April 2024

One year ago, we launched our first edition with a simple greeting: “Welcome. Glad you’re here.”

Since then, more than 7 million subscribers have followed The Monthly Tech-In. If you’re one of those folks: We appreciate you!

And as we start Year Two, we offer a similar salutation: Thank you for joining in! 🥳

That’s not a casual line. Those words carry real meaning. For the past year, we’ve shared tales of tech advances that only roared to life after people with different experiences and backgrounds blended their voices and imaginations to fuel those digital discoveries.

No doubt, tech is a “we” thing. And diversity unlocks more innovation.

In that spirit, we’re devoting this issue to inclusion, exploring how technologies support and spotlight people who may have felt unseen.

In Kenya, for example, unemployed young adults are entering the workforce thanks to an AI platform. In Seattle, a software marketing manager uses her vlog to help inspire fellow Latinas to navigate the tech world. And in Slovakia, a software developer with cerebral palsy is using Copilot to code faster – and to create life hacks for other people with disabilities.

This month, as always, you are warmly invited to wade into our tech deep dive. So are you and you. And hey – over there – you too!

What can you do with 11 extra minutes? Well, you could center yourself with an 11-minute meditation or stretch yourself with an 11-minute yoga routine. Or maybe cook up some pasta or rice.

Here’s why we ask: When people save just 11 minutes per day by using AI in their work, they start to feel the technology’s value. That’s the “magic number,” the precise amount of saved time that convinces people to build a lasting AI habit, according to a survey of 1,300 people who use Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Now, 11 additional minutes a day is nice. But at Microsoft, using AI to boost inclusion is on our minds 24 hours a day.

Consider Anton Mirhorodchenko, a Microsoft software developer based in Slovakia. He lives with cerebral palsy, which, he says, “heightened” his perception of clean code. But the neurological disorder has made communicating, typing – and coding – difficult. Instead of a finger, he used his nose to press the “shift” key. “Every keystroke was a literal pain,” he wrote online. “That made it hard for me to follow industry best practices or even share my work with others.”

Along came Github Copilot, an AI-powered tool. As Mirhorodchenko types, it predicts his coding intentions and suggests code completions. “It’s a huge time and effort saver,” he wrote.

Much of his work is focused on using AI to not only solve his own physical challenges but those of others. In fact, he created a simple feeding robot to help people with musculoskeletal disorders eat independently.

As GitHub Copilot makes coding more inclusive, researchers in England aim to inject more diversity directly into large language models (LLMs) – a type of AI that produces and processes natural language text.

LLMs learn from webpages, books, articles and other online sources, and from human feedback used to tailor the outputs of LLMs. That data is traditionally collected from small groups of people. As a result, LLMs tend to reflect the preferences and values of a slim subset of the population. So if you ask an LLM to help you, say, plan a marriage ceremony, it will likely recommend a white dress, a big cake and lots of flowers – the stuff of Western weddings.

To help make LLM responses more inclusive, researchers at the University of Oxford compiled feedback from 1,500 people across 75 countries. That group conversed with more than 20 LLMs in real time, infusing them with an array of sociocultural contexts. Their work stems from an initiative launched in 2023 by Microsoft Research.

Connecting with people who often feel overlooked also inspired a pair of AI-based efforts now bringing fresh faces into the workforce.

In Mombasa, Kenya, where 44% of young people are unemployed, the Swahilipot Hub Foundation, a nonprofit, has held AI hackathons and trained more than 900 youth on data management and data privacy.

The group also built two databases, one containing 20,000 young job seekers, the other listing local employers with opportunities. For months, foundation leaders manually cross-checked each registry to link people with jobs. These days, they’re using an AI-enhanced app to automatically and quickly make matches.

“We’re trying to create a culture of data in Mombasa,” says Ziri Issa, head of technology and innovation at Swahilipot Hub Foundation.

Another vastly untapped talent pool includes those with autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, traumatic brain injuries and other people whose brains operate differently. An estimated 80 percent of neurodiverse people are either unemployed or underemployed.

Now, a neurodiverse team has launched Mentra, a hiring platform that uses Microsoft AI to connect more than 44,000 registered users with fulfilling careers. The platform evaluates more than 75 data points entered by the jobseekers, including their skills, goals and accommodations.

For founder and CEO Jhillika Kumar, the inspiration to create Mentra began inside her own family. Her brother, Vikram, is a non-speaking autistic individual who recently gained the ability to communicate on a letterboard. One of the first things he tapped out on the board: “I want to get a job."

Indeed, families – in their many forms and structures – often spark and inform our personal quests for the right tech to help keep our loved ones happy and healthy.

Cynthia Bryant, a customer service account director at Microsoft, has two sons. Her oldest endured traumatic health experiences as an infant, including eyesight challenges. “That led me to look at what technologies would allow him to be as successful as anyone else,” Bryant says.

But the journey also supplied Bryant with precious wisdom. At work, Bryant tries to lead people with the same empathy her bosses dispensed during her family’s hardest hours.

That same pay-it-forward grace flavored Vanesa Carrillo’s recent post for Mi Día, a new series on the Microsoft Conexiones blog. Each entry follows one day in the life of a Hispanic and Latinx employee at Microsoft.

Carrillo, a product marketing manager, detailed her commutes, work tasks, meals and her salsa and bachata dance class. “I try to inspire and empower fellow Latinas,” she wrote.

She’s also created her own lifestyle vlog, @verryvanesa, where she often touches on her life as a Latina in tech. Like this entry: “Amigas this is something I wish someone would have told me while I was starting off my career journey: Cultivate a strong support network. Surround yourself with people who uplift and empower you.” 

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. See you – all of you – next month!

We hope The Monthly Tech-In quenches your digital thirst. Between issues, follow the Microsoft News and Stories LinkedIn page for the latest company news, or visit us at Microsoft Source to learn about people doing extraordinary things with technology.

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