Inspiring Stories at Festival for the Future

 |   Bob Glancy

Hayley Yu, a Microsoft Marketing Intern, is inspired and encouraged by the Festival for the Future

Festival for the Future brings together more than 1400 young leaders, innovators and influencers to explore some of the biggest issues facing New Zealand. As a young woman starting my career in technology, and as one of the speakers on the Tech Panel at Festival for the Future, the event offered an opportunity to give a fresh perspective on what Millennials can offer future workplaces – beyond witty banter and spending $7 on avocados!

I took a lot away from this experience. A few weeks before Festival for the Future, I was at the Microsoft APAC offices where Andrew Pickup, our Senior Director of Communications, shared a story about how one of the first company-wide emails that Satya Nadella sent included the vision that, ‘Microsoft empowers every single person and organisation on the planet to achieve more.’ For me, this event was a powerful manifestation of that vision.

As well as sponsoring Festival for the Future, Microsoft has established a long-term partnership with Inspiring Stories, an NGO with a vision to unleash the potential of every young New Zealander. The Trust has had over 6000 programme participants, helping launch more than 100 ventures. Microsoft and Inspiring Stories are working together on a larger vision that explores how to scale our technology to the most rural and underserved communities in New Zealand.

The event kicked off with a workshop of 24 young leaders from the NGO’s Future Leaders Programme. The workshop showcased our biggest innovations as well as providing the participants with practical tools on how to use technology to solve the issues facing their community. This included hands-on demos with the HoloLens, an immersive Microsoft Office experience and a discussion on our Cloud for Global Good programme. One comment from the workshop summarised the experience perfectly:

‘Previously, I held the perspective that technology was used mostly for the benefit of entertainment. Through this workshop, however, I got some insight as to how much of a positive impact technology can have for many people in many walks of life, if used and designed in the rightway’ –  Workshop attendee

In conjunction with the workshop we hosted a booth to showcase HoloLens and the Surface devices family, making the latest tech advancements accessible to those who may not have had a chance to engage with it.

Not only was the technology inspiring, the booth itself had appropriate provenance. We consciously chose a stall provider that aligned with Microsoft’s vision of sustainability. The Pallet Kingdom is a social enterprise that diverts pallets from going into landfill by creating art and custom-made furniture pieces for individuals and businesses.

Through this engagement, we were able to divert 20 pallets from the landfill and support 2 individuals currently struggling with mental illness who help build this stall.

My weekend at Festival for the Future showed me that young people living throughout New Zealand (from the most underserved communities to the most urban areas) are looking for the opportunity to learn, to stretch their wings, and even to change the world. And I truly believe that technology can help make those dreams a reality.