Every member of the consortium is currently focused on saving lives, but I asked Mathieson and Hoare whether the project would change how McLaren and Ford worked in the future. Will the levels of speed, agility and focus they were forced to adopt be transferred to their own operations?
“Very simply, this is how we need to operate going forward,” Mathieson says. “The auto industry –and it’s true of many other sectors as well – will have to embrace a lot of change, and a lot of that will be focused around technology and culture. This has been a fantastic example of what can be achieved if you get rid of all the normal obstacles, have a clear, laser-sharp focus on the objective, and then people just come together to make it happen.
“Remote working has really come to the fore, and now companies are looking at the future and thinking ‘what space do we need and how do we operate our teams’.”
Workers celebrate the first Penlon ventilators heading to the NHS
Hoare believes HoloLens will continue to have a major impact at Ford.
“When you use technology like HoloLens, all of a sudden the rest of your world starts to change shape,” he says. “We can certainly think of applications for the headset in the automotive world. This technology will set us free, reducing our carbon footprint through reducing the amount our staff have to travel. When we need an answer to a very specific problem, we often end up saying, ‘We need Fred on the plane’, and Fred will fly from Asia to the UK to help solve the problem. Then we realise it actually wasn’t Fred we needed, it was Barry who has the skills we need, so he flies over on a plane. There is tremendous potential for HoloLens there.
“It will be one of the memories I take away from the consortium: how the right tools in the right hands with the right need makes all the difference.”
How can teams support their colleagues with disabilities? What was helpful for you?
Frederik Gylling, Partner Tech Strategist, Microsoft Denmark: Every disability is personal, so it’s normal if your team doesn’t immediately understand. My particular situation affects my vision, and I think that at first my team was surprised to learn about the extent of its impact. However everyone has been curious to learn more and understand how they can help.
It was important for me to speak up so that everyone was aware of my situation and my manager supported me with this. Adapting to a new environment was a learning experience – it’s about identifying gaps and working with my employer to find the solutions to close them.
Alina Kudriavtceva, Interpreter of M&O, Microsoft Russia:During my job interview I outlined potential issues that might arise as a result of my disability and provided examples of possible solutions. As a result, my colleagues always provide me with necessary support; helping me with tech requests, or in navigating the office space or unfamiliar places during our off-sites. My manager also carefully followed my onboarding journey and assigned me buddies who helped me to adapt to internal procedures.
Ilias Arkoudeas, Software Asset Management Lead & Territory Channel Manager for Education, Microsoft Greece:I acquired my disability 10 years ago in a road accident. Although Greece is not famous for its overall accessibility, company policies have been well defined since then. My manager and team have been thoroughly supportive and proactive in ensuring the office is fully accessible in terms of infrastructure and facilities. Flexible working has also been key in helping to ensure work can be managed alongside my personal life and to perform without compromise.
What kind of adjustments were made at work to meeting your specific accessibility requirements?
Odel Kadosh, Software Developer, Microsoft Israel R&D Center:Among other things, I was given a parking space and improved access between buildings. A kitchenette was also installed on my floor with a special table that would be comfortable to sit and eat at. These adjustments have improved office conditions, giving me the opportunity to express my talent and to put aside the complexity that is an integral part of my life.
Tomi Kuuppelomäki, Sr. Communications Manager, Microsoft Western Europe, Finland:I have been in a wheelchair for almost 30 years, following a motorcycle accident. Since I’m part of a virtual team, my disability doesn’t prevent me doing anything but when we have in-person meetings my requirements are well taken care of. I actually prefer working in the office as it helps me to improve my work-life balance. It’s also convenient for dropping off and picking up my kids, which is helped by having a designated parking space and easy access to the office.
What accessibility challenges have you faced in your career to date?
Yahav Bar, Software Engineer, Microsoft Israel R&D Center: Unfortunately, people make assumptions, so I have encountered many instances of people expressing doubts about my ability to achieve certain goals. I realized that I wanted to join Microsoft when, during my interview, I explained that I was visually impaired and the interviewer answered ‘okay, so what?”. My visual impairment, which is a result of albinism, has not stopped me from striving far. Besides working at Microsoft, I’m a qualified lawyer as well as a teaching assistant in Hebrew University’s engineering and computer science faculty, and I teach Android app development. I do not want special treatment and I don’t want people to lower their expectations of me. I want to challenge myself like everybody else.
Tomi Kuuppelomäki:I have missed out on a few opportunities due to people ‘judging the book by the cover’. Those few occasions have given me more strength to show what I’m capable of, instead of being bitter or angry. Mastering things that people might not think you are able to do – that’s how to overcome the obstacles.
Ilias Arkoudeas:Occasionally I have faced difficulties in meeting and interacting properly with people outside our premises, especially when remote meetings were not possible and no efforts were made to find an alternative solution. Technology can help with this.
What advice do you have for other people with disabilities entering the workplace?
Alina Kudriavtceva: Always be open-minded. Discuss the barriers that directly impact your work with your manager, and share suggestions to help you and your team overcome them.
Frederik Gylling:I think it’s important to align on expectations from the offset and make it clear what you will need in order to do the job successfully, so that you can hit the ground running. The more you talk about it the more people understand. If you are early in your career, join employee resource groups – these have been invaluable for me to share experiences and learn from others.
Odel Kadosh:Remember the reason you’re there. I’m working as a programmer at Microsoft not because I have a wheelchair, and someone took pity on me, but for the same reason that every other person works here: because I’m good at what I do.
Tomi Kuuppelomäki:I would encourage people to try to not consider themselves primarily as disabled, but people who happen to have a disability. Everyone faces their own personal challenges, and everyone is just trying to get things done.
Ilias Arkoudeas: Creating a culture of inclusiveness is about having both the necessary accessibility policies and the mindset of treating everyone equally, irrespective of different kind of abilities. If certain accessibility standards haven’t been adopted in your working environment yet, speak up, be an ambassador and make them happen.
No one knows your child’s needs like you do, so try mixing and matching activities to make a schedule that works for you. This weekly schedule comes filled with activity ideas, and you can customize it to fit your needs. We’ve also listed some free and paid programs that can help fill the time and keep your kids occupied—but try adding in other activities that are tried-and-true favorites for your family.
Team up for success.
Planning everything can be tiring, so try partnering with other parents and guardians and have each person gather activities for a set day of the week. Then share what you’ve found, like printables, activity ideas, crafts, and more.
Consider themed days.
Brainstorming activity ideas can be tricky, but picking a theme for certain days can help streamline the process and kickstart your creativity. Need ideas? This customizable schedule has a few to get you started.
Browse free activities from Microsoft.
From fun learning to creative projects to family activities, these ideas can help keep kids busy and engaged.
Check out virtual summer camps.
These camp and online learning ideas span age ranges, with free and paid options, all with a focus on keeping summer full of fun.
Age 3-18
Outschool Summer Camp—Feed your kid’s curiosity and elevate their summer with a variety of fun classes where they can learn with peers in live video classes that meet in small groups. From subjects like reading, writing, and math, to the history of comics, spy school, hand-sewing, and Star Wars tech, they’ll find something to keep them engaged. The inspiring teachers consist of professional educators, artists, scientists, and adults with an expertise to share. Class prices vary and start at $5/class.
Camp Wonderopolis—Kids get hands-on with cool experiments that exercise their mind and body. Build vocabulary, background knowledge in science, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and other literacy skills along the way. Whether you register as a Camper (kids of all ages) or Counselor (parents, community and library program staff, teachers), you’ll find appropriate activities for you. Free
Age 4+
Epic!—Explore this digital library with resources for kids under 12. Get instant access to over 40,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes, and more, including fiction and nonfiction titles. Try free for 30 days. Afterward, unlimited access is $7.99/month.
DIY.org—Search this huge library of hands-on projects, how-to videos, and an awesome kid community. DIY.org has a variety of courses for any skill level, across 50 different categories that include photography, drawing, science, Minecraft, music, Legos, cooking, inventions, and more. Kids earn badges while they learn new skills. Activities range from simply watching fun videos to teaching and inspiring other kids. Try free for 14 days, give as a gift, or buy for yourself. The cost is $15-25/month depending on the number of kids and your billing preferences.
Kanopy—Access Kanopy with your library card for a free way to watch thousands of films, TV series, animated books, and educational content—all without ads. You can check out up to 10 titles per month, with three days to watch each. Plus, get Kanopy Kids for unlimited age-appropriate shows and movies with access to parental controls. Free. If your library isn’t on Kanopy, the app helps you send a request.
Age 8-15
Age 14+
BBC micro:bit—Create, learn, and code with the pocket-sized computer that’s transforming the world. Do quick projects in MakeCode, Python, and Scratch to help you get the most out of the micro:bit’s features or tackle design challenges and work to save the planet with technology. Micro:bit cost can vary. Free projects and lessons available at microbit.org.
CreativeLive—Browse this collection of educational video courses with content ranging from photography, flower arranging, mixed-media collage, drawing, and music composition to lifestyle content such as business skills and personal growth. Courses range from $9.99 to $199. App is for iOS | Website is for everyone Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) subscribers get more than 300 hours of creative classes taught by experts. Valued at $120, free for 3 months, it’s perfect for the summer! Learn more about the benefits
No matter what summer activities you choose, we hope the season is filled with fun, new adventures, and learning together.
While Microsoft’s Puget Sound campus has achieved Zero Waste Certification since 2016, the Hackathon was the first Microsoft event to achieve that honor in 2018, and again in 2019. With sustainability as a priority, the Hackathon planning teams share details of what it means to be zero waste.
Every summer Hackathon brings together employees from different disciplines and organizations, along with customers, nonprofits, students and teachers, to build on the ideas that inspire them. Typically, Hackathon’s presence energizes the Redmond campus in the form of football-field sized tents accommodating thousands of participants who gather to hack on projects. This year, participants will experience the same lively and inspiring energy, in collaboration with enthused colleagues, from within the comforts of their home. An endeavor as large as the Hackathon experience requires careful planning and thoughtful solutions to reduce the event’s carbon footprint and grow more sustainable each year.
Participants of Hackathon 2019 in Redmond entering the Hackathon tents. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
Early this year Microsoft’s leaders announced the company’s commitment to be carbon negative by 2030, reducing and removing direct carbon emissions and emissions across supply chains. Environmental responsibility and sustainability have been a priority driving both large- and small-scale efforts at the company. Microsoft’s new Silicon Valley campus will be the first tech campus with Net-Zero Water certification. Projects born from employee passion like FarmBeats help farmers around the world sustainably grow and manage their crops. At Microsoft’s global Hackathon, the world’s largest private hackathon with participation from employees in nearly 70 countries, a Sustainability Challenge was set forth calling for projects to accelerate innovation and environmental sustainability across the company and around the globe.
While Microsoft’s Puget Sound campus has achieved zero waste certification since 2016, Hackathon was the first Microsoft event to achieve Zero Waste Certification in 2018, and was re-certified in 2019. According to Green Business Certification Inc., the certification program’s goal is to divert at least 90% of waste from the landfill, rating facilities with a point-based credit system on how well they perform “in minimizing their non-hazardous, solid wastes and maximizing their efficiency in the use of resources.”
What does zero waste look like at Microsoft Hackathon?
In 2018, the Hackathon planning team alongside vendors and suppliers brought more awareness to sustainability, installing customized signage around the working space in the tents and the food areas. Expertly trained Zero Waste Ambassadors were stationed at disposal bins to help direct waste into the proper containers, ensuring all materials were sorted properly both at the front and back of house. Educational outreach coordinators helped participants be more aware of what items they used and discarded, the diligent SBM Janitorial staff used color coordinated bags to line disposal bins to distinguish between landfill, recycle, and compost, a best practice that has since been implemented for all campus-wide waste bins. The food and catering team switched to durable serving platters, which helped reduce the amount of compost material generated from the event by 3.8 tons, the weight of two mid-sized cars. Suppliers and vendors for Hackathon re-used materials from previous years, including furniture, carpet, pallets, and the tents themselves. These are a few of the initiatives that helped Hackathon achieve Gold-Level Zero Waste Certification in 2018.
By the next summer, Hackathon crews had identified additional opportunities for sustainability that built on the previous year’s successful model. New sustainability goals and standards achieved in 2019 included requirements for all event supplies to arrive with limited packaging and 100% recyclable packaging, publicizing waste reduction educational materials for attendees when they registered online for the event, requiring vendors to take responsibility for products and packaging, planning and tracking all environmentally preferred practices and products, and giving preference to vendors who embraced zero waste goals.
Hackathon 2019 food and beverage area. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
2019 was also the second year that Hackathon had a single dining tent and kitchen, saving food and catering teams time and resources. Tim O’Brien, Director of Operations for catering, explained how this cut down on waste. “Having more than one kitchen causes some waste running back and forth between places. With a single kitchen and dining tent, we saved on transportation – all our routes back and forth are right-hand turns so vehicles were not sitting and idling, reducing our carbon footprint and prioritizing safety, with continuous routing back and forth. It makes things a lot more efficient.” Tim works with a team of 200 kitchen and catering staff that keep the hackers fed and happy from sunrise to sunset. They feed on average 40,000 meals daily during the Hackathon. “At base, we had everything pre-packed and ready to roll. Some of those efficiencies are translated to less vehicles on the road. We also used all electric golf carts on the Hackathon fields,” Tim explained.
From the durable serving platters, to meals that used only essential, natural ingredients, the catering team’s choices greatly reduced waste and cost.
But the biggest food-related efficiency in 2019 came in the form of replacing snack boxes with a bulk presentation of self-serve snacks. “This was the first year we truly felt we solved the snack dilemma,” said Kayte Caldwell, Production Planner with Eventions, Microsoft’s campus-wide event planning staff managed by Compass Group. “The snack boxes had caused a very interesting behavior where people would take more than they actually needed, or they wouldn’t eat certain items in the box, leading to more wasted food.” With the new snack bar presentation, participants only took what they wanted and in smaller portions, wasting less. Kayte worked closely with Tim and other stakeholders for the event, handling logistics and managing expectations across groups to ensure everyone could operate at their best.
For Hackathon participants who see what seems like an abundance of food, enough to feed thousands of hackers three meals a day, a valid concern might be ‘What happens to the leftover or un-eaten food?’ The reality is that careful planning and adjustments are made up until the very last moment about how much food is prepared, and during the event, catering staff are rigorously monitoring how much food should be served at any given time depending on the demand. All leftovers are composted, except for any food that has not been served which is donated to nonprofit organizations like Food Lifeline and Northwest Harvest.
Hackathon 2019 food and beverage. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
“We went from Gold level to Platinum-Level Zero Waste Certification, which is the highest level of certification, and I think that shows the hard work we put into it,” said Leah Tischler, Site Sustainability Manager with SBM who brought her knowledge and experience implementing strategies on campus to the Hackathon. Leah and her team were fundamental in helping Hackathon achieve Zero Waste Certification.
An important part of the sustainability efforts included re-using or up-cycling products, something that Leah hopes they can do more of in the future. In fact, over 200 tons of material was re-used from Hackathon 2019, everything from furniture to electronic waste to office supplies, including 1.25 tons in food donations.
During the event 11 tons of material including food waste and products were diverted from the landfill, commercially composted, and given new life with Cedar Grove, a local Washington industrial composting company who make their finished product available to consumers. “I’d like to find opportunities for waste reduction and integrate more of the circular economy process,” said Leah. “For example, we could use the compost to grow food on campus that we later consume.”
Rather than creating products from new materials, the circular economy approach is to use products and materials that already exist to reduce carbon emissions and generate less waste since less new material is created overall. Beyond Hackathon efforts, Microsoft Dining and those supporting Real Estate and Facilities have a long history of close collaboration, building synergies to develop and innovate new smart ways to be more sustainable on campus. Many of those tactics involved practicing a circular economy. “We recycle our cooking oil and make it into soap to use on campus,” explained Leah. “Whatever we send out for recycle, we always think about how we can bring it back to our events or on campus so it can serve another purpose.”
As society embraces more virtual meetings and telework, there is an opportunity for each person to be more conscientious of sustainability within their homes. Hackathon 2020 will follow the course of other large-scale events and become an all virtual event, creating a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. The frenetic energy of on-site Hackathon venues and gatherings will be translated into a deeper global connection felt from home offices, living rooms, and kitchen tables around the world. To engage participants on sustainability, Brad Smith is sponsoring this year’s Sustainability Challenge at Hackathon. The Sustainability Challenge will reflect the Microsoft’s ambition in addressing four resource areas: carbon, water, waste, and ecosystems. In addition to the Sustainability Challenge which will call for ideas and projects from employees and teams, there are plans underway to bring the sustainability message into the virtual Hackathon experience including programming, communications, and more tips for how every individual can minimize waste.
“Waste prevention is the most effective way to reduce the amount of waste we create. Before you purchase, consider if there’s a need to buy that item you want,” said Alessandra Pistoia, Program Manager leading Microsoft’s global waste and circular economy program, spanning operations and products. Her charter is to help define corporate sustainability goals for waste and circularity, including events. Alessandra has expert knowledge on how to be more sustainable with waste from basic life hacks to more complex regulations around responsible materials management. “I encourage folks to take a moment to think before tossing anything away. First consider if it can be reused or redistributed to another organization, like Goodwill. If it needs to go out for curbside pickup, be sure to separate into the appropriate bin. By separating our waste materials into the right bin we support a healthy recycling system and minimize the amount of waste that goes to a landfill. Know where things go before you throw.”
Alessandra also pointed out that it is important to remember sustainability can be practiced as individual or collective action. Impact can be made at any scale. Individual efforts to reduce what you buy or repair a broken object make a positive impact personally and at a global scale. Similarly, if as a society we practice sustainable materials management, we will see the optimization of material use and less waste generated overall. In the end the goal is a universal one – improving quality of all life, together.
Read more about Microsoft’s commitment to be carbon negative by 2030.
Learn more about the work Microsoft is doing around sustainability:
When it launches this holiday, Xbox Series X will be the most powerful console the world has ever seen.
One of the biggest benefits of all that power is giving developers the ability to make games that are Xbox Series X Optimized. This means that they’ve taken full advantage of the unique capabilities of Xbox Series X, both for new titles built natively using the Xbox Series X development environment as well as previously released titles that have been rebuilt specifically for the console. In our Inside Xbox Series X Optimized series, these creators will share the behind-the-scenes accounts of how they’re optimizing their titles for Xbox Series X and what that means for the future of gaming. Today, we’ll be chatting with Jacek Zięba, Producer at Bloober Team about optimizing The Medium for Xbox Series X.
Q: “What excites you most about developing and bringing The Medium to life on next-generation hardware?”
A: The simple answer is that thanks to the next-generation hardware, we can realize our vision for The Medium at all. Of course, theoretically, you could rescope any game idea, but in our case it would mean completely changing the core game features.
Thanks to the power of Xbox Series X, we can develop the game the way we have always envisioned it. I’m not talking only about graphics, although certainly it helps create an immersive and disturbing atmosphere, but also about gameplay.
Q: In addition to benefiting from the power and performance of Xbox Series X for quicker load times etc. what Xbox Series X features were you most excited to explore leveraging in the development of The Medium?
A: The SSD and how it allows for no noticeable loading times is certainly a big deal for us. Thanks to it, you can create a more cinematic and atmospheric experience, and keep the player immersed in the game – with no immersion-breaking loading screens.
Also, the sheer power of the CPU and GPU lets you go a bit crazy with your gameplay ideas, and we believe the new hardware will quickly change how games are being designed.
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Q: How will these enhancements impact a player’s experience with The Medium?
A: We’re putting a lot of effort into creating a heavy, disturbing atmosphere in the game. We’re using a variety of means to immerse the player into both our worlds, including music and environment, and thanks to no loading screens these methods are so much more effective. Before, it was a bit of an uphill battle to keep the game immersive and cinematic despite obvious breaks, and now the next generation simply makes that problem go away.
Q: Why did your development team choose to focus on 4K resolution and DirectX Raytracing as enhancement areas for The Medium?
A: These are the features that fits our game and its genre the best. The 4K resolution helps us showcase the art style and environment of the real and the spirit world, while Ray-tracing will add to the atmosphere of the game. In other words, these features make the game’s strengths shine even brighter.
Q: How do you expect fans of The Medium will respond to playing it on Xbox Series X with these enhancements?
A: I hope they will love it 🙂 Unlike many cross-gen titles revealed so far, The Medium is a next-gen only game. We don’t have any porting plans for current-gen consoles, so the Xbox Series X will offer the experience we always meant for the game.
Q: What is it like developing on Xbox Series X?
A: It’s really exciting to be one of the first studios developing for Xbox Series X. This is truly a great piece of hardware, one that enables us to realize our vision of the game without compromises. I can’t wait for the fans to see what the console is really capable of.
Q: Which enhancement were you most excited about to explore leveraging for The Medium on Xbox Series X?
A: We’re heavily using the CPU and GPU for the interactions between the real world and the spirit world. We have still much to reveal about The Medium, including one of our core gameplay features. The marketing team will kill me if I say too much too soon, but we’re using the extra power to really push what’s possible gameplay-wise on the next generation, and I simply can’t wait for players’ reactions.
Q: What does Xbox Series X/next-generation development enable in current or future projects that you could not have achieved with the current generation of consoles?
A: As in the example with loading times, the next generation removes obstacles that until now consumed development time and resources. Now developers can devote more attention to creative gameplay. I also strongly believe that as we see more games developed specifically for the new generation, genuine breakthroughs and innovations will shortly follow.
If there are two words that define the way we’ve used technology this year, they might just be “remote everything.” Our jobs. Our meetings. Our kids’ schools. Our social gatherings. Everything has moved online, accelerating our digital transformation both professionally and personally. We not only need the right apps to stay productive while working remotely, but we also need the right apps to stay connected with family and friends.
Files are often the starting point for getting work done and staying connected. Memos, presentations, photos, videos—these are the conduit for more fruitful interactions. That’s why we’re excited to announce new OneDrive features across Microsoft 365 that bring a more connected and flexible files experience to business users, more control to admins, and a more personal touch to everyone at home.
“Where can I find that file?” It’s a question we’ve all asked our colleagues, our teams, and, most often, ourselves countless times. But those five short words, which are the bane to anyone’s productivity, will soon be short-lived.
Later this month, for our business users, we’re rolling out in public preview a new feature called Add to OneDrive that makes it easy to add shared folders directly to your OneDrive.
Shared folders include content that others shared with you through their OneDrive or content that is a part of your shared library in Microsoft Teams or SharePoint.
With Add to OneDrive, not only can you bring all your shared content into one place, but you can also work with the shared content with the same power and flexibility as if they are files you own. This means that the added content can be synced, shared, and collaborated on—and that it retains all existing security and compliance policies. The public preview rollout will be enabled in your tenants by default with the option for admins to opt out if they choose.
Add to OneDrive is just one of several features that makes your files experience more connected, flexible, secure, and personal. Read on to learn about others.
More connected
Teams sharing integration—Microsoft 365 should feel the same no matter which app you’re in. This is especially true for Teams, which has become central to our remote work lives. To extend this familiarity to files, soon we’re rolling out the same file sharing and access control experience in Teams that business users like yourself already know from other Microsoft 365 apps, including OneDrive, Outlook, or Office. Soon, when you go to share a file from within Teams, you’ll have the option to create sharing links that provide access to anyone, people within your organization, people with existing access, or specific people, including those in a private or group chat.
Synced metadata support—Metadata adds structure and compliance to your files. Currently shared libraries with mandatory metadata synchronizes as read-only. We are excited to announce that in the next few weeks we are rolling out an update to the OneDrive sync app supporting read and write sync for shared libraries that contain required metadata. This will enable business users to edit content in their synced libraries while working from their desktops.
Move and keep sharing—Your files should move as your workflow does. As a document moves through its lifecycle—from creation to review to final—it needs to relocate to shared cloud libraries that reach a broader group of collaborators. But it needs to do so without affecting the original group’s access. Later this summer, business users can do exactly that in OneDrive by choosing to keep sharing with collaborators when they move their files. This means all business users who had original access to a file will be re-added to it if that file changes shared library locations. Those users will now receive a new link maintaining the same permissions they had before and receive a notification about the move.
More flexible
100 GB file updates—As of today, we are proud to announce that we have increased the upload file size limit from 15 GB to 100 GB in OneDrive and SharePoint for everyone! This is especially helpful for business users that work in predominately large file types, like 3D, CAD, and media files. Previously released differential sync will help expedite the upload process for large files by only syncing the parts that changed instead of the entire file.
Comment notifications—Notifications can keep you on track—but they can also be distracting. To help you stay productive when you need to focus, later this year, we’re adding the option to turn off comment notifications for individual files. Doing so will only affect that file, not the entire files library.
Address bar sharing—If you access or work on a file in a browser, you’ll soon be able to share links copied from your browser address bar with your internal colleagues (if admin-enabled). These URLs will respect all sharing policies, empowering natural and easy collaboration within your organization.
More control
Sync admin reports—Strong reporting leads to strong auditing and monitoring. As an admin, you can better assist your users if you know what’s happening in their environments. Sync admin reports allow you to do just that by providing visibility and insights on adoption and health of the OneDrive sync app across your organization. Use this new dashboard to check sync app versions, sync status, and top sync errors on individual devices. You can even monitor deployment progress of Known Folder Move, which we recommend implementing to help redirect your users’ known folders (Desktop, Documents and Pictures) on Windows to OneDrive. Help-desk resources can also leverage these reports to support users with their sync.
Sync admin reports will be available later this year, but we are excited to share a sneak peek with you today!
Streamlined admin experience—We’ve been expanding the OneDrive toolkit to streamline the admin experience, including new options for easily migrating content to OneDrive. There are also several enhancements on the horizon. Later this year, all OneDrive admin capabilities, including controls for sharing, access, sync, and storage, will be available in the SharePoint admin center, consolidating admin tools in one place. This will unlock several enhancements in reporting, WCAG 2.1 accessibility support, Global Reader support, error messaging and performance.
This summer, we’re also releasing a new option to set mandatory expiration dates for external collaborators that can be extended or revoked based on user discretion.
More personal
Our work and personal lives have become increasingly intertwined as this super-charged digital transformation takes hold. We’re not just managing work documents online these days—we’re also sharing family photos, schedules, planning documents, roommate expense spreadsheets, and much, much more. And just like we expect seamless sharing and collaboration on the job, now more than ever, we need it in our personal lives.
Family and group sharing—We’re making it easier to stay connected with family and group sharing in OneDrive, coming later this month. This new consumer feature, available on OneDrive for the web, lets you predefine a group of people from your personal life and then easily share files, photos, videos, and albums with that group. Groups can be family, friends, your kids’ sports league, your sports league, old college buddies, new game night pals—anyone you want to stay connected with.
To share files to your group, select the file or folder you want to share in OneDrive, click Share, and then type and select the name of the group. All members of the group need a Microsoft account, and each will need to accept your invitation to the group to access it.
You can learn more about family and group sharing here.
Family and group sharing is included in all free and paid OneDrive consumer plans and will begin rolling out soon on OneDrive for the web, with general availability expected by the end of July. It will become available on the mobile app, sync client, Mac, and directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint by the end of this year.
Dark Mode for the web—Following its releases for iOS and Android, we’re soon bringing Dark Mode to OneDrive for the web across commercial and personal accounts. Aside from its aesthetic appeal, Dark Mode also reduces eye strain and improves your device’s battery life.
Better collaboration with friends and family—Newly released features like OneDrive’s file detail pane and activity feed let you see your file activity and comments in single view, so you can quickly get back into the flow of what you and your friends and family are working on together.
Peace of mind—Your OneDrive files are protected and secured by our comprehensive security features, which include file encryption, Personal Vault, virus scanning, suspicious activity monitoring, ransomware protection, and many other measures. (Note that ransomware protection requires a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription.) You also get the privacy you deserve. Microsoft does not scan the contents of your files or photos for targeted ads. Our consumer privacy policy is transparent and puts you control your OneDrive data with easy-to-use settings and clear choices in your privacy dashboard.
Learn more and stay engaged
To learn more about the new capabilities for business users and admins, join the OneDrive team for a free webinar: What’s new and coming in OneDrive on July 28, 2020 at 9:00 AM PDT.
Learn more about how you can use OneDrive to collaborate better at work with our new e-book that includes usage scenarios for human resources, marketing, sales, legal, engineering, and finance teams.
The best place to stay current on all things OneDrive is our Tech Community site, where you’ll find the latest news and an enthusiastic group of other users. We also encourage you to send us suggestions for making OneDrive even better on UserVoice.
At Microsoft, we’re building a “learn it all” culture where we aim to embrace curiosity, focus on being resourceful, and take our learnings and apply them for future success.
In that light, learning is more important than ever, and our goal is to help make technical learning even more accessible to everyone who wants to acquire a new skill, chase a new career path, and stay up-to-date on the latest technological advances. As we announced yesterday, Microsoft and LinkedIn are making a broad commitment to help students, job seekers and employees gain the skills they need to be successful in today’s digital-first economy.
Microsoft Learn is an integral part of our skilling experience – it’s a free online learning platform that combines short step-by-step trainings, browser-based interactive coding and scripting environments, and task-based achievements to help learners advance their technical skills and prepare for certifications. From Azure to Microsoft 365 and Power Platform to Dynamics 365 and more, we offer training that can help everyone learn – from students to job seekers to professionals. Learners and organizations can personalize their experience by building and sharing customized training collections and can use bookmarks to easily find and return to content. Throughout the learning journey, learners can earn points, levels, and unlock badges, and can easily share their progress with colleagues and on social media.
With more than 4 million learners registering in the less than two years since its launch, we’ve been humbled and inspired to see the adoption and engagement from the community. And in the last few months, as people have transitioned to work from home, we’ve seen a spike in Microsoft Learn usage, with users engaging with 192% more learning modules from January through May of this year compared to last year.
We’re continuing to invest in the Microsoft Learn platform, where learners will find:
More than 225 learning paths.Collections of modules are organized around specific roles and technologies.
More than 1,000 modules. The building blocks of the Microsoft Learn experience, a module is a course that contains videos, labs and articles.
Role-based learning for 17 roles. For example, software developer, AI engineer, data scientist and solutions architect.
Training aligned to35 Microsoft certifications. Earning certifications shows you are keeping pace with today’s technical roles and requirements. Certification exams can be taken online, and users can easily share their certifications on their LinkedIn profile. Later this year, we will offer discounted certification exams for those impacted by COVID-19.
More than 160 instructor-led training courses. Access deep technical training, taught by Microsoft-certified trainers, bringing you and your team customizable learning solutions.
Localized in up to 23 languages. Learning paths are supported in up to 23 languages depending on the topic.
Recently introduced Microsoft Learn features include:
Learn TV: Learn TV streams original live and pre-recorded content daily from Microsoft and the community. Meet our engineers through live training, casual conversations, event coverage and hackathons, all on Learn TV.
Cloud Skills Challenge: A new way to build your cloud skills with easy, self-paced learning that lets you complete modules in a team environment and compete for prizes.
Microsoft Q&A: Relevant and timely answers to technical problems from a community of experts and Microsoft engineers. Microsoft Q&A is now the single question-and-answer destination for all Azure products and services.
Microsoft Learn Catalog API: Integrate Microsoft Learn into your company’s own experiences. Now in preview, the Catalog API enables developers to integrate Learn content and trainings into their existing applications and learning management systems, and provides organizational reporting capabilities.
Microsoft Learn for Students and Educators: We launched a new collection of curated content for students, including learning paths from leading universities and content to inspire and challenge students to build with social impact and responsibility in mind. For educators, we’ve made it easy to access Microsoft ready-to-teach curriculum and teaching materials aligned to industry-recognized Microsoft certifications. These certifications augment a student’s existing degree path and validate the skills needed to be successful across a variety of technical careers.
Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors: Microsoft Learn is where everyone comes to learn, and the Learn Student Ambassadors are everywhere helping students learn. This new program brings together a global group of campus leaders to help their peers learn things they care about most, from social issues to new technologies. Ambassadors get a first look at new Microsoft technologies, gain leadership skills, and receive mentoring from professionals in the industry, and their peers benefit from their knowledge, which can now be shared via the Microsoft Learn platform.
Microsoft Learn complements LinkedIn Learning’s online educational platform of over 16,000 courses taught by industry-leading experts that helps people discover and develop business, technology-related, and creative skills. Microsoft Learn and LinkedIn Learning will be incorporated into the new learning app in Microsoft Teams, previewing later this year. The new app will make learning a natural part of an employee’s job, leveraging the tools they already use every day at work.
As a lifelong learner myself, I’m excited we’re able to offer such a robust set of free resources for everyone who wants to learn. If you don’t have a Learn account, I encourage you to check it out. It’s a great time to polish your skills and learn something new in a fun way.
Learn more about Microsoft’s commitment to helping 25 million people acquire new digital skills needed for the COVID-19 economy, and hear Brad Smith talk about why it’s important.
What do a forester, a developer, and a software architect have in common? A passion for problem-solving and, as it turns out, stopping illegal timber trade. Antonio de Marco, James Mundy, and Mauro Petrini came together from different corners of the world to participate in the 2019 Microsoft Hackathon. Their objective was protecting biodiversity through sustainable forestry by solving one piece of the complex puzzle: the real-time identification of imported or exported timber species, verified against an endangered species database using a mobile app. As we look forward to an all new virtual experience for Hackathon 2020 this summer, we are spotlighting this team’s achievements and the spirit of Windows Insiders at Hackathon.
Imagine a customs officer inspecting shipments of timber where, in some cases, the wood origin is not clearly noted on the accompanying documentation. TimberAI, the project which Antonio, James, and Mauro collaborated on would help the custom’s officer identify if the species is endangered or commercial with the snap of a photo using Microsoft Cognitive Services and Azure. The app can reduce instances of illegal timber being traded but also protect critical forests and habitats as a tool for officials to enforce more sustainable, legal logging.
TimberAI team at Hackathon 2019 – James Mundy, Mauro Petrini, Antonio de Marco. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
Windows Insiders bring fresh perspectives to Hackathon
The three team members shared something else in common—all are Windows Insiders. Spanning the globe with millions of participants, the Windows Insider Program is a free program that enlists the help of consumers to improve Windows. One of the largest fan programs at Microsoft, Insiders can choose when and which Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds they would like to install on their devices, and after trying it out, provide valuable feedback directly to Windows engineers.
Another benefit of becoming a Windows Insider is the opportunity to win exclusive experiences to Microsoft events like Microsoft Build or, in this case, the company’s global Hackathon produced by the Microsoft Garage.
After reviewing hundreds of submissions to the Windows Insiders Hack at Microsoft contest, ten Insiders were chosen to come to Redmond to participate in the 2019 Hackathon last July. “We try to align our offerings with what our Insiders tell us they value most, like talking to the teams that build the products they love and early access to the latest technology,” said Michelle Paison, a program manager who oversees the contests and giveaways for WIP. “It’s definitely a cool experience, getting to be on the inside of what’s traditionally an internal event and work on hackathon projects with Microsoft employees.”
Windows Insiders who participated in Hackathon 2019: Stefan Malter, Mark Lunney, Michelle Spaul, Josh Cardif, Clint-Roy Mukarakate, Dr. Robert de Graaft, James Mundy, Dan Flores, Mauro Petrini, Antonio de Marco. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
A large part of what makes a hackathon project successful is having teammates who are willing to solve problems in new ways. Insiders expressed an openness to collaborate with other talented individuals, and most contest entrants had an entrepreneurial spirit, taking initiative in their job or for a cause they were passionate about. Insiders brought a wide range of skills and represented global perspectives from countries like Kenya, Argentina, and Germany.
Meet the team and the TimberAI potential on a global scale
“It was nice to put my skills to good use to create a solution that might, in the future, make a discernable difference towards preserving trees — one of our best weapons against rising CO2 levels,” said James. “I was struck by the idea and the unique product we could build, and also how feasible it was that we could lean on Azure Cognitive Services and Antonio’s image library to build a prototype in just a few days.” The team created a working prototype using Xamarin to build the mobile app front-end with Microsoft Cognitive Services to recognize and classify wood image samples.
James is a Freelance Software Developer and Product Builder based in London. Teammate Mauro works as a Software Architect for a financial company in Argentina. In addition to his day job, Mauro volunteers with a nonprofit that makes prosthetic hands.
Leading the project is Antonio, who brought the concept behind TimberAI to the Hackathon and project manages the app development. Antonio is a forestry engineer currently collaborating with the Wood and Science Technology Laboratory from the Forest and Natural Environment Engineering School at the Technical University of Madrid. The idea for an app started in the Wood and Science Technology Lab with Antonio and Professor Luis García Esteban, who is also the TimberAI project Resource Manager.
“Illegal timber trading is one of the biggest factors leading to the loss of global biodiversity. With more sustainable legal logging, we would have greater biodiversity and greater forest cover, which helps remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce the impact of climate change.” – Antonio de Marco
Antonio explained, “This project acts as a straight knowledge-tunnel between some of the most renowned wood technology investigators and the daily users at customs, who need powerful but simple tools to work with. Illegal timber trading is one of the biggest factors leading to the loss of global biodiversity. With more sustainable legal logging, we would have greater biodiversity and greater forest cover, which helps remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce the impact of climate change.”
According to Antonio, the world cuts around 4,000 million cubic meters of wood annually, which is roughly the equivalent of cutting about 30 soccer fields per minute for a year. It’s estimated that about 10-30 percent of all the wood is illegally logged. “We are losing species at an extinction rate not known in the geological record of the Earth,” said Antonio. Like others, he is driven to do what he can with the tools and resources he has to create a more sustainable future with the biodiversity that’s crucial in a thriving, healthy ecosystem.
Because of its geographical location, Spain is a hub of international commerce with large amounts of items, including timber, being funneled through its ports and redistributed to Europe, Asia, and even America. “This is why Spain must play a very important role in order to put a first barrier to the illegal traffic of those species of wood,” said Antonio. Outside of his work with the university, Antonio also runs a startup that improves air quality of indoor spaces. His expertise in forestry helped the team of three achieve a working prototype.
Screenshots of the TimberAI MVP. Photo Credit: Antonio de Marco
Winning the Sustainability Challenge
“Besides getting to work with two fantastic people, James and Mauro, the biggest takeaway for me was being able to link my forestry engineer profession to my techie passion. There is nothing better than enjoying yourself while working on something that could possibly have a positive impact on a lot of people,” said Antonio.
Each year for Hackathon, there are challenges issued by executive leadership focused on areas important to their business which teams can choose to hack on. After the Hackathon finished, Antonio, James, and Mauro received news their project was selected as the top project in the Sustainability Challenge. The company has long been a proponent of sustainability, but the 2019 Hackathon marked the first year a Sustainability Challenge was issued by Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer, Brad Smith, with a goal to fuel innovation and accelerate environmental sustainability across the company and around the globe.
“What they were able to accomplish is truly remarkable and a testament to their intelligence and innovation,” said Michelle. “There are just so many good ideas that exist within the Windows Insider community, with the improvements they suggest for Windows 10 daily, and that extends into different issues outside as well.”
AI for Earth and the path forward
While unrelated to the Hackathon, Antonio and Luis were also awarded an AI for Earth grant for the work they’ve continued to do at the Technical University of Madrid and working with the government of Spain.
“Customs agents have to make quick decisions about thousands of shipments every day, and it’s not feasible for them to be experts in every material they have to inspect. AI systems like TimberAI offload that niche, ever-changing expertise to technology,” said Dan Morris, Program Director for the Microsoft AI for Earth Program.
Antonio was also invited to speak at an AI for Earth Innovation workshop in Spain as part of a team of mentors. “He shared his overall experience with Microsoft in such a positive light and served as inspiration to the rest of our participants,” said Alma Cardenas, AI for Earth Senior Program Manager who attended the workshop.
In the time since Hackathon, Antonio and the team at the Wood and Science Technology Lab have been standardizing the process of wood species identification using macroscopic photographs from smartphones, creating a more robust library of species TimberAI can identify based on the CITES species guide.
“We were able to showcase our working prototype at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, so it’s been getting a lot of positive reception from other national entities,” said Antonio. “It was a pleasure getting involved in the Microsoft Hackathon. I have been part of other local hackathons, but this one was something special. Being on the same team as James and Mauro to get the first MVP of TimberAI working was possible thanks to this experience.”
Windows Insiders getting ready to hack at Hackathon 2019. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
A prime example of how hackathons can take ideas to the next level, from concept to prototype, embracing new challenges and different perspectives to form solutions, collaborating with the same goal in mind – sparked by a passion for positive impact on our shared planet.
Today’s unprecedented public health and educational crisis is creating enormous challenges for institutions of higher education. Chief among these are campus closures and the need to switch to remote or hybrid learning, concerns over the health and well-being of students, faculty, and the community, and the need to understand the impacts on academic research.
As higher education institutions prepare for the upcoming academic year, they will have to address the needs of their communities, while meeting operational requirements across the university. Some solutions can be found in new, agile low-code tools, which are helping institutions quickly meet specific challenges they face. Microsoft’s Power Platform allows users to address challenges and streamline processes across an institution through low-to-no-code apps, bots, and the automation of backend processes—all integrating withMicrosoft Teams as a single hub for students, faculty, and staff.
We’re hearing incredible stories about how institutions are addressing challenges like student engagement and well-being, back-to-school requirements, and research in real-time with the Power Platform, including low-code apps with Power Apps, automated processes with Power Automate, powerful chatbots with Power Virtual Agents, and up-to-the-minute analytics with Power BI. That’s all happening without the need for developers or data scientists.
The Upstate Medical University story
Upstate Medical University serves 17 counties and nearly 1.8 million constituents in New York State. The institution recently released a back-to-school solution to ensure a safe return to campus. With limited staff to deploy as screeners, Upstate and Microsoft introduced a new, self-screening assessment tool to ensure the safe return of faculty, staff, students, and medical residents to campus.
To keep the campus safe early in the COVID-19 pandemic many staff members worked from home and campus buildings had only limited access. Individuals who did report to campus were screened for symptoms by an Upstate staff member.
However, with the use of the new tool, since June 8, Upstate has completed more than 8,500 screenings with more than 2,000 screenings completed on the first full day the tool was launched. As the campus begins to reopen, Upstate will need to provide symptom screening at more campus locations. This self-assessment tool assists Upstate in these screenings through allowing daily symptom checking online in accordance with CDC guidelines
Upstate Medical responds quickly to community during pandemic
At the outset of the pandemic this spring, Upstate Medical University launched a COVID telephone hotline on behalf of Onondaga County to provide information on COVID-19 to the public and to help triage symptomatic patients to the right location for follow-up care and possible testing. As the hotline call volume increased significantly, Upstate recognized the need to provide an additional method to address the public’s questions.
Working with Microsoft, Upstate quickly developed an online coronavirus assessment tool to enable users to assess their symptoms and determine whether they should seek testing. The health bot solution allowed for a quick remedy to the high call volume of the telephone hotline while continuing to provide the public with information. The assessment tool logged 8,000 users in its first week of operation. The success of the tool enabled Upstate to scale back hours for its telephone hot line, enabling the staff who volunteered to answer calls to return to their normal positions. Upstate Medical was able to reduce call center and testing center volumes optimizing human capital, resources, and facilities.
Dr. Robert Corona, CEO of Upstate University Hospital, said, “There is much anxiety from the public, and understandably so, during this critical time. The coronavirus assessment tool, coupled with our COVID-19 triage line, can help the public get quick accurate information about their current health situation, and reassurance on next steps.”
Understanding the financial impact at Purdue
Announced last month, Purdue University, a top public research institution in Indiana, partnered with Microsoft to create a Power App, the Higher Education Crisis Financial Impact Tracker, to help determine how the current situation is affecting academic research programs and provide an aggregated view of the financial impact on the university. Purdue researchers can access the application through Teams and input information on specific research initiatives and how they’ve been affected.
In a recent press release, Theresa Mayer, Purdue’s Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships, said, “At this point, we have more than 1,100 faculty members on campus using the tool, and it is allowing us to get a clearer picture of how the COVID-19 event has affected our research programs. Until now, we have not been able to quantify impact at the research project level this efficiently.” Purdue University was the first university to implement the Higher Education Crisis Financial Impact Tracker. Microsoft announced that this Power App will soon be available to all universities. Learn more at https://aka.ms/educfit.
ANS provides student engagement solution
To support student engagement, ANS, a UK cloud and digital services provider, developed a Power App solution to help improve student engagement and identify at-risk students during the COVID-19 crisis. The solution works by gathering various data from Microsoft Teams such as which students have virtually attended lectures. It then automates a workflow that helps the university pinpoint and address specific student needs, allowing them to act quickly to ensure the best outcome.
Microsoft’s platform is flexible to assist higher education institutions in adhering to local guidance and requirements regarding faculty, staff and student privacy and safety. With the help of these tools, Microsoft aims to continue to be a resource for higher education institutions as they address the emerging needs of students, faculty, and staff across university and healthcare settings.
Learn more about Power Platform and Teams for Education and adapt quickly with agile, low-code tools available using the following solutions:
Microsoft Power Apps empowers everyone, regardless of their technical abilities, to build low-code apps quickly and easily.
Power Automate enables you to streamline repetitive tasks and paperless processes.
Power Virtual Agents enables you to create powerful chatbots, like a crisis response chatbot—without the need for developers or data scientists.
Power BI enables everyone at every level of your institution to make confident decisions using up-to-the-minute analytics.
As a new immigrant to Canada, Vineet Mehra quickly grasped the inequities that he and his family now faced.
He was just 6 years old.
But he saw the unfairness. His parents, who had arrived from India with little money, both worked hard. Yet they lacked the same access to health care as other residents in the town’s more-affluent neighborhoods.
That disparity – health outcomes driven by postal code more than genetic code – became “etched in my mind,” recalls Mehra, global chief marketing officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). Today, he remains devoted to closing those gaps with fresh technologies that can help democratize health and wellness.
Vineet Mehra.
Tuesday, WBA, Microsoft and Adobe launched a cloud platform that will provide WBA customers with personalized health care and shopping experiences. Headquartered in suburban Chicago, WBA owns Walgreens, Boots and Alliance Healthcare.
Transform spoke with Mehra to learn how the new platform and its data-fueled customer connections can help reinvent shopping for health and wellness goods – and make those products available to more people.
TRANSFORM: How will the platform make shopping better and more personal?
VINEET MEHRA: We have two of the largest loyalty programs in the world – our Walgreens Balance Rewards program and our Boots Advantage Card program. Between them, there are well over 100 million primary customer profiles.
The work we’re doing with Microsoft is critical as we organize that information and data in a cloud-based solution. This new cloud platform puts our most valuable data in one place and allows us to orchestrate experiences that meet people where they are, giving them what they need.
TRANSFORM: Can you give me an example?
MEHRA: Imagine a customer named Annie who receives an email through her loyalty membership for Vitamin B offers. Based on her purchase history, we know she’s a Vitamin B shopper. We know she typically runs out of Vitamin B after 30 days.
Annie visits walgreens.com and Vitamin B options are prioritized for her viewing. We don’t show her anything but Vitamin B because we know she’s in the market for that now. She buys it. As she’s further browsing the site, Annie adds Emergen-C (a Vitamin C supplement) to her cart. But let’s say that Annie doesn’t finalize her purchase online – it remains in her cart.
Later that day, she’s walking by a Walgreens store. We now have the infrastructure to allow Annie to control how and when we communicate with her. So, when we identify that the Emergen-C that she left in her online cart is in stock at that Walgreens location, she receives a text message notifying her. She goes in to buy it.
TRANSFORM: How does the platform connect the retail and pharmacy experience for customers?
MEHRA: Let’s go back to Annie. As she enters that Walgreens store to buy her Vitamin C, she gets a real-time alert on her phone: The prescription that she was supposed to pick up tomorrow can be ready today at that store. This is because we now know she’s in the store with us.
Annie heads to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription. The pharmacist also reminds her she’s due for a flu shot. We know from our cloud-based customer data that she gets the vaccine each year.
With customer information thoughtfully organized, we can create these seamless experiences around health and wellness that allow our retail offering to complement our pharmacy offering. But that can only be enabled if all that data is in one place, not scattered in many data warehouses all over the country.
TRANSFORM: You have previously talked about the need to democratize health care, to make it more human and more personal, to treat each customer and patient as a complete, unique individual. Does this platform help WBA meet that mission?
MEHRA: Absolutely. It’s something that I personally and our company are passionate about.
The recent events around the racial equality movement are showing there are “haves” and “have-nots” in our society. Your postal code, in some cases, dictates your health outcome more than your genetic code. We have pharmacy deserts in America. We have food deserts. We have areas without access to health care. But imagine if we knew who you were, we could offer those experiences to you in multiple ways.
So health outcomes don’t have to be defined by the fact that you may live in a lower-income area or that you don’t have access to public transportation or a car or that there’s no pharmacy around you. If we knew who you are, we could say to you, “Hey, it’s time for your Vitamin C to maintain the health of you and your family.”
We can offer up an experience to deliver it direct to your door. And we’ll set up delivery lockers in certain neighborhoods where people can pick things up.
TRANSFORM: And through these innovations, you are democratizing access to health and wellness products?
MEHRA: Yes, to products that families need but may not always have access to just because of the structural challenges we have in our society in America. By knowing who people are, we can provide them access that may not always involve heading to a store.
In other cases, you have families with two working parents or single moms or single dads. How do they even get out of the house when they’ve got three kids at home and one of the kids is sick? You start to see how this information will allow us to get people health and wellness the way they need it when they need it.
TRANSFORM: When and how did this mission become so important to you?
MEHRA: I grew up as a first-generation immigrant kid. I was born in India. My parents came to Canada, to a blue-collar town, with relatively little. The experiences some of my friends and I had there are still etched in my mind – like this idea of access to health and wellness being defined by where I live, it never made sense to me.
It comes from those roots, from realizing that some people had more than I did but it had nothing to do with how hard we worked. Health care should be one of those rights that everyone has access to.
TRANSFORM: At their core, these innovations are all about people, is that right?
MEHRA: It’s important that we don’t just talk about this as digital technology. It happens to be digitally hosted but with the idea of human kindness and digital magic coming together. That applies to the side of the business with our pharmacists – humans you interact with in critical ways. We’re mashing together human kindness with technology.
MEHRA: The best part of Dynamics is that it acts as a tool that is constantly giving us better signals.
If you think about health and wellness and taking care of your family, these things are constantly evolving. You can be diagnosed one day with something. You can go from having a cold one day to allergies the next. Dynamics 365 is a great customer-data platform because it’s so real time. It’s processing data constantly then turning that data into insights that allow our pharmacists to more efficiently treat patients.
TRANSFORM: Before joining WBA, you were the chief marketing officer at Ancestry.com. There may be nothing more personal than genealogy and genetic testing. Do you think of yourself as an evangelist for truly personalized customer service?
MEHRA: In my experience working deeply in consumer genetics, I got a deep appreciation for the fact that while we all may be more similar than we think, we’re all wired up very differently. The medicines that work for you may not work for me.
We have to meet people where they are – this idea of personalization is becoming absolutely critical in health and wellness.
Brands like Walgreens and Boots are the front lines of health and wellness access to much of the population. If we can be in the business of personalized health services for people, that’s going to make society healthier. It’s going to give people access in ways they’ve never had before.
Top photo: A Walgreens store in downtown Chicago. (Photos courtesy of Walgreens)
Participants of Hackathon 2019 in Redmond entering the Hackathon tents. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
Hackathon 2019 food and beverage area. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
Hackathon 2019 food and beverage. Photo credit: Scott Eklund
Hackathon 2019 Waste Ambassador. Photo credit: Leah Tischler
TimberAI team at Hackathon 2019 – James Mundy, Mauro Petrini, Antonio de Marco. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
Windows Insiders who participated in Hackathon 2019: Stefan Malter, Mark Lunney, Michelle Spaul, Josh Cardif, Clint-Roy Mukarakate, Dr. Robert de Graaft, James Mundy, Dan Flores, Mauro Petrini, Antonio de Marco. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
Screenshots of the TimberAI MVP. Photo Credit: Antonio de Marco
Windows Insiders getting ready to hack at Hackathon 2019. Photo Credit: Windows Insider Program
