Today Microsoft released our 2017 Annual Report and our 2017 Corporate Responsibility Report.
These reports reflect our commitment that delivering on our mission extends well beyond our products and services. It includes a deep commitment to operate our business, deploy our resources, and focus our corporate philanthropy in a way that has a positive impact on the broader community. This commitment guides the way we innovate in new areas such as AI, how we develop and use technology to help solve real-world problems, and most importantly, how we work to serve people and communities across the globe.
In his letter to shareholders, customers, partners and employees this year, our CEO, Satya Nadella pointed to highlights from our last fiscal year that included:
- We’re ensuring that our products and services are accessible to meet the needs of all our customers, including the more than 1 billion people around the world with disabilities. We have invested in accessibility of both Office 365 and Windows 10, setting a new bar of accessibility for blind and low vision users, including our new Eye Control feature in Windows 10 in beta for people with ALS, and Seeing AI, a free U.S. app on iOS for the blind which narrates the world around you.
- We’re partnering with telecommunications companies through our Rural Airband Initiative to bring broadband connectivity to 2 million people in rural America by 2022, hoping to serve as a catalyst to help eliminate the rural broadband gap for the 23.4 million Americans living in rural communities who lack access to the economic, educational, and health opportunities the internet provides. We also continue to work outside the US with internet access and energy access companies on technologies and business models that will help billions more people affordably get online.
- We believe innovation and sustainability go hand in hand. In the past year, we completed our largest wind energy purchase to date, allowing our Wyoming datacenter to be fully powered by clean energy, and our new AI for Earth initiative aims to address some of the world’s toughest environmental challenges.
- In our Fiscal Year 2017 Microsoft Philanthropies donated more than $1.2 billion in software, and services to non-profits worldwide as part of our focus on helping people get the skills and knowledge they need in today’s digital economy, and on getting powerful technology into the hands of non-profits.
- In January 2016 we announced that Microsoft would donate more than $1 billion in cloud technology to non-profits and university researchers. We’ve achieved that goal a year early, donating cloud services to more than 90,000 non-profits, and we aren’t stopping there. We announced a plan to more than triple the number of non-profits we’ll reach to 300,000 over the next three years.
- For more than 30 years our employees have given generously to non-profits and the company has matched their donations through our employee giving program, raising more than $1.5 billion to-date, and a record breaking $149 million FY17.
- Finally, we recognize our broader responsibility to engage thoughtfully in the public dialogue on the important challenges facing our world. Last year we published, A Cloud for Global Good, a comprehensive roadmap for the steps companies and governments can take to ensure technology is trusted, responsible and inclusive.
Beyond highlighting these milestones, documenting our commitments and detailing our programs, the CSR report reflects Microsoft’s commitment to transparency, so that our stakeholders can easily understand our work and track our progress. Our reporting across over 20 data sets is organized into key areas of Principles, People, and Planet, and, based on your feedback, we have added the capability to download specific parts of the report, or the entire report in PDF format.
My colleagues and I believe that technology can be a powerful tool in helping create change and improve people’s lives. We’re committed to making sure everyone can benefit from the opportunities technology creates. We hope you find the report valuable and would welcome any feedback or questions you may have at [email protected].