Microsoft joins Katapult Accelerator Demo Day

On September 23rd, during Oslo Innovation Week 2020, Microsoft Norway joins as a partner for Katapult Accelerator Batch Five Demo Day. Microsoft is proud to have been working closely with Katapult Accelerator during the last two years and supporting startups within Katapult Accelerator’s impact-tech accelerator program focused on solving challenges within health, equality, sustainable consumption, circular economy, and smart cities. Earlier this year, Microsoft launched a Global Social Entrepreneurship program targeting innovators impacting our world for the better. We are excited to be a part of the Demo Day and partner with Katapult Accelerator as we see that our focus on driving impact through using technology is well aligned with theirs. We are looking forward to hear the pitches from all the exciting startups!

There are two areas of impact we in Microsoft have a special focus on in 2020 and where we see for us an important role to play as a global technology company: sustainability and skilling. This year, we have  made a few big announcements that show our commitment to invest and put effort into leading development within sustainable development as well as education and learning.

When it comes to sustainability, Microsoft concentrates its efforts on the areas where we can have the greatest impact, which include carbon, ecosystems, water, and waste across all the work we do. While we have been carbon neutral since 2012, we announced that we want to be carbon negative by 2030.  By 2050, we even want to remove our historical carbon emissions. You can read more about our journey towards carbon negativity and how we want to achieve this ambitious goal here.
We also see that artificial intelligence (AI) can play an important role in creating a more sustainable and accessible world, and through the AI for Good initiative we provide technology, resources , and expertise to empower researchers, companies, organizations and startups in their projects that drives impact.

Skilling is the second area and this summer we announced the Global Skills Initiative. An initiative to help 25 million people worldwide acquire the digital skills needed in a COVID-19 economy. If you would like to update your skills as well, we recommend our free learning paths on our Microsoft Learn platform. You can also sign up and get free tickets for our digital conference Microsoft Ignite which starts September 22^nd. Don’t worry if the start date passed, you can also consume all content on demand upon registering. Microsoft Ignite is for anyone who is motivated to be on the frontier of innovation and tech. We recognize that the role of IT has shifted considerably, as has the way IT decisions are made. Therefore, our key segments and sessions are meant for all roles, from developers and IT implementers to those who make large-scale purchasing decisions for enterprise tech and security solutions.