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 and volunteers who will teach them to code. Karen Randhawa, Microsoft Vancouver’s Community Relations Manager, is especially excited to see the girls who will get this opportunity. “We spend a lot of time looking at how we can inspire young girls in technology”.
And what better place to do that than at Microsoft Vancouver, one of Microsoft’s six global development centres.
Stacey Mulcahy agrees. Stacey is the Program Manager of The Garage at Microsoft Vancouver. In addition to housing engineers working on the latest in 3D applications for HoloLens, OneNote, Skype, MSN and Gears of War, Microsoft Vancouver also hosts the Maker Space/Community Engagement and The Garage Internship Program that started four years ago. “We strive to create technical curiosity in the students we meet,” Stacey explains. Today the Garage Internship Program in Vancouver has provided over 190 internships to students, allowing them to vote on projects and decide what they want to work on. This entrepreneurial program centers on building apps for Microsoft’s newest and most exciting platforms and devices. Through collaborating with company developers, Microsoft Vancouver Interns have brought to life new technologies for social impact, like the Holographic Photo Project, Hearing AI and Write Ideas.
See community making in action in this short video and read the full story, Microsoft Vancouver Empowering the Community to Do More Together, at Microsoft Philanthropies.
