Read the improbable story of a Microsoft employee who twice turned down a traditional tech sector job so he could teach high school students, and then landed his dream job.
REDMOND, Wash. — Kevin Wang could have followed his career.
Instead, he chose to follow his calling.
It was the early 2000s, and Wang had just graduated from Berkeley with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. He was trying to decide which tech company he should offer his services to, when a high school came calling. (more…)
Twenty years ago, Calvin Hsia created a list of the “Most Verbose People” on a CompuServe forum that became Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional program.
REDMOND, Wash. – It’s 1993, and you need technical support. Who you gonna call?
Most techies at the time would plug in their modems and dial up CompuServe. In the days before Twitter, Facebook and broadband, CompuServe’s forums were a gathering place for geeks to talk shop and get answers to burning questions. (more…)
Microsoft commemorates 30th Employee Giving Campaign with CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman and Founder Bill Gates.
REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 18, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today commemorated its 30th Employee Giving Campaign and announced that U.S. employees raised $1 billion in cash since 1983 for approximately 31,000 nonprofits and community organizations around the world. CEO Steve Ballmer announced the milestone during a special town hall event at the Microsoft Redmond campus, which included Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Washington State Gov. Chris Gregoire.
“Today, I’m thrilled to announce that since our Employee Giving Campaign started in 1983, Microsoft employees have donated a total of $1 billion to more than 31,000 nonprofits around the world,” Ballmer said. “I’m incredibly proud of our employees, and this is truly a time to celebrate, not just because we’ve raised a record amount of funds, but also because together with our nonprofit partners, we have impacted and improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people.” (more…)
*Microsoft employee Carl Greninger helped a team of young students build a working nuclear reactor in his garage. He hopes the project can inspire a passion for physics in students around the country.*
REDMOND, Wash. – Sometimes you have to smash a few atoms to excite people about science.
So says Carl Greninger, a program manager in Microsoft IT Operations by day and full-fledged physics fanatic by night. That’s why he decided to help some young students get hands-on experience with something they couldn’t find in their classrooms: a working thermonuclear reactor.
For the past year, a group of local students – some as young as 13 years old – have met at Greninger’s garage every Friday night to build a type of fusion reactor known as a Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor. Dubbed IEC-9000, their machine has been fusing atoms and producing neutrons since May. It cost about as much as a high-end SUV, weighs 1,400 pounds, and generates temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun. (more…)
