Just Imagine …
Vis Naidoo, Subsidiary Citizenship Lead
at Microsoft SA talks to us about The
Imagine Cup and this global behemoth's
attitude to social responsibility both
here in SA and around the world.
By Paul Rowlston
They're one of the world's biggest companies. Their founder
is one of the world's richest men. Along with his wife he runs
a trust that invests his own billions (and billions donated by
Warren Buffet and others) in social projects across the
globe.
So, you might imagine that the company he formed has
so m e v e r y c l e a r i d e a s a b o u t C o r p o r a t e Social
Responsibility … And you'd be right …
“Here at Microsoft we have a very simple approach to our
corporate responsibility programmes. We don't talk about it
until we've made it work; we make sure that what we do is
effective; and then we tell people what we're doing and why.
Our attitude is simple: We want to let people know what we
do, not what we say we are going to do.”
So says Vis as we sit and talk in the coffee shop on the
Microsoft campus early one morning. The campus is
everything you'd expect from a major IT company and global
innovator and Vis is pretty much everything you'd expect
from the man tasked with overseeing Microsoft's social
activities here in South Africa.
“South Africa – just like the rest of this continent – is a young
country. 50% of our population are between the ages of 12
and 30. Education remains one of our greatest challenges –
with many of our young people leaving school without the
skills they need to get employment and an unemployment
rate that remains a signi?cant issue; an issue that has an
impact on every area of our society. But these young people
are also part of an increasingly technologically
sophisticated generation. They are savvy and hungry for
tech.”
Indeed, here in South Africa we have more than 100%
phone ownership - with those increasingly smart phones
offering new opportunities for connectivity and functionality
on a local and global scale.
“These young people; these young, hungry, ambitious, tech
savvy people are the future market for every single
business. They are our future consumers, they are the
future decision makers, and they are the people we have to
invest in.”
It's perhaps this clarity of vision – this clear sense of where
the market is now and where it is moving that drives
Microsoft's Imagine Cup.
The Imagine Cup is a global competition, run by Microsoft
that challenges students to think of ideas, solutions and
applications that use technology to solve challenges, and
provide new services. Described by Vis as the 'World Cup
for innovation', this project tries to build and encourage
entrepreneurial thinking.
Apart from running the project, Microsoft provides the tools
needed to help build solutions and provide training, support
and lectures to potential entrants. But, surprisingly,
Microsoft expects no ownership of the ideas generated by
this project. They support it, run it, encourage it and promote
it – but they in no way expect the winners to share their ideas
with Microsoft or take them to market through the company.
“We would like to see the best ideas taken to market and we
are looking to offer this opportunity – perhaps through
innovation centres and hubs, but we don't attempt to claim
any propriety ownership of the ideas that are developed on
this programme.”
And this is not just a theoretical think-shop. Three years ago
a team from UCT developed a system for tracking public
transport using a phone application. They won the
competition locally and globally and they were offered
venture capital from the US and Canada but ended up
Photo: Gus Waschefort
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CORPORATE SOCIAL REVIEW