Tag: Recent News

Earlier this year, we made a commitment to shift to 100 percent renewable energy supply in our buildings and datacenters by 2025. On this journey, we recognize that how we track our progress is just as important as how we get there.

Today, we are announcing that Microsoft will be the first hyperscale cloud provider to track hourly energy consumption and renewable energy matching in a commercial product using the Vattenfall 24/7 Matching solution for our new datacenter regions in Sweden, which will be available in 2021.

Vattenfall and Microsoft are also announcing that the 24/7 hourly matching solution—the first commercial product of its kind—is now generally available. Vattenfall is a leading European energy company with a strong commitment to make fossil-free living possible within one generation. The solution is built using Microsoft’s Azure services, including Azure IoT Central and Microsoft Power BI.

Today’s announcement builds on last year’s partnership announcement with Vattenfall when the 24/7 Matching solution was first introduced. Since then, the solution has been in pilot in Vattenfall headquarters in Solna and the new Microsoft headquarters in Stockholm, which has seen 94 percent of the total office building energy consumption matched with Swedish wind and 6 percent matched with Swedish hydro power.

We continually invest in new ways to make our buildings and datacenters more energy efficient and sustainable. As part of today’s announcement, Microsoft is signing a power purchase agreement (PPA) to cover 100 percent of Microsoft’s energy consumption in Sweden. Microsoft will ensure that the company’s operations in Sweden use renewable energy.

The Vattenfall 24/7 Matching solution enables us to have a more accurate picture of energy used to match with Guarantees of Origin (GOs). This marks another important step in our commitment to be carbon negative by 2030 and use 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.

Vattenfall and Microsoft 24/7 matching of renewable energy. Source: Vattenfall and Microsoft pilot world’s first hourly matching (24/7) of renewable energy.

Increasing transparency and accuracy of renewable energy matching

Fulfilling our 100 percent renewable energy commitment requires a better way of tracking renewable electricity. Today, the industry is using Energy Attribute Certificates, called Guarantees of Origin (GOs) in Europe and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) in the US. These ensure that the amount of electricity sold corresponds to the amount produced. GOs allow end consumers to choose electricity from a specific source; this enables them to choose electricity exclusively from renewable sources such as wind, solar, or hydropower.

While we have seen remarkable progress toward renewable sourcing and commitments, there is a fundamental flaw in monitoring the source and quantity of energy consumed. For any given hour, a business does not know the source of the energy they are consuming. That energy may come from renewable sources, or it may be produced from fossil fuel. The current system has no way of matching the supply of renewable energy with demand for that energy on an hourly basis. And without the transparency of supply and demand, market forces cannot work to ensure that renewable energy demand is supplied from renewable sources.

Through this solution, Microsoft Sweden’s new home is powered by renewable energy through the procurement of GOs, which traces electricity from renewable sources to provide information to electricity customers on the source of their energy—not just on a monthly or yearly basis, but on an hourly basis.

The 24/7 matching of GOs and renewable energy credits (RECs) offers the following benefits:

• Businesses can see if their commitment to 100 percent renewable energy cover each hour of consumption and translate sourcing of renewable energy into climate impact.
• Energy providers can more easily understand demands for renewable energy hour-by-hour and take action to help production meet demand.
• 24/7 matching of consumption to production drives true market demand for renewable energy. As 24/7 hourly renewable products are rolled out across the world, they will incentivize investment in energy storage such that energy companies can store renewable energy when it is generating, so they can continue to supply their customers with renewable energy when it is not. Over time, this storage will allow electricity grids to supply 100 percent decarbonized power.
• The system can inspire regulatory change in how GOs and RECs are created, acquired and retired.

You can learn more about the advantages of 24/7 monitoring by watching the Vattenfall 24/7 solution video.

IoT for more accurate energy monitoring

IoT enables companies to gain near real-time insights of the physical world, connecting objects to give you insights into the health of a system or process, predict failures before they happen and gain overall efficiencies in operations.

The Vattenfall 24/7 hourly monitoring solution leverages Azure IoT Central to manage the full picture of energy consumption in a given building. Azure IoT Central helps solution builders move beyond proof of concept to building business-critical applications they can brand and sell directly or through Microsoft AppSource. Today, Microsoft offers two IoT Central energy app templates for solar panel and smart meter monitoring to help energy solution builders accelerate development.

Commitment to building world-class, sustainable datacenters

We believe that our datacenters should be positive contributors to the grid, and we continue to innovate in energy technology and monitoring resources to support our corporate commitment to be carbon negative by 2030.

When COVID-19 created a massive health crisis across India this year, it also triggered an unprecedented credit freeze. Millions of people were ordered to stay at home for months on-end, so lenders and customers could not meet face-to-face–a traditional prerequisite for doing business.

No meetings meant almost no new loans.

“The lending business came to a standstill to almost zero from April to June as the whole country was under a lockdown,” recalls Gaurav Aggarwal, head of unsecured loans at Paisabazaar.com, India’s largest marketplace for personal lending products.

The worst of the lockdowns appears over, at least for now. But India is far from being out of the pandemic woods and is working hard on two prime tasks–getting on top of the virus and getting its economy going.

To achieve the latter, credit must again flow freely.

Now a six-year-old fintech startup, Paisabazaar.com has stepped up with a new solution. It’s using cloud computing and machine learning to digitally overhaul the processes surrounding personal loan applications and approvals so money that can get to consumers and businesspeople faster.

What used to take anywhere between five days to a week before the pandemic is now being done in less than 24 hours, and in some cases as quickly as five hours.

Applying for a personal bank loan or a credit card in the traditional way can be a drawn-out affair. Either a customer visits a bank, or a bank representative comes to them to verify their identity. Paper application forms are filled out and supporting documents are collected for manually checking.

When the lockdowns were imposed, these physical and in-person processes were broken, and lending more or less stopped.

The time was ripe for disruption and Paisabazaar.com found itself in the right place at the right time.

In August, the startup launched the ‘Paisabazaar Stack’–a solution that enables lending companies, like banks and non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs), to disburse unsecured loans in a presence-less, completely digital manner.

Embracing a culture of innovation

The lending process typically consists of four elements–offering the loan seeker the best offer based on their need and eligibility; collecting documents to establish their identity and ability to repay the loan; verifying those documents; and finally, signing the loan agreement and payment terms.

“One of the big realizations that we had that we if we had to change something, it had to be changed from end-to-end,” says Aggarwal.

As the pandemic brought the whole lending industry down to its knees, Paisabazaar.com, which translates into money (paisa) market (bazaar) in Hindi, embarked on its quest to digitize the entire process.

To make it happen, the startup embraced a culture of innovation. A recent study by IDC commissioned by Microsoft identifies this as the synergy between technology, process, data, and people, that allows organizations to drive sustained innovation.

The study looked at organizations that regard a time of crisis as an opportunity for transformation. It found that they are 1.5 times more confident about recovering within six months and growing their revenues compared with their peers. This is clearly the case with Paisabazaar.com.

“We were trying to create this stack for six months before the pandemic hit us. We wanted to create paperless digital programs, but things were not moving because the industry was not ready,” says Mukesh Sharma, Paisabazaar.com’s chief technology officer (CTO.) “But when it (the lockdown) happened, we were the first to launch this digital stack.”

One of the first challenges the startup had to overcome was to improve the loan approval rates. Even before the pandemic, almost 40% of loans were getting rejected on the platform as customers weren’t aware how the lending industry and regulations function. They’d get swayed by marketing gimmicks, and end up submitting multiple loan applications. This had an adverse effect on their credit worthiness and further reduced their chance of approvals.

When Paisabazaar.com’s team studied the data from rejected applications on their platform, they realized they could help customers by guiding them toward other offers, which had a higher chance of approval.

“We kept monitoring our funnels and data on these rejected applications, did detailed retrospection, and spoke to the customers and lenders to find the root cause (of loan rejections). We could clearly see the customers’ pain, especially when they are in dire need for money or a credit card,” says Sharma.

Paisabazaar.com’s machine learning team created a model based on lending data of over 50 partner banks and financial institutions over the last six years.

The model, which is built on Microsoft Azure and uses technologies like Azure Kubernetes services, Azure Container Service, and Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets, matches a borrower’s profile like income, credit score, age, among others, with the various lending criteria of different lenders. It then provides customers with the odds of getting their loan application approved—excellent, good, fair, or poor—against each lender.

The team also looked at how they could digitize the “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process, which involves verifying who they said they were. Using Azure Cognitive Services, Paisabazaar.com created digital KYC processes, including Video KYC, where they not only verify the borrower’s identity but also their location and liveliness—ensuring they were real people and not bots.

To verify documents to determine the customer’s loan eligibility, they created algorithms using Optical Character Recognition APIs on Azure. These identify and confirm a customer’s monthly income from their bank account statements and digitize a lot of backend work that used to be done manually.

A tectonic shift

Paisabazaar.com now offers this entire end-to-end digitization stack to banks and NBFCs on its platform and the results are overwhelming.

The chance of approval feature, which gets more intelligent with every loan disbursed through Paisabazaar.com, has helped increase approval rate by nearly 25 percent in the first 12 months.

Even though many COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have now been eased, lenders continue to rely on the digital process to disburse loans.

The Paisabazaar Stack, which did not exist a few months ago, now accounts for more than half of all personal loans disbursed from the platform and the company is optimistic that business will be back to pre-pandemic levels by early next year.

“The Paisabazaar Stack is a fundamental and tectonic shift in the lending industry,” says Aggarwal, the head of unsecured loans business.

Meanwhile, for Paisabazaar.com’s CTO, the experience has only strengthened his resolve to innovate faster and launch new products. The use of cloud, AI, and machine learning has enabled Sharma to empower his team to experiment and build new experiences and products for their customers and partners. Every member of his team, he reckons, is an entrepreneur, which is core to the company’s DNA.

“We’ve a language-agnostic, idea-agnostic, and platform-agnostic framework where people can come and pitch in. Microsoft Azure not only brings out the best of the industry standards to us but also cutting-edge technologies. We were one of the earliest organizations in the country to use Kubernetes on Azure and Azure Cognitive Services at such a large scale,” says Sharma.

Paisabazaar.com is now working on new models that will provide access to credit to a wider swathe of India’s population. The expectation is that the digitization of processes for existing customers would eventually help them create models that would bring financial inclusion to those who currently fall outside the credit net.

“The flow of credit will eventually move to segments that are currently underserved,” says Aggarwal. “The quality of data we’re getting due to the digitization of processes is much higher than what was being collected physically. These gains will start flowing back into the system and lenders will start getting comfortable with the processes. The “fintech revolution” that was happening in the pre-COVID days now has a high potential of going mainstream.”

Sharma agrees. He recalls how, a couple of years ago, they worked with their fintech lending partners to create alternate models to underwrite small loans ranging from INR 10,000 to INR 50,000 (approximately USD 135 to USD 700) largely to first time salary earners. Most large lenders like banks would not traditionally cater to this segment, due to the small loan size as well as the fact that the borrowers were new to credit and would not meet the banks’ eligibility conditions. This also helped Paisabazaar.com cater to customers from smaller cities and towns.

Now PaisaBazaar.com is developing a new product aimed at owners of small businesses, which would enable them to raise loans in the range of INR 30,000-50,000 (approximately USD 400-650), which they can pay back and keep raising again, for working capital or other needs.

“Technology is the key enabler here,” Sharma says. “The straightforward answer to choosing Microsoft is that we fundamentally believe in what Microsoft does, which is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Both the companies are trying to solve the one common problem, which is how we can use technology to solve customer problems.”

Sambit Satpathy also contributed to this report.

As a veteran teacher, I usually had a pretty good idea of how I could support parents and guardians with their students’ education. But sometimes a family-teacher conference would reveal something I didn’t know. I realized that together, we could work on a solution.

That was before the pandemic—back when the learning environment was still fully in the classroom and educators could meet with families face-to-face. In this new remote and hybrid learning environment, we don’t have the experience to know what our families need from us.  And with social distancing in place, it’s more challenging to find out.

So, Microsoft did the asking to find even better solutions for the current environment.

I’m part of an independent research team, Program 11, that reached out to parents to learn more about how families are dealing with remote and hybrid learning. There’s been a lot of speculation about what parents and guardians are struggling with (and our team had our own personal experiences as parents and educators), but we wanted to hear it from a broader audience.

The question was: How could Microsoft tools and technology help parents and families support their students’ remote and hybrid learning even more?

Our interviews and survey results revealed that even though parents share some challenges and beliefs, their experiences are not universal. So, there can be no “one-size-fits-all” approach to supporting families. Luckily, three sizes cover most!

We found that most families fall within one of three different categories. Families feel like they’re either thriving, coping, or overwhelmed. I’ll go over some of the research data^1,2, and describe the three parent mindsets. Then I’ll show you what we’re doing to help educators get families the resources they’ve asked for.

What parents and guardians agree on

To say that educators are working tirelessly is an understatement. You continue to provide amazing instruction, focus on student well-being, and communicate with parents despite all the challenges that accompany remote and hybrid learning. The results of our research show that parents know this, and they appreciate it.

The majority of parents are satisfied or very satisfied with teacher communication, one-on-one time and the resources teachers are providing to support remote learning.

Even though parents and guardians are impressed by teachers, many feel schools and districts are asking too much of parents during remote or hybrid learning. Parents continue to worry about their student’s health, online safety, and social-emotional well-being. They want resources to help them more effectively engage in their student’s learning, especially when they don’t feel confident in their ability to offer support.

About 45 percent of parents “worry a lot” about both COVID-19 and their student staying on track in school.

Different parent mindsets

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that even though parents share some similar opinions, some are having vastly different experiences. You’ve likely witnessed this in your own practice.

Some parents feel like their families are thriving in the remote or hybrid learning environment. These parents are deeply engaged in their student’s learning and are seeking ways to take their student’s academic education to the next level. These parents often have older students or students who perform above grade-level.

Others feel like they are coping. These parents have concerns about their student’s social and emotional well-being and health that sometimes overshadow academic concerns. They feel the pressures of balancing school with other responsibilities but feel more engaged in their student’s learning than ever before.

And other parents feel overwhelmed by the demands placed on them due to remote and hybrid learning. These parents are concerned about meeting their family’s basic needs and do not feel confident they have the skills or resources to support their student’s education right now. These families are more likely to have younger students.

Parent mindsets are not fixed. With support, even the most overwhelmed parents can begin to feel like they’re thriving!

Supporting educators in supporting families

This data really helps us better understand how families are experiencing remote and hybrid learning. But what’s really important to an educator is what education technology companies like Microsoft can do to help.

And here it is: an easy to navigate webpage where you can send your families to learn which parent mindset describes their experience. From there, they can find resources picked specifically for them, based on their needs and preferences.

We hope that these resources help parents and families feel more confident about supporting their student’s education. Teachers, if you’d like to provide the families of your students with more information, please download this infographic to send with your next correspondence, or you can provide them with a link to the parent mindset webpage. You can also urge parents and families to join the free remote learning family workshop series that Microsoft is hosting.

You can download the full Parent and Family Remote and Hybrid Learning research brief here.

About the author:

Teagan Carlson is an education consultant and writer whose work has been featured in Edsurge. She joined the education research team at Program 11 as a subject matter expert, having taught ELA and ELD for fourteen years. She has her M.A. in Educational Psychology.

Footnotes:

1. Microsoft, “Survey Data Helps Microsoft Uncover Three Distinct Parent Mindsets When It Comes to Remote and Hybrid Learning.” https://aka.ms/MSParentSurveyChartsDeck

2. Microsoft, “Microsoft Education Parent and Family Research.” https://aka.ms/MSParentSurveyResearchBrief

Note: In Part 2 of a two-part series, Rick Wagner shares Microsoft Federal’s 2020 progress in delivering solutions and tools for digital transformation and efficient mission-focused operations. Please see Part 1 for examples of federal agencies achieving success in addressing pandemic impacts and meeting diverse missions.  

In Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s 2020 letter to shareholders, he reflects on the past year and the opportunity ahead. I was struck by one of his statements, which captures why I’m honored to lead Microsoft Federal: “I’m proud of how our ecosystem of customers and partners has stepped up over the past year to help people and organizations in every country use technology to be resilient and transform during the most trying of circumstances.” This is especially true in the United States, where our Microsoft Federal team and partners provide trusted leading-edge cloud and AI solutions to empower federal agencies in addressing extraordinary challenges, fulfilling demanding requirements and enabling secure, agile digital transformation. It’s also why our first-ever digital Government Leaders Summit on Dec. 7 will focus on mission and leadership resiliency.

Best-in-class technology

Looking back over the year, Microsoft has made significant progress in providing best-in-class technology for our federal customers to quickly achieve commercial parity while meeting the highest levels of government security and compliance. We’re delivering the latest cloud and AI innovation directly to U.S. federal agencies. For example:

• We’re excited to join other companies in supporting the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), the U.S. Air Force’s top modernization priority. Our technologies will help integrate the Air Force ABMS capabilities into the larger Joint All-Domain Command and Control, the Department of Defense concept to connect sensors from all military branches into a single network.
• FedScoop recently reported that the U.S. Navy is working to integrate all telework capabilities into a long-term solution powered by Microsoft 365. According to the article: “The goal is to be able to sync up more features, including a link between email and calendars,” and “by 2021 to have as many services as possible be digital and cloud-native to support both teleworking and in-person needs once more workers can come back to bases and the Pentagon.” Microsoft 365 is a great example of a product that enables remote government access, empowers cross-agency collaboration and complies with stringent security requirements.
• Last month, Microsoft took the next giant leap in cloud computing – to space. Azure Space is aimed at making Azure the platform and ecosystem of choice for the mission needs of the space community – on or off the planet. By combining a new set of offerings, a partner ecosystem and a global strategy focused on innovation, Azure Space will offer an integrated cloud and satellite experience connecting to almost any device anywhere. It also will serve as the bridge between the Pentagon and satellite providers.
• Another recent blog showcased our Power Platform return to the workplace solution, which enables enterprises and government agencies to prepare facilities and employees when a return to the physical workplace makes sense. We partnered with CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, to develop this comprehensive, end-to-end solution for location readiness, workplace care management, employee health and safety management, and location management.
• In late March, we confirmed that Azure Government Secret achieved provisional authorization to host government data classified as secret, meeting Department of Defense (DOD) Impact Level 6, Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 503 and facility accreditation ICD 705. We also announced:
  • A new third secret region to provide increased availability for national security missions to stay ahead of unique threats.
  • The release of 48 new Azure Government services, bringing our total FedRAMP High services to 101.

It’s worth noting that this most recent Azure Government news comes after a three-year series of news highlighting significant advancements to meet government and DOD requirements:

• Announcing new Azure Government capabilities for classified mission-critical workloads, Oct. 17, 2017
• Announcing Azure Stack for Azure Government customers to enable IT modernization and tactical edge scenarios, Aug. 13, 2018
• Enabling intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions for government, Oct. 9, 2018
• Technology and the US military, Oct. 26, 2018
• Advancing tactical edge scenarios with Dell EMC Tactical Microsoft Azure Stack and Azure Data Box family, Feb. 4, 2019
• Announcing Azure Government Secret private preview and expansion of DoD IL5, April 17, 2019.

Embracing technology

As the world around us continues to evolve in unpredictable ways, we’re seeing dramatic shifts in how the federal government is embracing technology with speed and agility to achieve objectives, better serve citizens, and further efficiency and effectiveness. The government customers I talk with are focused on digital transformation and seizing opportunities at the accelerated pace required to deliver modern mission outcomes. Microsoft Federal and our partners are committed to supporting the success of U.S. government agencies by continuously investing in our trusted cloud and AI capabilities.

You’re invited: Microsoft Government Leaders Summit

Another part of our investment is the Microsoft Government Leaders Summit,10 a.m. to noon ET, Dec. 7. On behalf of our Microsoft Federal team, it’s my pleasure to invite you to a digital event dedicated to helping federal government leaders reimagine a future of innovation and transformation to advance our nation.

Tags: Government, Microsoft Federal, Microsoft Government Leaders Summit