The Monthly Tech-In: June 2023

Hey, thanks for popping by! As June simmers, we’re dishing up some cool scoops of goodness about technology and innovation.

Like Hong Kong’s food angels, who built a custom solution that retrieves surplus food to nourish 10,000 people a day. Or the virtual garden where the first seeds are sprouting in a replenished U.S. blood supply.?

We’ll also find out how Microsoft celebrates LBGTQIA+ communities all year round, and as AI continues to be top of mind, we'll introduce you to some folks working day and night to make sure the tech is used responsibly and transparently.??

We’re integrating AI into our lives every day, from translating abuela’s?mole recipe to recapping meetings. Behind the scenes, there are folks who devote their days to ensuring our AI systems are responsible by design. Getting it right is as crucial to them as it is to you.

Take our president, Brad Smith, who laid out a 5-step blueprint for AI’s future that makes one thing clear: Ethical AI requires human governance. It needs rules and regulations.???

Microsoft researchers, engineers and policy experts have spent years defining how we’ll build AI systems that earn your trust. Our Responsible AI Standard ?is the compass that helps teams identify and prevent harm while boosting beneficial use.?

If you think of it that way, responsible AI may have more in common with your summer plans than you imagine. It’s like a GPS, providing safe and trustworthy guidance as you embark on your next adventure.?

Employees like Steph Ballard, Sridhar Sriram and Ece Kamar are also trying to get AI right by making sure the people creating AI tools come to the table with an array of perspectives and skills. When we invite more voices to our responsible AI roundtable, we open the door to more transparent conversations amongst governments, academics and partners.

As part of that conversation, we asked 20 experts to explore the future of AI. From Alec D. Gallimore, dean of engineering for the University of Michigan (and an actual rocket scientist): “AI agents could help students hone the process of asking intelligent questions, evaluating output and checking for accuracy and bias. Through those pursuits, one learns how to become a more critical thinker.”?

Safe and supported, thriving at work

Morty Scanlon grew up hiding his identity as a gay man. At Microsoft, he’s thriving as his authentic self with a manager and team who support him unconditionally. In a safe and welcoming environment, he can focus on creative work solutions. His story is one of many . And while Microsoft celebrates LGBTQIA+ communities year-round, we also joined others all over the world this past month in showcasing Pride.

A recipe for repurposing surplus food with tech

Hong Kong’s nonprofit Food Angel earns its wings by rescuing past-its-prime but perfectly edible food from markets, restaurants, hotels and grocery stores across the city and converting that surplus into more than 10,000 meals a day for those who need it most – many of them elderly. Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 and Power Apps help them coordinate the logistical acrobatics that lead to these daily kindnesses.

‘I am going to make it’

Three years after Microsoft implemented its Racial Equity Initiative, a set of multi-year commitments to help address racial injustice and inequity in the US, it’s providing new opportunities for small business owners, like Lisa Jones.

“Everyone told me, ‘You’re a woman, you’re a Black woman, you’re from Alabama, you don’t have the right network, you’re not a coder’ — I could go on and on. But I said, ‘I am going to make it.’” Partnering with Microsoft helped her expand her network through recruiting and training programs, events and mentorships, helping her make an impact in the community.

Blood donations get an infusion of creativity with mixed reality

Early results are promising for a study on whether mixed reality can help convince adults under 30 to help prop up the nation’s shrinking blood supply. Blood Centers of America and Abbott are using Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets to provide an immersive, soothing nature experience to reduce the anxiety that can come with donating blood.

We all benefit when products are inclusive by design

Are audiobooks among your travel must-haves this summer? Their popularity and evolution from being a tool designed for the blind shows the "profound impacts” of investing in a feature originally meant for one group, says Jenny Lay-Flurie, Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, who shares her story on the WorkLab podcast about losing her hearing as an adult . She also talks about why accessibility matters to everyone, what biz leaders can do to empower their teams and how AI might help along the way.