Microsoft partners with regional NGOs to provide free technology learning to the disadvantaged

The community program, named Unlimited Potential (UP), aims at expanding the reach of technology education to the region's most deprived people.

"In the next three months, 26 CTLCs will be launched across seven Arab countries which will be managed by eight regional NGOs. Microsoft will be providing free access to technology education to more than half a million disadvantaged individuals," commented Emre Berkin, Vice President, Microsoft Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The regional effort is part of the global UP program announced by Microsoft in September 2003, which has been created to aid global workforce development and decrease the technology skills gap worldwide. Microsoft Community Affairs donated, in its first round of UP grants, a total of US$8.1 million in cash and software to 82 NGOs globally, to help provide technology skills training for disadvantaged individuals throughout the world.

"The Middle East received a significant share of this fund in the first phase. This fund was allocated to a total of eight regional NGOs operating in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Afghanistan," added Berkin.

"We concluded our agreements with most of these organizations in September and are now working closely with them and our local technology partners in their respective countries to launch the CTLCs."

Microsoft's UP global initiative has been created to focus on improving lifelong learning for disadvantaged young people and adults by providing technology skills through CTLCs. Microsoft believes that by providing technical skills training to disadvantaged individuals, it can partner to create social and economic opportunities that can change peoples' lives and transform communities. Microsoft seeks to remove the limits to individual potential around the world by eliminating technology illiteracy.