Disaster Response and Humanitarian ReliefLike many corporations around the world, Microsoft and its employees are generous with donations when disasters strike. Microsoft employees both drive and direct the company's relief efforts, and they often serve as volunteers on the front lines. By partnering with leading nonprofit organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and international relief organizations, Microsoft looks for new ways to use its business and technology expertise, as well as its global reach, to help address some of the critical challenges faced by individuals and communities after a natural disaster. Recent DisastersPlease visit our Urgent Disaster Response page to learn more about how Microsoft is partnering with organizations to provide support for recent disasters in Myanmar and the earthquake in the Sichuan province in China. We are actively working with numerous humanitarian relief organizations to determine where our resources can be most helpful for impacted regions. Partnerships at WorkNetHope and the Interagency Working Group on Emergency Capacity BuildingNetHope is a membership organization that includes the chief information officers and chief technology officers of 19 global nongovernmental organizations that are engaged in international development. The Interagency Working Group on Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) comprises seven of the world's most active relief agencies, including Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Save the Children. The focus of NetHope and ECB is to improve the use of information and communications technology to facilitate communication and collaboration and to increase capacity and overall efficiency in disaster response. In 2006, Microsoft donated US$41 million in software and cash to these organizations as part of its ongoing effort to help improve humanitarian relief efforts worldwide. Since then, Microsoft has committed to annual cash grants to NetHope through 2010. American Red CrossIn 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States, Microsoft worked with the American Red Cross to create a people-finder solution, Katrinasafe.org, now called Safe and Well. This Web-based tool reunites families and communities that have been affected by disasters. To date more than 300,000 Katrina evacuees have registered. It was also used to help provide relief to victims of the 2005 Pakistan-India earthquake. "Creating a Web site and database like Katrinasafe.org would normally take months, and our teams put it together in less than four days," said Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president of Worldwide Public Sector at Microsoft. "In the first 24 hours, more than 1,000 people checked the site for information on their loved ones." United Nations High Commissioner for RefugeesThe Microsoft partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) started in 1999 when refugees began streaming out of Kosovo. Microsoft mobilized 100 employee volunteers and developed a mobile refugee registration kit that used technology to help 500,000 Kosovo refugees who did not have papers. This kit helped the refugees establish their identities, a necessary first step to reuniting families, proving citizenship and property rights, and gaining access to health care and other services. Since then, Microsoft volunteers have improved and refined the registration kits, which have been used to help UNHCR register refugees in many other parts of the world. Microsoft employee volunteers have worked with the UNHCR team in remote locations of Uganda, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Rwanda, Guinea, Sudan, and Tanzania. Microsoft also agreed to establish community technology centers in Kenya and Russia. These centers provide refugees with the opportunity to learn technology skills that can help them succeed as they establish their homes in new countries/regions. Ongoing Innovations: Worldwide Pilot ProgramsMany of the products that are developed to help businesses and consumers be more mobile and productive can also help nongovernmental organizations and volunteers meet the challenges of providing disaster relief. Microsoft Office Groove enables flexible peer-to-peer collaboration. It was used effectively by a team of Microsoft employees working with a group of nongovernmental organizations to help doctors deliver medical care to remote areas of Afghanistan. With no power, no water systems, and no mobile-phone connections, the team used Office Groove and other technologies in a pilot program to help the nongovernmental organizations reduce the coordination time among doctors from weeks down to two days. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a suite of server capabilities for enterprise search, content management, business process facilitation, simplified information sharing, and enhanced business insight. It enables teams within and across organizations to collaborate and manage projects and information more effectively. Organizations such as NetHope are deploying SharePoint portals to deepen their collaboration and to share information.
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