Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts

August 1, 2022

ePLDT bags Microsoft Country Partner of the Year award

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PLDT Inc., the ICT arm of PLDT Enterprise
and the country’s leading enabler of digital solutions, has been awarded by Microsoft as its 2022 Country Partner of Year for the Philippines.

Victor S. Genuino, President and CEO of ePLDT, has expressed his gratitude for the recognition, highlighting their long-standing partnership to deliver solutions that create real value through Microsoft’s leading cloud technology.

“We are grateful to Microsoft for this award. This recognition affirms ePLDT’s thrust to digitally enable organizations and help enterprises accelerate their business goals. We will continue to offer Microsoft solution packages, combined with our capabilities, as we journey with our clients in pursuit of their infinite potential,” said Genuino.

The said award signifies ePLDT’s outstanding achievements and innovations over the past year, as it leverages Microsoft cloud and platforms to build solutions and services, and in turn, drive substantial growth in its customer base and revenue.

“We are honored to receive the Country Partner of the Year award from Microsoft which is proof of our commitment to delivering customer-focused digital innovations. We look forward to creating a more promising future with Microsoft as we further this collaboration through enabling more local businesses,” said Jojo Gendrano, FVP and Head of PLDT and Smart Enterprise.

Since 2015, ePLDT has been an active partner of Microsoft, co-innovating to offer a slew of cloud-based solutions such as infrastructure services, cloud productivity, and collaboration tools to enable businesses.

Nico Alcoseba, PLDT Enterprise FVP & Head of Product Management & Marketing Group, noted that through the years, ePLDT and Microsoft have empowered businesses all over the country to further boost and enhance their operations.

This was made possible through ePLDT’s relentless efforts to grow its cloud business by not only doing license push but also making Professional Services and eventually Managed Services become the primary source of revenue with the deployment of solutions such as Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise Plans, Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security, Microsoft Surface bundled with Intune, ePLDT Calling for MS Teams plus ePLDT’s Professional Services related to Modern Work and Security plus Azure Public and Azure Stack which is hosted in ePLDT’s Vitro Data Center.

Every year, Microsoft offers a variety of awards for its partners with the aim to inspire and drive partner success in driving Microsoft’s business by leveraging on Microsoft technologies that provide relevant solutions across all industries and market segments

These awards celebrate the successes and innovations related to partner competencies, cloud technology, and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as highlight the great work done by partners in various industries and philanthropy arenas.

Other recognitions received by ePLDT through the years include Microsoft Country Partner of the Year in 2017, Tech Intensity Partner of the Year (Philippines) in 2020 and 2021; Para Sa Bayan Award (LearnAsOne Initiative) in 2020, and Azure Customer Recruit Partner of the Year (Philippines) last year.

January 28, 2022

ePLDT, Microsoft continue empowering PWDs through inclusive workplaces

(Manila, Philippines ) ePLDT recently marked its first year as a Microsoft employer-partner for the Microsoft Enabler Program. This seeks to empower persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the workplace by fostering inclusivity and helping them increase their employability through training and mentorship.

PLDT Enterprise AVP & Head of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances Fay Ocampo and ePLDT Group Head for Workplace Management Fe Arlene Villanueva-Bassig


As a Microsoft employer-partner, ePLDT accommodated two students from its accessibility partner Virtualahan to take their internship under the group and acquire the necessary digital skills to help them secure gainful employment.

Rowell Navarro and Alfrey Redd Umali are aspiring graphic artists who have hard-of-hearing conditions. They were trained under ePLDT’s People Experience & Communications Team to hone and contribute their skills in developing creative visuals for the company’s awareness campaign on social sustainability.

“My internship has given me the opportunity to learn more about the company and essentials in Graphic Designing. The team [PWM – People Experience & Communication] gave me advice that was indeed helpful for me to accomplish my tasks more creatively and efficiently,” Navarro shared.

Likewise, Umali expressed his gratitude to ePLDT for the invaluable learning experience he attained as a graphic artist intern, and for the opportunity to support the group in producing short videos and other publicity materials.

“Working with the People Experience & Communication team has been a pleasure as I have gained much practical knowledge about graphic designing and video editing… Thank you again for making my internship a rewarding experience,” Umali said.

ePLDT reflects Microsoft’s commitment to giving utmost importance to building accessibility and a culture of inclusion at work.

The team that assisted Navarro and Umali was encouraged to use a meeting platform with closed-caption capabilities, to convey instructional procedures in text form, and to also attend a sensitivity training organized by Virtualahan to fully equip them towards inclusivity.

“The ePLDT Group is steadfast in its commitment to foster an inclusive working environment that provides opportunities for growth to persons with disabilities. We look forward to assisting more talented individuals through this engagement program with Microsoft,” said Fe Arlene Villanueva-Bassig, ePLDT Group Head for Workplace Management.

Meanwhile, during the launch of the APAC Microsoft Enabler Virtual Hackathon, PLDT Enterprise AVP & Head of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances Fay Ocampo said that as a Microsoft partner, ePLDT’s main goal is to expand their initiatives that foster disability-inclusive workplace within the group.

“Our hearts are full when we on-boarded two Virtualahan interns, Alfrey and Rowell who provided digital creative inputs in ePLDT’s company announcement under the wing and the guidance of People Experience & Communications Team,” Ocampo said.

“Now that we move to the next chapter, we carry on our purpose for having an ever-evolving culture of inclusion which starts by expanding our talent pipeline and connecting job-seeking PWDs in having ICT roles within ePLDT,” she added. 

For more information, visit epldt.com.

December 18, 2021

Jump start your learning and productivity with an exclusive bundle from ASUS and Microsoft

ASUS Philippines, together with Microsoft, launched their latest campaign to upskill students both in hardware and software. Both ASUS and Microsoft aims to provide empowerment for all students, whether in the face-to-face setup or continued distance learning.

The current best laptop for K-12 students, ASUS BR1100, has got even better with its exclusive Microsoft 365 Personal bundle. ASUS BR1100 is the perfect online learning solution thanks to its features such as AI noise-cancelling microphone, 3D Noise reduction web camera, and dedicated mute button to name a few. It also comes in two models: The traditional clamshell ASUS BR1100C and the premium flip ASUS BR1100F that has a touch-enabled display. The ASUS BR1100F also has a precision stylus included to get every detail just right when drawing, note-taking, or marking up documents. This can also help students let their creativity flow as well as assist them on their traditional writing skills.

The Microsoft Office 365 Personal provides powerful apps needed in school productivity with security features for their documents. Students can enjoy their theme writing with MS Word, produce excellent presentations using MS PowerPoint and complete research data with MS Excel.

The ASUS BR1100 and Microsoft 365 Personal exclusive bundle starts at PHP 18,625 and also comes with a free ASUS EOS bag as well. The promotional event started last December 01, 2021, and will last until January 15, 2022 or while stocks last.

Both ASUS BR1100C and ASUS BR1100F will have this exclusive bundle and it is currently available over at the official ASUS Expert Series Flagship Shopee store.

ASUS also launched the ASUS Edukasyon School Partnership Program, which aims to assist schools and learning institutions in the modernization of their IT facilities and to support teachers and students so they can excel more both in teaching and in learning. Partner schools will enjoy development funds, computer laboratory decoration, learning seminars for educators and students, among others.

For more information regarding the ASUS Edukasyon School Partner Program, you can head over at the microsite (https://asus.edukasyon.ph/school-partner). Also stay tuned for more news on the incredible ASU­S for Business products on the ASUS Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ASUSph/) and the ASUS for Business website (http://asus.com/ph/Business). For inquiries, you can also send us a message on ASUS for Business page (https://www.facebook.com/asusforbusinessph/).


August 1, 2018

Microsoft Brings Digital Transformation to the C-Suite

Microsoft is leading the discussion on digital transformation in the Philippines. The tech leader held several C-level roundtable discussions on the impact and necessity of digital transformation in today’s modern business environment. These discussions were attended by CEOs, CTOs, CFOs, CMOs, and CHROs from industries such as banking, professional services, retail, education, real estate, power & utilities, and telecommunications.



CIO & COO Roundtable event executives with Microsoft Leaders

Microsoft is committed to helping leaders understand the economic implications of digital transformation in the society. Digital Transformation is emerging as a key driver of sweeping change across industries globally. More than a mere buzzword, it now has the capacity to significantly improve business revenue and create broader social good,” said Christian Lim, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Philippines.

At the CEO Round Table event, Microsoft took a closer look at the economic impact of digital transformation in the Philippines. Andrea Della Mattea, Area President (APAC) for Microsoft, reported that the impact of digital products and services to the economy of SEA nations will skyrocket from 6% to a staggering 48% by 2021. This growth will result to an economic increase of more than $60 billion. But more than the rise of revenue and decrease in costs in businesses, digital transformation also has the capability of improving consumers’ lives and bringing about social good.
The highlight of these discussions was the different perspectives and insights from organizations like Union Bank, PhilCare, and Rustan Coffee Corporation, to name a few. UnionBank executives: Edwin Bautista, Director, Chief Executive Officer, Henry Aguda, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Transformation officer and Arvie De Vera, First Vice President, Head of Fintech Group, shared the secret to the success of their work on digitizing finance. Aiming to resolve the problem of financial inclusion, UnionBank called in futurists and tech experts to help reach out to remote communities and give them access to financial tools.

As Microsoft gears up to host another series of C-level roundtable discussion this August, it remains focused on supporting business leaders in their journey towards shaping better opportunities for business and society through innovation.

For more inquiries, please contact Microsoft at enterpriseph@microsoft.com.

July 29, 2018

Microsoft joins DICT in Empowering the Filipino Through Digital Transformation at National ICT Summit 2018 in Davao City



“Empowering the Filipino through Digital Transformation”. That is the theme of this year’s National Information and CommunicationsTechnology (ICT) Summit held in Davao City. The summit is the culminating event of a month long celebration of ICT in the Philippines.

Since 2008, June of every year has been celebrated as ICT Month by virtue of Proclamation No. 1521, series of 2008. This is in recognition of the power of ICT as a strategic tool in governance, in delivering government services, and in driving economic growth.

The National ICT Summit was well attended, with over 500 government executives, ICT managers and practitioners, local government officials, academics, the private sector, students, and ICT industry players participating in the event.

Gracing the event was none other than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte who was guest of honor and speaker at the two-day summit.”

President Rodrigo R. Duterte with the delegates of the NICT Summit 2018. In the photo are keynote speakers from Microsoft Philippines, Joanna Rodriguez, Public Sector Director and Atty. Raul Cortez, Corporate, External and Legal Affairs Director. (Photo courtesy of CIOFF Foundation, Inc)



A faster and more efficient Government

In today’s digital world, it’s clear how huge ICT’s role is in the development of government services. Throughout the entire month of June, the DICT showcased projects that harnessed ICT to improve the efficiency of government processes that positively impact the Filipino public. From seminars, conferences, fora, focus group discussions, to technical trainings, there was no shortage of activities that presented and discussed emerging ICT technologies, products, services and new paradigms.

At the summit, the DICT showcased how ICT transforms the way government flagship and mission-critical projects such as the bold "Build, Build, Build" Program and the "Ambisyon Nation 2040" are efficiently implemented, monitored and managed.

To empower the Filipino, the government is looking to ICT to improve access to accurate information and develop more efficient services. This is through complementing government ICT plans, programs, policies, guidelines and standards affecting processes and the delivery of information and services to the people.


Digital transformation, cybersecurity, and AI

Also present at the National ICT summit was Microsoft, a digital transformation leader who presented global best ICT practices, emerging technology solutions, tools and paradigms that will allow the Philippines to leap-frog development stages.

In a keynote presentation, Microsoft Philippines discussed the economic impact of digital transformation, the hidden costs of cybersecurity, the future that is artificial intelligence, as well as the value of ICT in the development of the country. 

“ICT remains a core component in the transformation and development of the Philippines. As the world moves toward a more digital way of life, so must our country. Technology is the great equalizer, and the key towards reaching our full potential,” said Christian Lim, Country COO - Microsoft Philippines.

As the country embraces digital technologies, Microsoft urged attendees to be vigilant and reminded them of the value of cybersecurity -- in terms of economic loss and loss of trust. Similar to the Comelec breach in 2016, breaches can come from anywhere, so it is extremely important the government’s data is secure.

Moreover, AI is a technology that is becoming more pervasive and can be a big contributor to the Philippines’ digital transformation. In particular, Microsoft highlighted conversational AI, such as chatbots, and how it is already making waves around the world. In fact, AI is already being utilized to serve local communities in other Asian nations like China and Japan.

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio testing the virtual reality features of the Hololens as showcased by Ellinov, a Microsoft partner. Microsoft Philippines leadership team was present as well to welcome the Mayor. (Photo courtesy of CIOFF Foundation, Inc)

“Microsoft is all about empowering people and organizations with technology. So it goes without saying that we are staunch supporters of the administration and the DICT’s mission to empower Filipinos through digital transformation,” said Lim. “Through the digital transformation of our government processes, we don’t just address operational inefficiencies, but create meaningful economic impact as well, leading to further development of the Philippines.” 

July 10, 2018

Cybersecurity in APAC: The art of simplicity and being on the right side of history - Michael Montoya, Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Microsoft Asia


We all have “a-ha” moments when that lightbulb above our heads is just too bright to ignore. One came to me when I was in a previous IT operations role. It happened on a day when I had two meetings: first with an endpoint agent team and another with a security operations team.

The endpoint team gave me detailed guidance on the possible performance degradation and alerts we could expect from another agent we were placing on user devices in the pursuit of greater security. Later, the security operations team asked for more resources to address an increasing number of incoming alerts caused by our large security footprint.

The irony raised by these back-to-back meetings struck me, and so I asked myself: “How many security tools do we have to protect our environment?”

Finding the answer was not as simple as I had hoped. But when I was eventually told the approximate number, it was clear to me that we had a problem – and I was part of that problem. People like me have been in the industry long enough to have dealt with server sprawl and application sprawl. Now, we were witnessing security sprawl.

It seems very logical in this world of rapid digital transformation – where businesses and organizations face constant and evolving digital threats – to deploy as many defenses as possible to ward off cyberattacks. The more barriers in place, the more protected you are, right?

Well, I don’t believe I am alone when I say that it is a logical fallacy to think that having more security tools means better security. In fact, they could have the opposite effect, according to new research by IT analyst firm, Frost & Sullivan.

“Understanding the Cybersecurity Threat Landscape in Asia Pacific: Securing the Modern Enterprise in a Digital World” surveyed 1,300 respondents from 13 countries. This Microsoft-commissioned study drilled down into how organizations in our region view, approach, and practice cybersecurity.

One facet of the Study examined the experiences of organizations with different levels of security in place. What it found might, at first glance, seem counter-intuitive: Those that had gone to a lot of expense and trouble to put a wide array of security measures in place often encountered more security incidents than those with fewer defenses.


Moreover, they often took longer to recover from attacks. Of the surveyed organizations set up with more than 50 cybersecurity solutions, only 23% said they had been able to bounce back within an hour of a breach. For the organizations with less than 10 cybersecurity solutions, the figure was 40%.

The truth of the matter is simple: The number of security solutions you have won’t necessarily guarantee the safety of your data or protect your business reputation. The reasons can vary, but often over-complicated layers of complexity can make cybersecurity issues too hard for some companies to handle effectively.

These are just a few of the things that can open the door to threats, including the four this Study identified as being high-impact in Asia Pacific: 
  • fraudulent wire transfers; 
  • data corruption; 
  • online brand impersonation, which is when a cyber fraudster creates a bogus webpage or a social media account, either to harm your brand or simply to gain the confidence of your trusting customers; 
  • and data exfiltration, whereby cybercriminals use various malicious ways to copy, transfer, or retrieve data from computers or servers. 
Most of the Study’s respondents knew about the dangers out there and regarded them as real threats – with 59% saying cybercrime threats had hindered them on their digital transformation journeys. But it is problematic to learn what many were doing, or not doing, to manage the risks and why.

Firstly, let’s look at the reasons why the organizations surveyed thought it was a good idea to have a cybersecurity strategy in place. Only 20% regarded cybersecurity as a powerful enabler of digital transformation and the key to future business growth and success. In contrast, 41% simply cited traditional and tactical reasons, like protection from attacks and differentiating themselves from their competitors.

Most also said that when it came to creating new projects, security issues were usually considered after – not before – launch.

In this regard, the Study supports an uncomfortable notion that many of us know to be true: Many business decision-makers in our region still cling to outmoded ways of managing risks, and this is leaving them ill-informed and unprepared for mounting cybersecurity challenges that can ultimately erode their growth prospects.

Digital transformation has made the need for safe and trusted technology a front-and-center factor for business success. But too many organizations still regard security as an add-on, or even an afterthought. Some businesses resist the need to tackle security issues – even as cybercriminals become more sophisticated and as traditional IT boundaries disappear with new devices, apps, and data entering the workplace.

To succeed and thrive as digital enterprises in the years to come, organizations must make security part of the natural flow of their business processes and cycles. And, to ensure security, privacy, and compliance, the protection of company data requires a new approach.

That is why Microsoft has a platform that looks holistically across all the critical end-points of today’s cloud and mobile world. It acts on the intelligence that comes from our security-related global threat monitoring and insights. And, we have a vibrant ecosystem of partners who help us raise the bar across the industry – helping to securely enable our customers’ digital transformations.

Finally, there is the need for cultural change. The boards of too many companies still pick up most of their information about what is happening in cyber from what they read in the media. That’s just not detailed enough to inform them of their specific risks and the mitigation strategies they should be supporting. Increasing the dialogue on this topic amongst board members and IT executives is critical for businesses to thrive in the era of digital transformation and the inevitable consequences of cyberattacks.

The value proposition of cyber defense is changing. Traditionally, it has been regarded as a cost. Now it should be seen as an asset, simply because customers are demanding a level of security and trust. The more companies digitize, and the more an economy becomes digitally led, the more cybersecurity becomes a business enabler.

As security professionals, our jobs continue to get more complicated and vital to our company’s survival. Use this study as a reminder to ask you yourself two questions: How many security tools do I have to protect my company? And, what role should security play in my company’s digital transformation?

As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella so eloquently states: “right now Microsoft is probably on the right side of history”. Well, I believe we security and IT professionals are also on the right side of history.

May 25, 2018

Microsoft Build 2018 - The Forces that will Shape the Future

Microsoft make big announcements on what's next in AI, cloud computing, and machine learning

Build is Microsoft’s big annual developer conference where they share their vision for technology and seek to empower everyone to be more productive. First held in 2011,Microsoft Build is an event aimed towards enabling software engineers and web developers using Windows, Windows Phone, Microsoft Azure, and other Microsoft technologies.

At Build 2018, Microsoft continues to pursue its mission to empower more people and organizations through the forces that will shape the future—particularly AI, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, and App Development.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, opened the conference with a view on opportunity and responsibility. 
“When we talk about limitless opportunity, it’s about truly figuring out how to empower more people and more organizations. We have a real responsibility as we think about the impact of technology…to ensure that technology is reaching everyone.”

Technology is weaved into every fabric of our modern lives while software is now also a major driver of economies. While personal computing continues to evolve, the cloud provides global infrastructure, scale and intelligence. Computing is everywhere and this is a huge opportunity for developers


AI for Accessibility

Microsoft continues to utilize technology to impact and improve the quality of human life. With AI, they are opening the door to a new wave of possibilities to break down barriers in communication and really impact the lives of people with disabilities.

At Build 2018, Satya Nadella announced the company’s new initiative: AI for Accessibility. It is a $25 million, five-year program to encourage the development of AI technology aimed towards helping the disabled community. The program will provide grants and support to research organizations, NGOs, and developers as they set out to empower and enable the more than 1B people with disabilities around the world.


Re-Inventing Meetings and Collaboration

The conference was a showcase of several technologies that greatly improved the quality of human life. This included AI-powered productivity solutions for the workplace.

Modern Meetings was Microsoft’s approach to the good old meeting. They showed developers how real-time AI services, Microsoft 365, and Cortana promote active collaboration in meetings. From real-time transcription to immediate data access in Power BI, integrated tools are bringing coworkers and content together in new ways.

The meeting room used hardware that features a 360-degree camera and microphone array that can detect anyone in a meeting room, greet them, and transcribe what they say in any language. It’s also capable of real-time translation.

It further uses AI to follow up on what meeting participants say in a meeting. So, if a participant says “I’ll call you tomorrow,” they’ll get a notification in Microsoft Teams. Modern Meetings promises to make meetings and conferences more manageable.

And speaking of Microsoft Teams, improved collaboration tools for the platform were also announced. Companies can now bring a line of business apps into a dedicated section of the Store just for their organization.

By bringing line of business apps to a hub of communication and collaboration, companies can reduce unnecessary friction that allows them to build upon the contributions of their colleagues.


Project Kinect for Azure


One of Microsoft’s major anouncements at Build 2018 was the move of Kinect to the cloud. Kinect may sound familiar for gamers as it was first used as a motion-and-voice control system for the Xbox 360 console.

“Kinect, when we first launched it in 2010, was a speech-first, gaze-first, vision-first device. It was used in gaming, and then, later on, it came to the PC, and it was used in many applications: medical, industrial, robotics, education... We’ve been inspired by what developers have done, and since Kinect, we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress when it comes to some of the foundational technologies in HoloLens. So we’re taking those advances and packaging them up as Project Kinect for Azure,” said Satya Nadella.

Project Kinect for Azure brings together important advances in AI-enabled edge devices with object sensing, skeletal tracking technology. And combined with a cloud platform, the possibilities are truly endless.






About Microsoft

Microsoft is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more

Microsoft Philippines, the local subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation, has been constantly bringing innovation and making its technology available to Filipino businesses and individuals since 1995. As a committed and trusted partner in nation-building, Microsoft Philippines has made it its mission to fuel growth and healthy communities, as well as transform locally-based businesses and empower them to compete in the global economy.

May 8, 2018

Brave New World – How AI Will Impact Work and Jobs

There’s no doubt that the advent of broadly-available Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers businesses the prospect of increased productivity and accelerated innovation, whilst also enabling society to help solve some of its toughest - and most persistent – challenges: disease, famine, climate control and natural disasters.

AI is already delivering tangible economic benefits for many organizations across Asia Pacific. For example, leading global container shipping company OOCL reports that applying AI to their business is already saving them $10m annually, whilst Apollo Hospitals in India are using AI to help predict heart disease amongst its patients.

While the benefits of Artificial Intelligence are undeniable, AI is a disrupter, especially when it comes to the displacement of jobs. The ramifications of AI on the workforce is a regular topic of discussion among CEOs and government leaders across Asia Pacific.

That said, it is also pertinent to examine the far-reaching implication that AI brings to the workforce. Will the social disruptions that AI can potentially create ultimately overshadow its benefits?

The Evolution of Jobs in the AI-Shaped Future

To put things in perspective: large-scale disruption is a challenge with every industrial revolution. Technology will always have profound implications on the creation, elimination, or evolution of jobs. For example, just a few years ago, it was common for offices to have a pool of typists. Clearly, this role is no longer relevant in today’s modern office, thanks to the proliferation of personal computing. The advent of AI will reshape jobs in a similar way.

Microsoft recently partnered with the leading technology advisory firm IDC to assess the digital transformation landscape across the region. TitledUnlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific”, the study surveyed 1,560 business and IT leaders from 15 Asia Pacific economies[i]It showed that 85% of jobs in Asia Pacific will be transformed in the next three years. (See chart below)




Diving deeper into the results, the respondents said that over 50% of jobs will be redeployed to a new position and/or retrained and upskilled for digital transformation. What’s interesting is that the Study shows that 26% of jobs will be newly created roles from digital transformation, which will offset the 27% of jobs that will he outsourced or automated. In other words, the overall workforce effect will be broadly neutral.

These are clear indications that how businesses organize work, how people find employment and the skills people need to prepare for the workforce are changing dramatically. These changes are likely to accelerate in the decade ahead.

As AI continues to transform the nature of work, education, skills, and training will have to transform as well in order to ensure that people are prepared for the jobs of the future and businesses have access to the talent they need to succeed. And as traditional models of employment transform, there will be a need to modernize legal frameworks to recognize new ways of working, provide adequate worker protections, and maintain social safety nets.

Building a Better Future Together

The recently published, ‘The Future Computed, Artificial Intelligence and its Role in Society’, makesense of this AI conundrum as it offers three conclusions on AI and the impact on work and jobs:.



(You can download the book here for free today).

  • First, the organizations and countries that will fare best in the AI race will be early adopters. The reason is straightforward: AI will be useful wherever intelligence is needed and it helps us to be more productive in nearly every field of human endeavor, which can lead to economic growth. Put simply, new jobs and economic progress will favor those that embrace the technology, not those that resist it.

  • Second, while AI will help improve daily life in many ways and help solve big societal problems, its important to remain critical when examining the issues that it can bring. Beyond AI deployment, what’s equally important is to prepare society and the workforce for the impending changes that AI will catalyze by addressing the need for strong ethical principles, the evolution of laws, the importance of training for new skills, and even labor market reforms. These aspects must all come together in order to make the most of this new technology.

  • Third, to fully realize the benefits of AI, and to minimize the negative outcomes, technology companies, private and public organizations need to come together with a sense of shared responsibility -- AI must be democratized.

The AI building blocks that Microsoft is developing today, such as computer vision, speech, and knowledge recognition, should be made available to all so that they can create their own AI-based solutions. AI should not be controlled by just a few organizations. The AI future should be built by everyone with a vision on how AI can benefit economies and societies as well as how we can tackle AI issues and their implications.

The future of AI can burn brightly or dimly. Disruption is a norm, and the ability to adapt to disruptions is what defines all of us. And to adapt to the fast-approaching, rapidly evolving AI future, all parties – from workers to enterprises to governments - will need to spend more time listening to each other, collaborate and constantly learn new knowledge and skills. 

April 5, 2018

Microsoft reaches a historic milestone, using AI to match human performance in translating news from Chinese to English

A team of Microsoft researchers said Wednesday that they believe they have created the first machine translation system that can translate sentences of news articles from Chinese to English with the same quality and accuracy as a person.

Researchers in the company’s Asia and U.S. labs said that their system achieved human parity on a commonly used test set of news stories, called newstest2017, which was developed by a group of industry and academic partners and released at a research conference called WMT17 last fall. To ensure the results were both accurate and on par with what people would have done, the team hired external bilingual human evaluators, who compared Microsoft’s results to two independently produced human reference translations.

Xuedong Huang, a technical fellow in charge of Microsoft’s speech, natural language and machine translation efforts, called it a major milestone in one of the most challenging natural language processing tasks.
“Hitting human parity in a machine translation task is a dream that all of us have had,” Huang said. “We just didn’t realize we’d be able to hit it so soon.”
Huang, who also led the group that recently achieved human parity in a conversational speech recognition task, said the translation milestone was especially gratifying because of the possibilities it has for helping people understand each other better.
“The pursuit of removing language barriers to help people communicate better is fantastic,” he said. “It’s very, very rewarding.”
Xuedong Huang, technical fellow in charge of Microsoft’s speech, natural language and machine translation efforts. (Photo by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures)
Machine translation is a problem researchers have worked on for decades – and, experts say, for much of that time many believed human parity could never be achieved. Still, the researchers cautioned that the milestone does not mean that machine translation is a solved problem.
Ming Zhou, assistant managing director of Microsoft Research Asia and head of a natural language processing group that worked on the project, said that the team was thrilled to achieve the human parity milestone on the dataset. But he cautioned that there are still many challenges ahead, such as testing the system on real-time news stories.
Arul Menezes, partner research manager of Microsoft’s machine translation team, said the team set out to prove that its systems could perform about as well as a person when it used a language pair – Chinese and English – for which there is a lot of data, on a test set that includes the more commonplace vocabulary of general interest news stories.
Arul Menezes, partner research manager of Microsoft’s machine translation team. (Photo by Dan DeLong.)
“Given the best-case situation as far as data and availability of resources goes, we wanted to find out if we could actually match the performance of a professional human translator,” said Menezes, who helped lead the project.
Menezes said the research team can apply the technical breakthroughs they made for this achievement to Microsoft’s commercially available translation products in multiple languages. That will pave the way for more accurate and natural-sounding translations across other languages and for texts with more complex or niche vocabulary.
DUAL LEARNING, DELIBERATION, JOINT TRAINING AND AGREEMENT REGULARIZATION

Although academic and industry researchers have worked on translation for years, they’ve recently achieved substantial breakthroughs by using a method of training AI systems called deep neural networks. That has allowed them to create more fluent, natural-sounding translations that take into account an even broader context than the previous approach, known as statistical machine translation.
To reach the human parity milestone on this dataset, three research teams in Microsoft’s Beijing and Redmond, Washington, research labs worked together to add a number of other training methods that would make the system more fluent and accurate. In many cases, these new methods mimic how people improve their own work iteratively, by going over it again and again until they get it right.
“Much of our research is really inspired by how we humans do things,” said Tie-Yan Liu, a principal research manager with Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, who leads a machine learning team that worked on this project.
Tie-Yan Liu, principal research manager with Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing. (Photo courtesy of Microsoft.)
One method they used is dual learning. Think of this as a way of fact-checking the system’s work: Every time they sent a sentence through the system to be translated from Chinese to English, the research team also translated it back from English to Chinese. That’s similar to what people might do to make sure that their automated translations were accurate, and it allowed the system to refine and learn from its own mistakes. Dual learning, which was developed by the Microsoft research team, also can be used to improve results in other AI tasks.

Another method, called deliberation networks, is similar to how people edit and revise their own writing by going through it again and again. The researchers taught the system to repeat the process of translating the same sentence over and over, gradually refining and improving the response.

The researchers also developed two new techniques to improve the accuracy of their translations, Zhou said.
One technique, called joint training, was used to iteratively boost the English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English translation systems. With this method, the English-to-Chinese translation system translates new English sentences into Chinese in order to obtain new sentence pairs. Those are then used to augment the training dataset that is going in the opposite direction, from Chinese to English. The same procedure is then applied in the other direction. As they converge, the performance of both systems improves.

Another technique is called agreement regularization. With this method, the translation can be generated by having the system read from left to right or from right to left. If these two translation techniques generate the same translation, the result is considered more trustworthy than if they don’t get the same results. The method is used to encourage the systems to generate a consensus translation.
Zhou said he expects these methods and techniques to be useful for improving machine translation in other languages and situations as well. He said they also could be used to make other AI breakthroughs beyond translation.
“This is an area where machine translation research can apply to the whole field of AI research,” he said.
NO ‘RIGHT’ ANSWER

The test set the team used to reach the human parity milestone includes about 2,000 sentences from a sample of online newspapers that have been professionally translated.
Microsoft ran multiple evaluation rounds on the test set, randomly selecting hundreds of translations for evaluation each time. To verify that Microsoft’s machine translation was as good as a person’s translation, the company went beyond the specifications of the test set and hired a group of outside bilingual language consultants to compare Microsoft’s results against manually produced human translations.
The method of verifying the results highlights the complexity of teaching systems to translate accurately. With other tasks, such as speech recognition, it’s pretty straightforward to tell if a system is performing as well as a person, because the ideal result will be the exact same for a person and a machine. Researchers call that a pattern recognition task.
With translation, there’s more nuance. Even two fluent human translators might translate the exact same sentence slightly differently, and neither would be wrong. That’s because there’s more than one “right” way to say the same thing.
“Machine translation is much more complex than a pure pattern recognition task,” Zhou said.  “People can use different words to express the exact same thing, but you cannot necessarily say which one is better.”
The researchers say that complexity is what makes machine translation such a challenging problem, but also such a rewarding one.
Liu said no one knows whether machine translation systems will ever get good enough to translate any text in any language pair with the accuracy and lyricism of a human translator. But, he said, these recent breakthroughs allow the teams to move on to the next big steps toward that goal and other big AI achievements, such as reaching human parity in speech-to-speech translation.
“What we can predict is that definitely we will do better and better,” Liu said.

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