As governments everywhere strive to harness the opportunities and meet the social and economic challenges of the 21st-century knowledge economy, they are focused on promoting job growth and skills training, encouraging the development of local industry, and enhancing their global competitiveness. Governments understand that devising strategies to successfully address these issues today will provide a solid foundation for future growth and prosperity. Because computer operating systems and applications are the engines that drive the knowledge economy, many of these economic development strategies center on increasing digital literacy and the use of technology.

Meeting these objectives is a long-term effort that often cannot be accomplished by governments alone. One hallmark of the digital age has been the increase of public-private partnerships to address issues such as skills training, access to technology, and funding for new enterprises. This new spirit of collaboration demonstrates that the private sector, as well as governments, has an important role to play in creating opportunity for local communities worldwide.

Creating Opportunity for Businesses

Microsoft is a very successful company, but our achievements depend on the success of thousands of other technology companies around the world. At the heart of our business model is our reliance on other companies that build hardware and software, provide solutions, and offer services based on the Windows platform.

This global interdependent network of 650,000 Microsoft partners creates huge opportunities for local communities. It creates jobs, generates tax revenue for governments, offers skills and workforce development programs, and makes significant investments in innovative new technologies. Recent research conducted by IDC, a leading provider of marketing intelligence for the ICT industry, shows that for every $1 of revenue Microsoft earns, local software, hardware, and services firms earn between $6 and $18 of downstream revenue.

Creating Opportunity for Individuals

Creating economic opportunities for nations, communities, and businesses begins by opening doors of opportunity for individual people. Microsoft is deeply involved in promoting digital inclusion around the world, working in partnership with governments, industry leaders, and community organizations to offer skills training ranging from basic computer skills to the most advanced professional training and certifications. By 2010, through innovative technologies and partnerships, Microsoft plans to provide ICT skills training to a quarter billion people who were previously underserved by technology.

Through our flagship digital inclusion programs, Partners in Learning and Microsoft Unlimited Potential – Community Technology Skills Program, we provide technology access and training to all types of learners, no matter where they happen to be on the continuum of ICT skills and knowledge. We offer skills training for schoolchildren, for teachers who need to learn how to incorporate technology as part of their classroom instruction, and for community learners. We work with new users and historically underserved populations—such as at-risk youth, refugees, senior citizens, and people with disabilities—as well as mid-career professionals who need to sharpen their skills or gain new ones. Together, these digital inclusion programs lay the groundwork for increased economic opportunity and social improvements.

An important part of our Global Citizenship Initiative is creating vital and self-sustaining links between digital inclusion programs that train individuals and economic development efforts that create jobs and strengthen local communities.