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...

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,...

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?

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.

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...

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?

Today marks an important milestone for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Microsoft as we enter into a new partnership to address the digital divide across our Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies around the globe that touch the lives of more than 150 million people each year.

Ireland has sometimes been seen in Europe as a land of writers and imagination. Irish writers such as Flann O’Brien have been known to use scientific and technological subject matters to fantasical and humourous effect or in the case of James Joyce’s work have inspired the names for previously unimagined sub-atomic particles. The advent of Ireland’s six month Presidency of the Council of...

The local economies that are recovering the quickest following the recent downturn are those that have a labour force that is adaptable to external trends and shocks. As the recent OECD Skills Strategy has highlighted, skills are the new global currency of the 21st century, with governments increasingly focusing on the need to boost skills as a means of returning to growth and supporting social...

The Partners in Learning Global Forum 2012 was a unique experience in my career, summarising in two words: Life Changing! I was able to be connected with brilliant personalities and projects and I felt that I wasn't alone on this journey.

Today, millions of job positions remain untaken in Europe. Yet millions of young people are unemployed. The Youth Employability Award recently organised by Microsoft, Accenture and Adecco aimed at presenting efficient solutions to this issue.

Landing at Zaventem airport during a snow storm last week, I suddenly felt as though the Euro crisis had taken physical form. Europe seemed stuck in a permanent winter since 2008 with no warmth in sight. Worse still, it seemed as though some of the EU’s politicians were busy perfecting ice-maker policies rather than helping to fix the central heating. 

Being a start-up is never easy but some markets are particularly challenging. The healthcare sector is arguably one of these, because of the (understandably) often complex layers of legislation and scientific validation required, so adoption of new innovation can be lengthy.

Technology donations for nonprofits made easy: What has benefited German nonprofits for nearly four years now, is now also available in Austria. As of late September, the online technology donation portal Stifter-helfen.at – IT for nonprofits went online with a press conference in Vienna and media coverage in various print and online titles. It gives Austrian nonprofits access to over 100 products...

CEO and founder Sindhu Joseph took time out of her busy schedule running her very successful business to tell us her story, talk about working with Microsoft, winning Tech All Stars and what it’s like being an entrepreneur in a tough economy.

The Net Neutrality discussion has always been emotive on both sides (Internet providers & users, and Telecoms). However, the discussion has now matured.

ICT has recently been pointed out by the European Commission as one of the big job growth areas and as a digital native, a student in 2012 who has grown up surrounded by technology I should feel privileged.. 

The prospects for Europe's youth were never bleaker; the prospects were never brighter.

According to the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, one in six people in the European Union has a disability so severe that it prevents them from fully taking part in society due to environmental and attitudinal barriers.

How do we inspire innovation in young people? How can we successfully marry technology with social entrepreneurship? How do we foster ideas for positive change?

Back in 2010, I had a vision to build an information system that would advance the pace of delivering quality healthcare and challenge the perception that public institutions are slow moving.

On March 27, I had the pleasure of attending the third annual Summit of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) in Brussels. I was greeted by over 100 IAMCP partners who had come together to position innovative SMEs at the centre of Europe's economic recovery.

Early on in the year, much was being said about youth employability being the key to the economic crisis. We felt that was the problem. It was only being said, little was being done.

Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark welcomed hundreds of students, IT industry leaders, member state officials and representatives from the education community to discuss the theme, “Future Jobs and e-Skills in Europe” in Copenhagen for the official closing event of European e-Skills Week 2012.

One problem, one solution, right? If I use some metaphors in my consulting work over and again, it’s because they work.

I believe that SMEs are key to Europe’s economic recovery and I have several reasons that support my thinking. The first reason is sheer volume: there are almost 21 million SMEs in the European Union and 90 % of these have fewer than ten employees. Imagine the potential if every SME could hire just one more person!

The sun rises and so do I. It is the first day of my journey to the Partners in Learning European Forum (PILEF 2012) in Lisbon.

More protection for EU citizens, but organizational costs for enterprises, with sanctions determined at the EU level – that, in a nutshell, is the EU Commission’s proposal for General Data Protection Regulation.

The London School of Economics study investigates what the real economic effects of cloud are likely to be, and especially what that tells us about employment and job skills in the near future.

Enabling a new human capacity to match a new era of exponential change in our global economy is one of our greatest challenges, not just for governments but equally for industry and certainly the focal point of initiatives from the third sector and NGOs like us Langas i Ateiti ‘Window to the Future’.

Earlier this year, the European Commission adopted a wide-ranging strategy on IPRs. This strategy sets out a blueprint for a number of initiatives the Commission intends to launch between now and 2012 in various areas, including patents, trade marks, geographical indications, copyright licensing and digital libraries.

Cloud computing is currently considered to have great potential in mitigating the financial and administrative difficulties of public administrations in Germany. It promises to both optimize the use of IT resources, and encourages a great variety of collaboration options.

Few would deny the transformative impact the digital economy has had on business and world affairs in the past fifteen years. In the mid-1990s, a majority of people had not heard of the internet; online streaming (let alone DVDs) were not yet invented; software was still distributed on 3.5 inch floppy disks that were neither floppy or round, while today, everything from content to operating systems is...

Microsoft PIL is a global program focused on improving teaching and learning through the effective use of technology in the classroom.

Last month I revealed the recent outcomes of the white paper “Cloud Computing in Turkey: Players, Policies, Challenges and Opportunities” at a Cloud Computing conference hosted in Turkey.

Doctors want to reduce their administrative work and patients want easy access to healthcare. Why not use mobile technology to help them?

There is a great sense of momentum right now in the digital inclusion community. From grass roots volunteers getting people online across Europe, to the highest level policymakers, everyone has noticed it.

The world is changing. We now have something called cloud computing!

More than ever now, the European Commission needs to focus on building and growing the high-performance computing (HPC) market. High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers to solve advanced computation problems and is a key enabler of ground-breaking innovation that creates high wage jobs and allows Europe’s competitiveness to be maintained.

In 2001, when chartered accountant Jacob Wandt set out to create the e-conomic accounting software – an online cooperation platform for accountants and their customers – “the cloud” was not a yet common phrase in the software industry.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) project was launched by INSEAD business school in 2007 with the goal of determining metrics and approaches to better capture the richness of innovation in society and go beyond traditional measures of innovation such as the number of PhDs, the number of research articles produced, research centres created, patents issued, and research and development expenditures.

The ICT sector is a very fluid and aggressive global market where technology is driving change, in fact it’s driving innovation across all sectors. There’s a huge amount of innovation coming from Russia and across the East. Look to Asia and you’ll see the Japanese ‘eBay’ coming our way which will undoubtedly put pressure on eBay. In the coming years we are going to see some...

Cloud computing has all the ingredients of a true revolution in the way business, governments and individuals handle information.

It’s all about inspiring breakthroughs!

E-skills are no longer required only for those who work in IT departments, but for everyone participating in a digitized economy. The new economy is a digital economy. It's notable that many of the goals and metrics outlined in the European Commission's new Digital Agenda – public Internet use, availability of government services over the Internet, broadband adoption among disadvantaged groups...

This week I had the pleasure of participating in the eHealth Conference as part of the CIEN (Crossroads for the Electronics and Digital Industry) in Paris. The event was very stimulating, having identified some key challenges in the adoption of eHealth in France as well as the rest of Europe. It brought together representatives from industry, academia, and government.

The IT Academy in perspective

Health records are becoming increasingly used by citizens and health professionals to aggregate data that comes from many different sources. At the EuroRec Institute, we promote the use of high-quality health record systems by focusing on the users—their needs and how they interact with health information.

I was one of the 26 young ladies from all over Europe invited by Avanade to get involved in the first Women in IT Career Workshop to experience, learn, and share the insights of a successful path in IT. The event took place at the Accenture office in Kronberg, Germany, led by Avanade and joined by Microsoft and Accenture. Female executives representing the three companies defined a successful and...

The European Commission-funded 'eHealth Strategies study' has published an overview report that traces European countries’ progress along the goals set out in the eHealth Action Plan.

Small and medium-sized enterprises – SMEs – will be the powerhouse of the Innovation Union that the EU must become if we are to enjoy sustainable prosperity in the face of ever stronger global competition.

See what Microsoft’s Blaise Vignon and Brigitte Baumann, President of EBAN, had to say on the event which provided opportunities for growth and highlighted the contribution of early-stage investors to the Europe 2020 strategy.

Nearly 40% of all patients cured of cancer receive radiotherapy. Yet the methods used to target the radiations to the tumours are extremely time-consuming. New computer vision technologies could help save 4 million man hours globally.

Ten years after the presentation of the European Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment, which had resolved to make Europe the most competitive and knowledge-driven economy by 2010, a final judgement on success or failure of the overall strategy is difficult.

The fusing of ICT with business economic delivery models is challenging the future of the IT profession.

Just a few weeks after the launch of the EU flagship initiative Youth on the Move, on 4 October, Microsoft and European Schoolnet hosted a successful EU roundtable on eEducation entitled “ICT – are we doing enough to keep Europeans ahead in education?” in Brussels.

A special ‘European file’ edition focusing on Telemedicine was recently published under the leadership of Gerard Comyn, Vice-President CATEL, and former Head of Unit ‘ICT for Health’, DG INFSO, European Commission.

We attended the eHealth Strategies of European Countries Validation Workshop held on the 16 September 2010 in Brussels, hosted by the Belgium Presidency and organized jointly by the EC and Empirica.

If you missed the chance to read Professor Jonathan Liebenau’s great post of skills and cloud computing, I strongly recommend you finding 10 minutes to watch his webinar on how skilled (or not) the European work force will be to embrace cloud computing

It takes some new thinking to be able to benefit from cloud services.  As much as service providers might offer “seamless”, “trouble-free”, or “integrated” cloud services, customers need to have the insights to position themselves as capable users.   

Against the backdrop of the biggest eSkills campaign in Europe, an exciting national eSkills roadshow to help stimulate economic growth in Hungary was launched by Microsoft together with the Association of IT Enterprises  and the HELB Foundation

www.e-aptitudini.ro portal puts the incentive on upgrading skills! An initiative launched during the European eSkills Week by Junior Achievement Romania and Microsoft to match the demand for eSkills trainings against available educational resources! 

Our guest blogger today is Riitta Raesmaa, partner and co-founder of Sopima, a Finnish SME and part of the Microsoft BizSpark programme!

The eHealth landscape offers both opportunities and barriers to policy makers in the EU 27 member states which are not just about technical issues of interoperability and data security and confidentiality.

After the crisis, the e-skills gap is looming in Europe.