{"id":15105,"date":"2019-08-02T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/industry\/blog\/?p=15105"},"modified":"2019-08-13T12:14:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T12:14:10","slug":"societal-issues-thinking-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/industry\/blog\/cross-industry\/2019\/08\/02\/societal-issues-thinking-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming societal issues by thinking digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Microsoft<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, Microsoft and Reason Digital,<\/a> a business that uses technology to overcome societal issues, teamed up with charities across Manchester to think digital.<\/p>\n

What technologies can make the workplace more accessible? How does Microsoft help charities in the modern world? How do you even start to solve some of the monumental problems facing small and medium-sized charities today?<\/p>\n

Matt Haworth, co-founder and director of Reason Digital, and Microsoft\u2019s Eve Joseph and Harry Morgan sat down with a dozen charity leaders, as well as beneficiaries of those charities to have a crack at answering those questions.<\/p>\n

Innovating the experience<\/h2>\n

A rare sunny Manchester morning saw Matt open the morning with a brief about why developing digital skills are important \u2013 improving experiences for beneficiaries, employees, volunteers, and contributing to the overall success of today\u2019s modern charities.<\/p>\n

Age UK provided a touching case study on innovating new technology to tackle the challenge of chronic loneliness. Chronic loneliness affects elderly people who don\u2019t necessarily have friends and family to stay in touch with, and has been shown to be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. As a charity connecting elderly people with a volunteer over the phone, Age UK makes a huge difference to its beneficiaries quality of life.<\/p>\n

However, the charity faced the problem of connecting a massive group of elderly people with a growing fleet of volunteers, with a focus on safety and care for their beneficiaries. By using cloud technologies, it was able to streamline the way volunteers could join, get background-checked, and matched with an appropriate partner based on a combination of interests and other factors. Age UK continues to grow and mature its digital strategy in innovative ways, such as the use of AI to safeguard the conversations between a volunteer and beneficiary by scanning for alarming phrases and keywords.<\/p>\n