>> Hello World, and welcome to Microsoft Unboxed.
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>> I'm one of your hosts, Colleen O'Brien and I'm
joined by my friend and colleague Sonia Dara.
>> Hello.
>> Each week, we're telling stories of
Microsoft technology as well as the people behind that technology,
and our theme for this week's show is...
>> World Humanitarian Day.
>> But before we dive in,
don't forget to subscribe to our channel.
We have a brand new episode every Thursday at 09:00 AM Pacific,
and you don't want to miss out.
>> August 19th was World Humanitarian Day, an event
appointed by the United Nations to pay tribute to aid workers.
The day is meant to rally support for
people affected by crises around the world.
To celebrate World Humanitarian Day,
I would love to hear about some of
your favorite volunteering experiences.
>> My most recent experiences with
the Northwest Harvest organization,
I don't know if you've heard of it before.
>> I've been there.
>> Yeah. So their whole mission is to
fight hunger in the Pacific Northwest by
recruiting volunteers to help create
food bundles for families in need.
Our team all went together down to
South Seattle and it was really nice
to give back to the community.
>> Yeah, I've actually done that exact event
with my team at Microsoft too.
>> Another really interesting volunteer project
that I've worked on is Missing Maps.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Powered by Bing Maps.
So Microsoft has partnered with
the American Red Cross in order to help
identify some of the areas of
the world that might not be properly mapped.
Places that might get hit by a natural disaster,
don't necessarily have the maps that they need for
team coming in to support to navigate the terrain.
So Missing Maps recruits volunteers to
look at GPS footage of a location,
and to identify areas that we don't have enough information
about what might become incredibly
important in the case of a natural disaster.
>> Seems really useful, Missing Maps,
like I remember hearing about that project.
>> So these are just two example of
the volunteer projects that we've worked on with our Teams.
>> Yeah.
>> But of course Microsoft is incredibly invested in this area.
In previous episodes, we've talked about AI for
Humanitarian Action which leverages
AI to support disaster recovery,
address the needs of children,
protect displaced people, and promote human rights.
The program is running over
a five-year period and will support non-profit
and humanitarian organizations around
the world through financial grants,
partnerships, technology investments, and technical consulting.
So my story this week is going to dive into
a partnership affiliated with AI for humanitarian action,
and that is TrialWatch.
So Microsoft has partnered with the Clooney Foundation.
>> Like the Clooney, like a Amal and George Clooney?
>> Correct, the Clooney Foundation for
Justice, to launch their app TrialWatch.
>> Cool.
>> To better explain this,
I'm going to read a quote from President Brad Smith.
"Our partnership with CFJ,
the Clooney Foundation for Justice is
a cornerstone of the AI for Humanitarian Action Program.
It builds on our ongoing partnership with
the United Nations Human Rights Office, which
is using new technology to better predict,
analyze, and respond to
critical human rights situations around the world."
>> Yeah, I love that we're working
super closely with the United Nations and all these
other organizations that are really
involved in this work, it's awesome.
>> You're going to love it even more, stay tuned for that.
So TrialWatch is a program that trains and equips trial monitors
to document and determine whether
trials are conducted in a fair way.
Yes. So the Clooney Foundation for Justice has the strategy
in partnership with
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Columbia Law School, and the American Bar Association.
>> Damn.
>> Yes. Their goal here is to expose injustices,
to rally global support,
and to create pressure on nations to change.
This TrialWatch app is going to make
the world a witness in courtrooms around the globe.
>> That's really cool.
>> Yeah, it's introducing a checks and balances into.
>> A global scale.
>> Yeah, scaling it globally.
>> So I can imagine there's
so many trials going on around the world.
How do people choose what to tune into?
>> Great question, Sonia.
So AI-powered text to speech and language
translation capabilities are going to speed up
the input of data and will enable experts
around the world to help assess a trial's fairness,
even if they don't speak a local language.
So with that output of
information backed by data science capabilities,
for sprinkling some AI in there,
we're getting this data science output.
CFJ can build qualitative and quantitative reports
that are reviewed and evaluated by legal experts.
>> What is the AI helping pull through for lawyers?
>> This is actually a really important implementation.
In some parts of the world,
trials function as instruments
of oppression to silence government critics,
to jail journalists, or to target minority populations.
These great legal experts can't be in all of those places at once,
so it's important to empower them with an AI instrument
to be present in those courtrooms and help scale their expertise.
>> Its eyes and ears on the ground everywhere,
and then it helps pull through any of these scenarios
that might be in just for them to take a direct look at.
>> Exactly.
>> So where's this located right now?
>> So TrialWatch has been deployed on a pilot basis in Africa,
Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.
Of course, there's already work
underway to expand it even further.
>> I love that, that's a really good use case
of AI and just a different implementations.
>> Yeah, and a shining example of
Microsoft's investment in AI for Humanitarian Action.
So this was a really strong partnership for us to
demonstrate the values of that program.
>> Mine is a story that Satya
shared on stage at Inspire this past year.
Inspire is a big partner conference
so he was talking about a lot of
the partnerships and new implementations of our technology.
This one is based in South Africa.
Healthcare in South Africa is very challenging,
especially where people have to travel
incredibly long distances to get access to proper care.
So there's this organization called Phulukisa,
which means "to heal" in Zulu,
and it utilizes Microsoft's Cloud services to bring
specialist care to those in need in remote areas,
and they do it by ways of a backpack.
So they built these Cloud-enabled backpacks that can help screen
and test for 10 of the most common diseases in the area.
So HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes, and heart disease.
Since South Africa has some of
the highest mortality rates in the world,
providing these healthcare screenings can really help
especially pregnant women and anyone who might be at risk,
so it's incredibly vital.
>> It's like a lab and a backpack, is what you're telling me.
>> Exactly. So instead of people
having to go to these healthcare facilities to
go get these screenings and
try to do any form of preventative care,
it's actually helping make it easier by breaking
it to the community.
Health workers will go to
someone's house with these Cloud-based backpacks,
they'll run these tests and upload
the data into a MySQL database in Azure.
Thanks to Power BI, the results are almost
immediate, no matter where they are.
So before Phulukisa in their Cloud backpacks,
it could take almost a week or
so for some of these results to come back.
So imagine if you're a pregnant woman and there's
complications happening, like a week
is incredibly long time and you're at risk.
Now, you can have results in almost 20 minutes.
>> Wow.
>> Yes. So really actually life-saving results.
So time is of the essence and unfortunately
miscarriages are really common in South Africa.
So there's an example of this one woman,
she's an expectant mother, her name is Precious.
She had gone through a miscarriage in previous pregnancy,
and no one was able to explain why.
Like there was no explanation
because she wasn't able to get it screened,
she lived too far away from some of the healthcare facilities,
and she unfortunately just had to go through this on her own.
So now though they have these Cloud backpacks in her space,
and they're able to do the proper screenings to
prevent anything from happening for her future pregnancy.
So it really gives her a chance of health and happiness.
It's a really cool use case scenario of
leveraging our technology in the Cloud to really help
some of these communities and especially when it comes to
health care services and
promote health and happiness for everyone.
>> What a great story.
>> Yeah.
>> It sounds like Precious is getting the care that she needs now,
thanks to these Cloud backpacks.
>> Yeah.
>> Is Cloud backpack the official name of these backpacks?
>> Yeah. They are called Phulukisa Cloud backpacks.
>> I love that. So whether it's
the Clooney Foundation for Justice
and this TrialWatch application,
or these Phulukisa Cloud backpacks,
these are two great examples of projects that
really align with the values of World Humanitarian Day.
>> I felt really good about celebrating,
and I say we continue celebrating by answering some questions.
>> Just a couple of box questions.
>> Outside the box. Yes. Thirty seconds
to answer the question Colleen, are you ready?
If you lived during the Renaissance,
what would your job have been?
>> I would have been a paint brush cleaner.
There was so much beautiful art going on, and I
love just being a fly on the wall to greatness,
and I feel like that would be a pretty easy way to make
myself valuable to some of the renowned artists of the time.
>> So you'd want to be like my apprentice?
>> Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, apprentice is little much nicer than a paint brush cleaner.
Okay, forget it. Let me ask you.
Sonia, if you could be any person,
dead or alive for a day, who would you be?
>> Given it's World Humanitarian Day,
I'm stuck between three, Mother Teresa,
Mahatma Gandhi, and Barack Obama.
>> All great humanitarian.
>> I tell you I have dreams all the time that I run
into Michelle and Barack at dinner parties,
and I just go and like hug Michelle's strong sculpted arms,
and I'm like, "Hi."
It's a very nice dream.
>> What a great sense of security.
>> I know.
>> In Michelle's arms.
Well, you didn't answer the question,
but we have to move on.
>> If you have a question to submit to the box,
please feel free to comment right below
the video and we'll be sure to get it in for a future episode.
>> While you're down there, don't forget
to subscribe to our channel.
We have a fresh new episode
every Thursday at 9:00 AM, and you don't want to miss out.
>> If you would like even more content from Sonia and me,
please subscribe to our podcast,
Women in Business and Technology.
You can find all of the information and links to
your favorite podcasting app at wibt.com.
>> We're also very active on Instagram and Twitter,
so make sure to follow us on those channels.
>> That's going to wrap it for the week.
Thanks for tuning in, happy World Humanitarian Day.
>> Go out do some good.
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