Putting technology in the hands of individuals who make a difference, is always inspiring. Alfred Nobel, himself would have been impressed to hear the youth gathered in his home town of Stockholm recently to share their innovative, change-making ideas to take on some of society’s tougher issues. Microsoft Innovate4Good is a global initiative that aims to empower youth to change their world and...

Microsoft OneNote has helped reduce student drop-out rates in Norway. The country has made large investments in ICT education in recent years. What are the effects of these investments? How have they provided optimal learning and better outcomes for students?

Students report that the operating system makes it easy to view information without opening applications. The Microsoft in Education team talks with Heiki Tähis, Head of IT and CIO of the Tallinn Polytechnic School in Estonia, about the school’s adoption of the Windows 8 operating system.

Traditionally, young people are educated to become competent employees. This has been the goal for many years and has proved to be essential for the development and growth of modern society. For many years the educational systems has fostered an increasing number of educated and trained individuals for the benefit of the individual and society.

If you were an employer looking for a young person to recruit, would you rather hire someone with impeccable academic credentials or someone who you knew can communicate effectively, has good organizational skills, can take decisions independently, bring the best from others to achieve common goals?

Why are there so few women technology entrepreneurs? There are numerous research projects and opinion polls that have looked into the issue, but we decided to go straight to the source and ask some of the leading female Start-ups working with Microsoft in Europe what they think.

Whether they expect their country to win or they just want to have a fun evening with friends in front of the TV, each year, an estimated 125 million people watch the Eurovision song contest. Each country in Europe has one entry into this singing extravaganza, with participating countries voting, by country, for the winners. This is the event that launched the careers of Abba (Sweden 1974) – who just...

Lagoa Secondary School in Portugal, is making learning more accessible to students with disabilities while bringing some fun. One creative step Lagoa took was to incorporate into their curriculum Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 – an advanced gesture-based gaming system. Basically, no controller is required and this has been a key factor in the Lagoa administration’s decision to adopt Kinect...

ABBA is not having a reunion, but fans can now interact with the band thanks to ABBA The Museum! Stockholm's new museum is set to open its doors today May 7th – ABBA The Museum at Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. ABBA The Museum has developed part of the exhibition's content together with Microsoft. The new museum is expected to be one of Stockholm's major tourist attractions and also make...

This past February 2013, at high schools and university campuses around the world, we kicked off the first-ever, women-only hackathon! The first annual International Women’s Hackathon – a worldwide competition sponsored by Microsoft Research and the Microsoft Imagine Cup, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, the Association for Computing Machinery Committee on Women...

In the late 1800s, the guanaco, a close relative of the llama, was hunted to near extinction. As we mark this year’s Earth Day (April 22), I want to share my excitement about a new tool that looks to make the future a little brighter for the guanaco and other threatened species in Latin America. That new tool is LiveANDES (Advanced Network for the Distribution of Endangered Species).

Paris is known for its broad boulevards, its picturesque side streets and its heavy traffic. Autolib’, an innovative car-sharing service, is helping make the traffic more manageable through a fleet of compact electric cars and an array of flexible services designed to help drivers reduce their reliance on privately owned cars — all connected and managed through an intelligent system based on...

Exactly 10 years ago, the pan-European Game Information (or PEGI) system was founded, harmonising the age classification of video games in more than 30 countries. Over the last decade, the system has provided consumers with age ratings for more than 20.000 games for the well-known game consoles, the pc platform and handheld gaming devices. The institutions of the European Union fully support the project,...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Microsoft’s new consumer privacy campaign and a quiz we developed – Your Privacy Type (YPT) – for consumers to gauge where they fall on the privacy continuum. Thus far, the campaign and the YPT quiz have generated discussion and positive reactions in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Germany. We’re also seeing strong engagement with consumers...

Online intermediaries contribute more than €430 billion to European economy in 2012; Digital Single Market key to continued growth. The  European Digital Media Association (EDiMA) presented European Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier with a new Copenhagen Economics study which shows that Europe’s online economy is growing at more than 10% per annum, substantially faster than...

Unleashing the potential of a data-driven economy will require policies that enable data to flow and be exchanged freely across geopolitical boundaries, while minimizing risks and harms to enterprises and individuals globally. This is a difficult balance that requires local, national, and regional governments to agree on which data can be shared, how they can be used, who should have access, and which...

In recent years, cloud computing has captured much of policy makers’ attention. With its massive datacenters, the Internet cloud delivers virtually infinite resources, providing the storage capacity to orchestrate massive flow of information and, most importantly, providing an elasticity of computing resources that cuts costs  for businesses and government alike. 

In recent years, cloud computing has evolved from an amazing innovation with lots of potential into an asset that we can increasingly no longer live without, both on a business and a personal basis,  catalyst of innovation and of economic growth.

The spirit of entrepreneurship in Finland is strong. No longer do ambitious youngsters automatically think about getting a job. Creating a start-up straight out of college is now seen as a valid and exciting career choice.

In the field of cancer detection, prevention and treatment, new ideas are helping to save lives and to improve quality of life during and following treatment. Ideas Matter hosted an impressive event on 14 May in London, during Cancer Prevention Week in the UK, to present some innovative technologies that are making a difference in the battle against cancer, and to ask innovators to describe how...

This month, we celebrate the success of a small Dutch start-up named Atomblock that has recently evolved and become a division of a much larger European company named ALSO.  Atomblock is now called ALSO Digital.  It is a cloud-based infrastructure company that helps game publishers, software publishers and retailers to sell their products on a global scale – in other words, providing a cloud...

Felienne Hermans is proof that it’s possible to start a successful company while still a student. Set up two years ago, Netherlands-based Infotron is not only generating revenue, it can count among its customers impressive names such as PWC, ING and KLM. The concept is brilliantly simple but powerful: Infotron analyses Excel spreadsheets so that companies can reduce the risk and cost that hidden...

It’s exciting enough when we hear about developers taking existing apps and putting them on our new Windows 8 platform, but it’s even more exciting when it’s a brand new app that is breaking new ground – and in children’s education. Infantium is one of a number of W8 apps being developed by innovators and entrepreneurs in Spain. CEO and co-founder Karen Marquez tells us about...

Anlock, a Greek company founded in 2010 that develops educational apps for children. Currently, more than 50 language-based educational apps, across 6 different languages (English, Greek, Spanish, Italian, German and French), help children between the age of 3-6 to learn letters, words and spelling. Working together with teachers and university professors from different countries, Anlock manages to have an...

The SME receiving recognition this week is GINA, a Czech Republic company founded in 2010 by one of the finalist teams of Imagine Cup 2010, a worldwide student competition. Turning student projects into real businesses is the type of innovative economic activities needed for growth in Europe, and GINA is another fine example.

The SME deserving recognition this month is Monolith Advertising, an Estonian-Croatian company. It began operations just 3 months ago with the single purpose of revolutionizing offline advertising by transforming existing advertising displays into smart and interactive tools. Monolith Advertising is run by a team of 6 people who, since May 2012, have already managed to partner with major corporate...

The SME receiving recognition for the month of August is JamPot Technologies, a company of 12 employees from Northern Ireland. JamPot invented an application that allows other companies and individuals to build their own mobile applications without needing any technical knowledge. JamPot’s innovations simplify the use of sophisticated technology, enabling any of us to create smartphone apps for any...

Our July SME of the Month is Admiral Dynamics, a Belgian company that offers expertise in cloud-based solutions with particular focus on the powerful and efficient Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint tools. Its specialty is providing innovative, dynamic and flexible solutions that allow its customers to increase the efficiency and standard of their operations without making unnecessary...

Commerce Guys, a young company based in France, was also the winner of the Microsoft BizSpark European Summit. This innovative eCommerce specialist uses the open source Drupal technology on top of the Windows Azure cloud platform. It provides online merchants with the powerful, responsive and innovative eCommerce solutions needed to succeed with Drupal Commerce.

The SME receiving recognition this month is Avaelgo, a Romanian company of 10 employees that offers IT consulting services, software development, and technical training for customers worldwide. Their flexible and innovative solutions are based on rapid adoption of cutting edge cloud platform technologies, and they ensure that their customers are at the forefront of their respective fields.

Youth2Work is a Microsoft and FIT (Fastrack to IT) youth employment training programme designed to help get young people in Ireland working. Developed in partnership between Microsoft and FIT, it combines industry insight and commitment with years of hands on experience of delivering training programmes designed to deliver in demand IT skills.

Partners in Learning  The Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum is the culmination of a year’s worth of country and regional events honouring teachers and school leaders who are creatively and effectively using technology in their curriculum. The event provides these exceptional educators with an opportunity to compete and gain recognition at the global level and to share and collaborate...

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is the world’s most prestigious student technology competition, bringing together student innovators from all over the world. If you have a great idea for a new app, bring it to life through Imagine Cup. With Microsoft resources and support, you can make a great app and bring your dreams to life!

„Microsoft“ pristato jaunimui skirtą iniciatyvą „Youthspark“. Rugsėjo 20 dieną tiesioginės transliacijos metu „Microsoft“ pristatė naują jaunimui skirtą iniciatyvą „YouthSpark“. Tai 100 šalių vykdoma programa, kuria per 3 metus siekiama padėti 300 milijonų jaunuolių įgyti šiuolaikišką išsilavinimą, darbui reikalingų įgūdžių ar savo...

YouthSpark apjungė daugiau nei 20 naujų ir esamų jaunimui skirtų iniciatyvų. Rugsėjo 20 dieną tiesioginės transliacijos metu „Microsoft“ pristatė naują jaunimui skirtą iniciatyvą „YouthSpark“. Ši programa apjungė daugiau nei 20 naujų ir anksčiau pradėtų iniciatyvų, kuriomis siekiama padėti jaunimui visame pasaulyje, taip pat ir Lietuvoje, gauti reikalingų žinių ir...

Mød stjerne didaktikken og forskere. Jeg har fået nogle af stjerne-didaktikerne til at lægge vejen forbi Uddannelsesforum og fremvise ikke mindst tablet-teknologiens pædagogiske potentialer. Særligt vil jeg fremhæve Den Digitale Tarzanbane, kompetenceløft for både lærere og pædagoger i Helsingør, elevbaseret matematikundervisning og de...