Measures need to be taken to ensure that data processed by AI isn’t acquiring unconscious biases, racial or gender preferences, and idiosyncrasies that could lead to negative experiences. As the Diversity and Inclusion lead at Microsoft Canada, this is especially important to me as the work environment, coupled with the technology we’re using, needs to be held to a high standard.

Building AI upon an Ethical Foundation

Because AI brings tremendous value to people and organizations, the opportunities are endless. At Microsoft, we believe it’s important to build a framework to help ensure the AI is ethical and held accountable for our diverse world. These four principles help guide that strategy:

• Fairness – maximize efficiencies without destroying dignity
• Accountability – must have algorithmic accountability
• Transparency – must be transparent
• Ethics – must assist humanity and be designed for intelligent privacy

Microsoft is making it easier than ever to get started with AI by making it accessible to everyone and enabling new ways to solve challenges. We recently launched AI for accessibility, a program to amplify human capability and empower over 1+ billion people living with disabilities. With 70% of disabilities being invisible to the eye, it’s extremely important to be mindful of how AI is used for all, in a moral way.

At Microsoft, we believe that building ethics into the core foundation of AI allows for better decision making, as it allows the AI to run on data that reflects the diversity of its users. Organizations working to include and leverage the entire workforce to participate in AI initiatives can optimize their maximum potential by allowing the technology to embody and advance the interests of the company, its staff and its consumer base.

The importance of AI Transparency

Everyone should have access to information that will enable them to understand and evaluate the operation and fairness of AI systems that may affect them in important ways. Some examples might include AI systems that affect legal rights like insurance or employment. Employees must also trust that implementing AI will augment and/or enhance the work environment, not replace individual contributors.

Primary elements of the design, operation and functioning of AI systems should be transparent to the public. This is why Microsoft collaborates with industry, policy makers and consumer advocates to share best practices and develop innovative technologies to help enhance transparency. Including a diverse group of people into the conversation allows us to achieve more visibility and perspective and enhance the public’s trust in AI.

Technology and Innovation are led by Diversity and Inclusion

AI is built upon data fed to it by humans, so it’s only as effective as the data set upon which it is trained. Because AI systems will perform tasks that were exclusively performed by humans, it’s critical to design those systems in a manner that reflects the diversity of the societies in which they operate. At Microsoft, maximizing the contribution of every individual allows us to infuse diverse thought as a natural part of the way we innovate.

The integration of AI into your workplace is inevitable. Be open to learning how to interact with it by starting small, and ensure you fully understand the data to help set you up for success.

Learn more about the Microsoft approach to AI and click here to read how we are helping companies amplify human ingenuity with AI.

The post Achieving Empathetic Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

What are you doing to ensure you and your team are prepared to handle it?

Transformation is no longer a choice

Companies must commit to adjusting processes, systems and cultures to remain competitive. Uncertainty for many teams can be overwhelming but it’s important not to let it discourage you. Because change drives growth, it’s important to accept it. While many leaders are focused on actively pursuing and implementing new productivity solutions, transformation is most effective when employees are at the forefront of driving innovation.

Regardless of how many years of experience a company has been in business, it’s imperative that its workforce embraces what makes it successful. At Microsoft, this means fostering a culture of diversity, collaboration and agility which helps us live out our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Envisioning, initiating and controlling change creates opportunities and paves the way for organizations to transform and ignite growth. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella refers to the continuous process of renewal in his new book ‘Hit Refresh’, which is something that universally appeals to every organization.

Define ‘Change’ as an Opportunity

Managing your team through transition requires clear focus. Be sure to communicate that change breeds opportunity, and work to unify priorities toward achieving a common goal. Because change usually starts at the individual level first, it’s natural for employees to seek ‘WIIFM’ (What’s in It for Me). Help them find the personal meaning and validate their journey by answering those very important questions.

Show your team that change is good for business because it creates new avenues for advancement and has the potential to further skill development. It can often motivate optimism where innovation is sought, and collaboration of ideas is encouraged. Help your staff become advocates of change by ensuring they feel truly empowered.

Tips to Get Your Team on Board

Effective change isn’t imposed upon your team, it’s cultural. It’s not about what you’re telling them to do, but rather how much you listen to their perspective on how to adapt.

Some best practices to get your team on board include:

• Be transparent – Share what you know and be honest about what still needs to be defined
• State the questions – Define the questions and provide the data needed to answer them well
• Get their input – Involve staff and allow them to take ownership of issues and problems
• Be in-tune – Listen to their feedback and take their concerns seriously
• Inspire change– Integrate yourself in a team of peers working towards a common goal vs instructing change

Achieve More Together

Because change is constant, organizations need to drive change through people rather than driving people through change. Break from the traditional leader-follower mindset by empowering your employees. Test drive some of the tips shared to find out how you and your staff can cohesively work to embrace change and drive impactful results.

The post Change equals opportunity: How to get your Employees on Board appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

Demonstrating and implementing security practices to protect the data and processes of our employees and customers is essential to our success. Trust begins with understanding, and understanding requires transparency.

Knowledge is Power

Microsoft’s unique visibility into the growing threat landscape comes from our hyper-scaled cloud footprint of more than 200 cloud services, 100+ datacenters, millions of devices, and over a billion customers across the globe. Our investment in security professionals is focused on secure development as well as protect, detect and respond functions.

As such, we are committed to protecting the computing environment used by both our customers and employees to ensure the resiliency of our cloud infrastructure and services, products and devices. Our Microsoft Premier Support Global Incident Response and Recovery teams are available to rapidly engage during a targeted attack.

Sharing our Learnings

Challenges faced by our customers during incident response and recovery are both technical and non-technical, and as such we’ve recently compiled an Incident Response Reference Guide to provide comprehensive incident management guidance. It is designed to help you prepare for and meet critical needs during a major cybersecurity incident, as well as to avoid common errors. It provides you with our experience and lessons learned in the form of:

• Tips to prepare for managing a major incident
• Critical guidance to follow during the crisis
• Questions to ask yourself about the readiness of your program

This guidance is designed to enable you to prepare for a crisis by reducing risk to your organization, and to better manage a crisis regardless of whether or not you have made prior preparations.

Commitment to Security

Microsoft spends over a billion dollars of R&D annually in building security into our mainstream products. There are trillions of data points coming in from billions of end points and the ability to understand, gain insight and action that data is what makes the difference. We share this data with our customers and our partners to collectively secure our environment.

To learn from over a decade of experience helping our customers recover from major security incidents, download the Incident Response Reference Guide.

Listen Now to the Accelerate PodCast – special Security episodes on  “Compliance and Risk” and “Security and Culture”.

The post How Security Transparency is Key to Trust appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

“ . . . inside companies, it is still IT professionals who are best positioned to turn technology into an engine for growth, transformation and opportunity — who, out of an amalgam of software, hardware and services, deliver solutions that help people and organizations accomplish what they have set out to do.”                                                                                             Judson Althoff

There are several key areas where I believe IT pros can lead the way for organizational transformation:

Security

Increasingly complex security threats are top of mind for every executive and IT professional.

Defending against evolving threats, organizations are faced with daunting decisions to protect the corporate network on every front and every device. IT professionals are uniquely positioned to provide pragmatic guidance to the business to facilitate the achievement of digital goals, while ensuring security best practices are implemented across the organization.

Intelligence

Customers today have access to a massive amount of data. The challenge they face is gaining meaningful insights from that data and making it actionable for their employees. Powered by advanced analytics and machine learning – what we call Intelligence – IT professionals can help the business get actionable insight into operations by providing tools to both analyze and understand the data, and to communicate and visualize insights.

The Intelligent Cloud

Helping businesses evolve to the next generation of cloud computing isn’t easy on IT Professionals. The pressure to innovate faster falls squarely on their shoulders, tasking them with building applications that can process and analyze data at cloud speed, while targeting any device or platform. Becoming the internal voice of innovation and champion of what is new, allows IT professionals to move from facilitator to driver of change.

Microsoft is committed to delivering innovative services that empower IT pros to lead the way in their companies’ digital transformation journeys.

Evolve your IT Career in cloud technologies with Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials. Sign up now.

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