The big day is coming! Tomorrow, February 15th, in the heart of Milan, we will officially open our new home: Microsoft House.

A few years ago, Microsoft Italy Leadership Team wondered how our team could increase the impact of our activities on customers and end users, thus accelerating the path towards the digitalization of our Country. We decided we should do it by redefining our working environment as a connection hub for our extended ecosystem, and by becoming a key enabler for innovation. We soon found the answer in a new project that was arising in Milan: the new building of Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli that was under construction in the dynamic district of Porta Volta. Designed by architects Herzog & De Meuron, the building is characterized by elements of linearity and transparency that perfectly match Microsoft’s vision. Empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more is a priority made possible by a flexible, open and collaborative approach to innovation. Microsoft House perfectly represents all of these elements and it is the concrete exemplification of our commitment to the Country.

Only a month ago, I wrote about Italy’s unexpressed opportunities: Microsoft Italy new location aims to be an accelerator of the inner potential and the best resources of Milan and the Country as a whole. We created Microsoft House to be the perfect place to engage in dialogues with our ecosystem. More than a half of the overall space is dedicated to customers, partners, students, startups, nonprofit organizations and consumers – who can discover the benefits of open innovation, now available to everyone. A place to show and spread the benefits offered by digital technologies, a space for young people who want to develop themselves through continuous growth, as well as a permanent workshop where anyone can understand the future of technology and envision ways to strengthen Italian economic and social growth.

Focusing on the value of flexibility and collaboration, we designed spaces that support this stream of innovations, allowing everyone to be inspired.

We want to seal this new commitment starting with schools: we allow teachers and professors to undergo new, innovative techniques of teaching and we allow students to learn with renewed engagement.

We allow public and private companies grasping new and smart opportunities to shape their operational excellence and redesign their future. The new Microsoft Technology Center shows the benefits of Digital Transformation and the wonders of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

We work as a catalyst for collaborative innovation, and this will allow startups to focus on a new business opportunities leveraging our ecosystem.

We enable nonprofit organizations through our solutions so that they can shape a better future, with greater social inclusion, and more opportunities for everyone.

Finally, consumers and citizens can experiment how to play, learn and create with the new Microsoft technologies.

Microsoft House is the new address for Innovation in Italy, open to everyone. Open for you.

Carlo

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