4 Years partnership with Unlimited Potential
10/10/08

For 4 years now, IAN has been cooperating with Microsoft's Unlimited Potential project. During this partnership, IAN has achieved to provide IT education for 1232 people from vulnerable groups that included more than 3000 courses of 20 lessons each! Unlimited Potential Unlimited Potential is Microsoft's response to the 5 billion people worldwide who remain largely underserved by markets and governments. Unlike the 1 billion people who enjoy reasonably high levels of disposable income and have access to information technology, the 5 billion people at the bottom and middle of the economic pyramid still live in relative poverty, isolated from the benefits of technology and information society.

To better serve these people, Microsoft Unlimited Potential combines advanced technologies with strong partnerships with governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and technology and service partners.

Microsoft hold a unique position as an industry leader, a global citizen, and an active partner to thousands of governments, businesses, and community organizations around the world. Microsoft brings the same spirit of innovation to global citizenship that Microsoft has always applied to its business.

Microsoft position and principles

Ultimately Microsoft wants to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for those at the middle and bottom of the world's economic pyramid-the next 5 billion people. In the short term, Unlimited Potential aims to reach the next 1 billion people by 2015 by exploring solutions in three key interrelated areas. Each is crucial to developing sustained economic opportunity:

•  Transforming education
•  Fostering local innovation
•  Enabling jobs and opportunities

In these three areas, Microsoft Unlimited Potential can create the greatest possible impact in building a virtuous cycle of sustained social and economic development. Furthermore, each of these areas helps to drive the development of the others. For example, local innovation is dependent on a strong educational system. Similarly, through innovation and a strong technology infrastructure, communities become more appealing to local, regional, and global businesses and investors providing new jobs and opportunities. Sustainability is a key indicator of effective programs and activities and is our long-term measure of success.

What Microsoft is Doing

Microsoft's Unlimited Potential portfolio includes programs, products, and partnerships which respond to a wide variety of social and economic development challenges within three key interrelated areas.
Transforming Education •  Partners in Learning (PiL): Active in 101 countries; reached more than 4.9 million teachers and more than 107 million students across these countries.

Fostering Local Innovation

•  Microsoft Innovation Centers (MICs): Help foster innovation and growth in local software economies by providing students, professional developers, architects, IT professionals, and researchers access to world-class facilities, consultants, and resources. There are currently 110 MICs in 100 communities in 60 countries with plans to scale to 200 MICs over the next two years in an additional 25 countries.

•  Imagine Cup: 2007 Imagine Cup included more than 100,000 students from more than 100 countries and regions

Enabling Jobs and Opportunity

•  Partnership for Technology Access: Affordable and relevant technology to individuals and micro/small business owners, in partnerships with governments and local entities. Established more than 50 PTA programs.

•  Community Technology Skills Program: In 2004-2007, Microsoft has provided cash grants, software donations, and technical support and training to 40,000 community technology centers in 102 countries.

Microsoft Partnerships

Working through Partnerships: Microsoft cannot meet the challenge alone. Unlimited Potential relies on Microsoft's global network of partnerships with businesses, governments, and development organizations. Microsoft currently works with approximately 750,000 partners worldwide.

Microsoft offers tremendous value to its partners, including helping to:

•  Create sustainable (and locally beneficial) business models

•  Develop technology solutions that respond to local social and development challenges

•  Reach new customers and users in underserved markets

Microsoft also equips NGOs and governments with tools, skills, and finance to amplify proven solutions that tackle grassroots development problems and humanitarian crises

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