This is what happens when interesting ideas, passion for technology, and experimental engineers converge

Each year, we host dozens of customer and partners in the Microsoft Garage. As we walk visitors through our community hub, makerspace, and most recently, our new Mixed Reality room, we often discuss everything from fostering innovation to designing spaces where people want to come together to collaborate. Across tech, banking, education, healthcare, and everything in between, one topic that….

PowerPoint team shows how hackathons and teamwork are the best testing grounds for giving life to ideas

Hacking culture comes naturally to Alex Gueniot. As the senior software engineer for PowerPoint driving technical implementation of new features, he just can’t give up on good ideas. “I compulsively need to create and to collaborate with people. That’s why I’ve been involved in almost 20 hackathon projects in the past seven years. One year, I was on six hackathon….

This Microsoft Garage intern shares how she refused to let fear define her

In high school, Kristen Laird experienced terrible burns as a result of a lab experiment explosion.  She struggled for years with fear of flames, and decided to turn it around by looking her fear straight in the face and becoming an EMT (emergency medical technician) and a volunteer fire fighter. Through this experience, she has learned to experiment, explore, and….

In the Microsoft Garage, community “making” sparks curiosity in students

It’s just before 9am on a Monday morning, and the team at Microsoft Vancouver is placing the finishing touches on a room full of circuit boards, laptops and, comically, sunglasses (winter is the rainy season, after all). Moments from now, almost one hundred middle-schoolers will descend on this state-of-the-art-facility for innovation, training, and software development, to rub shoulders with engineers….