I drove through the snow to meet with Ted Okada yesterday. What a guy. He came into MS as part of the Groove acquisition and now works for Ray as Director Humanitarian Systems. Who they? Their vision is "by taking on some of the most challenging collaboration problems in the least served areas of the world, Microsoft Humanitarian Systems aspires both to do good and to learn how to build better technology".

Ted's work takes him to some of the most hostile and deprived places on the planet. He's just been to Kabul and Kashmir where he identified a few uses for Groove Virtual Office technology....like the Afghan Telemedicine project and UN/IMO food distribution...where technology can bring about collaboration where it otherwise wouldn't exist. Ted says "by supporting humanitarian work we learn what is great about our products and what can be improved". 

I've introduced him to the Trestle Foundation guys and I'm hoping our next project could be with an Afghan woman IT entpreneneur. I've also connected him up with the Arzu people.

Must admit, this kind of thing makes me very proud to work for Microsoft. I know it's not unique to us (Cisco have invested in centres out there too) but it's still great to see. Yes the work we do here is primarily about revenue and profit - but it's also about helping people out. Great example of where innovative technology is making a difference.