6 March 2017 11:09 am Views - 1676
A year after the formation of Microsoft Philanthropies, Microsoft Corp. and its employees have donated more than US$650 million in cash, cloud services and software to nonprofits around the world.
In a letter published recently, Mary Snapp, corporate vice president at Microsoft Philanthropies, detailed the organization’s 2016 contributions. Highlights include US$ 465 million in cloud services donated to more than 71,000 organizations to benefit the public good. In addition, Microsoft employees raised US$142 million for 19,000 nonprofits, helping reach an important milestone:The company’s giving program has now raised US$1.5 billion since1983.
Snapp also reports significant progress is areas such as aiding organizations that respond to human and manmade disasters and providing computer science education to those who otherwise would not have access.
“Technology has the power to uplift, to connect, and perhaps most important, to save lives,” Snapp said. “Together with our grantees, partners and employees around the world, Microsoft Philanthropies is using the power of technology to help those impacted by some of the world’s biggest challenges, including economic disruption, inequality, disasters, war, and famine.”
In January 2016, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the company would donate US$1 billion incloud services to nonprofit organizations and researchers working on the world’s most urgent needs, from health care to education to the environment.While the commitment was originally envisioned as a three-year initiative, Microsoft Philanthropies is nearly at the halfway point of the goal, with US$ 465 million donated in a year to 71,000 organizations.
For example, CONIN, a non profit in Argentina, now uses Microsoft cloud technology to identify and analyze causes of childhood malnutrition. CONIN is now able, along with local governments, to better direct resources to families in urgent need and even pinpoint interventions that can be taken before a crisis occurs.
“CONIN works to prevent childhood malnutrition, and we attend to more than 400 children a week in Salta province alone,” said Teresa Cornejo, president of a CONIN network in the city of Salta, Argentina.
“We used to work with paper records, which makes it very difficult to have a clear picture. Technology makes us much faster and enables us to have every child in the system.”
In Sri Lanka many NGOs have taken advantage of the software donations program and over USD 5 million of software has been donated to local NGOs. Arecentpartnership withSarvodayaFusion has directly trained 5,000 disadvantaged youth in computer science.
Through the YouthSpark cash grant program Microsoft has donated cash grants totaling to USD 4.5 million in Sri Lanka. Youth Spark Live brings together Microsoft employees, partners and NGOs in an effort to inspire the youth and show them the myriad opportunities available in the technology field.