Announcing the Innovation Challenge 2024

There is a sentence on Microsoft’s Global Diversity and Inclusion web site that really speaks to me. “Inclusion—the way we engage and interact with each other with curiosity and a growth mindset—stimulates innovation and creativity and improves our personal experiences at work.” In February, I was asked to reach out to organizations that could partner with us to get over 1,000 people, from groups who are underrepresented in tech, skilled up to the point where they could work in teams to build enterprise ready AI solutions. I’m stoked to say that by the end of May, we’ll train over 2,000 people in partnership with a great roster of organizations:

BITE-CON

Black Women In Artificial Intelligence

Blacks in Technology

Codigo Facilito

GenSpark

Loudoun Freedom Center’s NoVA Datacenter Academy

Women in Cloud

The goal is to get at least 1,000 people certified on Azure, focusing on AI 102, AZ 204, and DP 203. A lot of people are going to be working really hard for the next two months. We will all need to bring our curiosity and growth mindsets!

What about stimulating innovation and creativity? Those who get certified will then be invited to a two week Hackthon where they will work in teams to build solutions that solve for real world use cases from enterprise customers. The top prize will be $10,000 for the winning team. But everyone who participates will have an example they can point to that demonstrates they have the capability to not just pass the exam, but that they can do the work.

Having the opportunity to build AI solutions on Azure is fun and exciting. We can do things today that couldn’t be done a year ago. But for most us, this isn’t just a hobby. The Innovation Challenge is an opportunity for people to open up new doors and new professional opportunities. I’m proud to be a part of this effort, and I’m wowed by everyone taking the initiative to skill up and take their career forward.