Author's entries

The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs was launched last week to address the shortfall of Europeans with digital professional skills and to exploit the employment potential of ICT. The EU's competitiveness is "under threat" according to Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, if it cannot fill the expertise gap. 

When looking at the current state of the European economy, it is hard to ignore the struggles of one group in particular – today’s youth. There is a generation of out-of-work, disengaged young Europeans that cost EU member states €153 billion every year, according to new findings by EU research agency Eurofound. 

"Europe needs a youth guarantee - that young people will be in work, training or education within months of leaving school’’ László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas!” is how the saying goes. That is precisely the enthused response that Innovate4Good drew in Brussels where I just spent the day with 150 amazing young people from around Europe .

As part of Employment Week, Microsoft acted as main sponsors providing leadership to a series of events and awards where one of the highlights was the Skills for Employability ceremony. 

“This is not a niche group!”, “ Let’s not still be having the same discussion in 20 years!”, “Let’s get the elephant out of the room!”  were just some of the impassioned rallying cries at the Employer Forum on Accessibility in the Workplace last week.

Get Online Week starts today across Europe, running from the 28th February – 5th March 2011. As the name suggests, the awareness week aims to get people using the Internet and gaining the skills needed to participate in the new information-based economy. Even in this age of smartphones, wi-fi hotspots and social media, 200 million people in Europe are still without the Internet.

Take a Microsoft consultant in Madrid, add a PR Director in Kiev,  include a development tools specialist in Warsaw and an online marketing director in London. Then add to this the HR consultant in Dublin and finally throw in a very generous sprinkling of technical experts all around Europe. That’s when you start to get a sense of the cumulative value that employees at Microsoft are...

On Safer Internet Day 2011 I spent a few hours at my daughter’s school talking to a class of 10 year olds, as part of our employee engagement program on child online safety.

For many years at Microsoft, we have been deeply committed as a company to ensuring that the magic of software is accessible also to the non-profit community worldwide. Nonprofit organizations generally strive to serve communities and fill gaps in tough economic times, where resources are increasingly tight. 

In the constant battle to do more with less, non-profit organisations are increasingly turning to technology to improve productivity and reduce administrative costs, which ultimately allows them to focus their resources where they have most impact – benefiting the most vulnerable in our society.

Technology can be an amazing tool to help drive social change and economic development. In their constant struggle to do more with less, many nonprofits have already embraced technology to improve productivity and reduce costs.

The 2010 Zero Poverty campaign spearheaded by Caritas in Europe reveals that 1 person in 10 with a job in the EU nonetheless lives in poverty.

Recently I caught up with Child Focus, a NGO in Belgium with whom Microsoft has been partnering for several years to support their mission of protecting children online.

Women now account for over half of Europe’s immigrants. They face many challenges including higher unemployment and are often clustered in less-skilled occupations.

Safer Internet Day is all about creating awareness to help protect young people online.  

To celebrate Safer Internet Day 2010 and for the second year in a row, Microsoft subsidiaries across Europe are organizing employee volunteering activities to educate children, teachers and parents on how to make the best of the internet, and avoid the risks. Through local partnerships with NGOs, schools, customers and partners, around 650 Microsoft employees in 24 subsidiaries throughout Europe will train...