#Thanks in #Giving... #MicrosoftLife

Living my day job as a Salesperson, it’s normal for me to be over-occupied with customer calls, reviews, emails, meetings or juggle between several other activities and multi-task. On top of it, I work at Microsoft – a Tech company and it is easy at a tech company to get caught up in technology for technology sake.

In my opinion, the endpoint of technology is to make life better and I am happy to work where the company mission truly embodies this feeling.

Microsoft mission: "To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more"

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And GIVING is an important way we live our mission. We have opportunities to participate, volunteer or contribute for several causes all-round the year.

Last week, I was blessed to organize and contribute in taking technology to the next generation. We organized a campaign where a group of volunteers from the team spent a few hours with 35 girl students at a local public school and taught them computer coding using the Minecraft Hour of code tutorial (https://code.org/minecraft).  

Quick Fact: 65% of children entering primary schools today will end up working in jobs that do not exist today and technology is expected to be a key enabler in disrupting established industries and creating jobs of tomorrow.

We thought a few hours of coding with kids could be our little contribution to provide elementary technology and Digital Skills for the next generation of the country.

Although, some students were new to computers, the innovative way of coding was an instant HIT. The children were thrilled to participate in the program and picked up the basic skills fast. They willingly accepted challenges one after other and the enthusiasm really peaked with completion of every challenge.

The experience lasted for 3 hours only, but we knew some children had already acknowledged computer science as a potential interest area for the long term. To let the spirit of computing live longer,   

• The offline variant of Minecraft software was loaded on the Microsoft digital lab in the school
• The resident computer teacher was also trained so that she could also guide the students later
• Minecraft branded goodies were given as an encouragement to children

It was a wonderful opportunity to create a change in the community with digital skills and computer friendliness for the kids. It was also immensely satisfying for our complete volunteer group to contribute in the #GIVE campaign and interact with the next generation on the sidelines of the activity

As a side-effect, the activity also helped in a healthy engagement within the team of volunteers and better acceptance of inclusion within our society.

As some parts of the world celebrate #ThanksGivings , I feel extremely gratified for this opportunity to GIVE. Thank You #Microsoft

#LoveThisTeam #MicrosoftLife  #MSFTAdvocate #DigitalSalesIndia