online – 2020, surveyed teens ages 13-17 and adults ages 18-74 about their exposure to 212 different online risks. This latest research builds on similar studies undertaken each year since 2016. Previous years’ projects polled the same demographics in 14, 22, 23, and 25 countries, respectively. In total, 16,051 individuals participated in this latest installment, and we’ve polled more than 58,000 people over the last five years. Complete results will be made available in conjunction with international Safer Internet Day on February 9.
At that time, we’ll also release the latest Microsoft Digital Civility Index, a gauge that looks at the state of online civility in each individual geography, as well as in all 32 combined. The index, which stood at 70 last year, is an indication of the perceived level of civility in that country. The index works like a golf score: A lower reading equates to a higher level of perceived civility among respondents in that country. The 2019 worldwide Digital Civility Index reading was the highest on record thus far for this research and reflects responses from survey participants in 25 countries. (Read more about the 2019 worldwide index and survey here.)
Take the Digital Civility Challenge
As done since the start of this research, we’re encouraging people around the world to take our Digital Civility Challenge and pledge to live by four basic tenets for life online:
Live the Golden Rule and treat others as you would want to be treated
Respect differences of all types, including those of thought and opinion
Pause before replying to something you may disagree with, and
If it’s safe and prudent to do so, stand up for yourself and others online who may be the target of abuse or cruel treatment.
Results from the latest survey show both teens and adults appear to be championing these actions. Indeed, 58% of adults and 57% of teens report having taken at least one challenge action in response to online risks. “Standing up for myself” was the most common challenge action this year, with 34% of respondents saying they defended themselves online. “Pausing before replying” was noted by 25% of those surveyed.
The Digital Civility Challenge isn’t meant to be a panacea, but rather a starting place to encourage good digital citizenship and active, engaged online communities. We’re not trying to thwart online debate or disagreement. On the contrary, we encourage it, while guarding against heated discussions that quickly devolve to name-calling and abuse.
So, step up to the Digital Civility Challenge this World Kindness Day, and tell us you’ve done so on social media using the hashtag #Im4digitalcivility. To learn more about online safety issues and digital civility generally, visit our website and webpage.
1 Geographies polled in 2020: Argentina, Australia*, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark*, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia*, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines*, Poland, Russia, Sweden*, Singapore, Spain*, South Africa, Taiwan*, Thailand*, Turkey, U.K., U.S., Vietnam. * Added (or re-added) to the study in 2020
2 The 21 risks span four broad categories: behavioral, sexual, reputational and personal/intrusive. Specifically:
Reputational – “Doxing” and damage to personal or professional reputations
Behavioral – Being treated meanly; experiencing trolling, online harassment or bullying; encountering hate speech and microaggressions
Sexual – Sending or receiving unwanted sexting messages and making sexual solicitations; receiving unwanted sexual attention and being a victim of sextortion or non-consensual intimate images (aka “revenge porn”), and
Personal/intrusive – Being the target of unwanted contact, experiencing discrimination, swatting, misogyny, exposure to extremist content/recruiting, or falling victim to hoaxes, scams, or fraud
