Access to information can help improve care, reduce costs.

America is moving forward on an important facet of healthcare reform: Policymakers will soon invest federal stimulus dollars to encourage adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) among hospitals and physicians.

This effort to improve and streamline care gives health providers incentives to make meaningful use of EHRs. We believe such use should include granting consumers access to an electronic copy of their data.

Giving consumers a copy of their health records will help strengthen continuity of care between providers. It will improve information sharing between patient and provider, enrich their conversations, and increase consumer engagement. And it will give consumers a clear, direct return on public investment in EHR incentives.

At Microsoft, we encourage our employees to take an active role in managing their health, which can include using tools such as Microsoft HealthVault to store and organize their personal health information. HealthVault, which is also available free to consumers, helps patients make better informed decisions and obtain more integrated and seamless care.

For healthcare reform to succeed, consumers must be fully involved.

And making a difference by expanding social and economic opportunities across America.

Many Microsoft employees share a passion for making a difference by volunteering and contributing to efforts that improve local communities.

Even as the econonomy took a tumble last year, our 2008 Employee Giving Program raised a record $87.7 million for more than 16,000 nonprofit organizations, large and small, as part of our commitment to help advance social and economic opportunities where we work and live.

This year, for example, Microsoft employees lent a helping hand to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston when lack of funding threatened to force cancellation of the Clubs’ annual CyberSummit where local students ages 12-18 create and exhibit their often very ingenious technology projects. Microsoft employees organized a raffle and silent auction to support the CyberSummit, and their contributions, matched by Microsoft, assisted the Club in holding a successful event.

Through partnerships with government and non-governmental organizations, Microsoft supports many workforce development and technology skills training programs. Our passion is sharing and extending the benefits of technology and helping people everywhere realize their potential.

During good and tough economic times, we're committed to making a difference.

To return to prosperity, America needs more highly educated workers.

It's a frustrating paradox: Millions of Americans are unemployed, yet U.S. companies cannot fill job openings for highly skilled workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). And the shortage of these workers prevents companies from expanding and creating many other jobs.

The problem is a mismatch of workforce skills and employer needs. The solution is a stronger national focus on education and training, coupled with a constructive immigration policy regarding highly skilled foreign workers.

To boost economic growth and competitiveness, America must:

• Invest in STEM education to build a pipeline of future workers ready for the challenges of the global economy;
• Strengthen skills of the current U.S. workforce, as Microsoft is doing in Massachusetts through partnerships with Year Up, YMCA and the Timothy Smith Network;
• Ease the nation's critical shortage of highly skilled technical workers and allow U.S. employers to grow our economy by hiring the world's best talent.

Microsoft is committed to helping lead the American innovation economy back to full strength and long-term growth. To get there, the nation needs to get smart about workforce development and high-skills immigration policy.

Innovation is the way to a cleaner, more energy-efficient economy

Even in tough economic times, business has an opportunity to make a difference in the world by helping to address urgent issues of energy use and environmental change. Microsoft is committed to this effort.

We're focused on:

• Innovations that will dramatically increase computing productivity with zero net increase in energy consumption;
• Applications and services that will help monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• Software that will help conserve power in everything from buildings and transportation to manufacturing and energy grids;
• Support for breakthrough research--by sharing with scientists our expertise, tools, facilities and computing power;
• Reduction in our own company's environmental impact, including a cut in our carbon emissions by at least 30 percent, per dollar of revenue, over five years.

We believe today's environmental challenges represent a tremendous opportunity for innovation--for development of new technologies and smart policies that will preserve and protect the earth for future generations. We're working to do our part.

Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy has worked long and hard for comprehensive health care reform. This year. Congress and the new administration are taking an important step to improve health care with the economic recovery package. which provides incentives for health providers to use information technology (IT).

To be most effective, these incentives must be carefully crafted.

• Establish objective goals and criteria for health IT systems. But don't stifle competition by imposing mandates of specific technologies or development models.
• Reward innovative doctors who make effective use of health IT. Reform reimbursement models to encourage fuller and more efficient electronic communication with patients.
• Help remove barriers to data sharing and provide incentives for data exchanges.
• Make data interoperable today. Insist that IT vendors separate data from applications so that it can flow between different systems without a wait for data standards. which might take years to complete.

Businesses are working to develop a health information infrastructure that connects data, systems, and people in ways that are secure and private. Microsoft looks forward to collaborating with the public sector and others in industry to drive real change in our health care system.

With the rapid growth of online commerce and an explosion of innovative new Web services, protecting your personal information and your privacy online is vital—but figuring out exactly how to do that can be a challenge.

When is it safe to click on a Web site or an e-mail attachment? How do you know whether to trust an online merchant? When is it OK to share or download files? How complicated do passwords need to be in order to be secure?

Moreover, many online services such as search engines, Web-based e-mail and social networking sites rely on the exchange of information from users to operate. While these services provide great benefit, they can also create complex privacy decisions for consumers. In many instances, users simply aren't aware how their information is being shared or used. And in some cases, the increased flow of data is leading to the misuse of information and making the Internet a magnet for cyber-criminals who prey on unknowing consumers.

Microsoft's leadership in efforts to address these issues starts with a fundamental premise: that people have the right to control their personal information. We have implemented strong privacy policies on a global basis; we ensure that privacy protection is built into our products and services; and we work with government, consumer groups and other industry leaders to develop privacy best practices for the online world.

To increase awareness and educate people about how to protect their privacy and data, Microsoft is helping organize activities around the globe today as part of Data Privacy Day. We also offer easily accessible tools and guidance at Web sites like www.microsoft.com/security/privacy and www.microsoft.com/protect. For example, consider the following tips when online:

• Use a combination of at least eight numbers, letters and symbols to create strong passwords.
• Don't open attachments from people you don't know.
• Be careful about sharing files from an unknown source that have not been scanned for viruses.
• Don't use public computer networks for banking or sales transactions, and guard account numbers, Social Security numbers and passwords with special care.

In the end, protecting users' privacy is a shared responsibility. It's important for individuals to get educated and stay alert about how to protect their privacy and their personal data. Software companies, including Microsoft, have a responsibility to offer solutions and services that evolve as the threat landscape changes. And governments have an obligation to protect citizens through legislative and other initiatives. Given the dynamic nature of the Internet and the inventiveness of cyber-criminals, there will always be risks online, just as there are offline. But by working together, we can create safer, more secure and enjoyable experiences for everyone.

By Dave Fachetti - Managing Director, Globespan Capital Partners

These are challenging economic times, to say the least. But if history bears out, and I'm convinced it will, we are likely entering a period of remarkable innovation in the world of information technology and enterprise software.

Having spent most of my career working to bring new high-tech businesses to market—first as an entrepreneur and now as a venture capitalist—I've witnessed up close what happens during recessionary cycles. What I've seen is that tough times like these force entrepreneurs to be more creative and resourceful, and to focus doggedly on the things that matter most.

Why am I so confident this will once again prove to be a time of great innovation? In large part it's because today's startups and entrepreneurs have so many amazing new resources at their disposal. For instance, advances in combining the best aspects of software with cloud-based services are giving entrepreneurs a whole new toolset for creating innovative technologies, services and customer experiences. We are seeing many exciting new startups as a result of this rapidly changing landscape.

To help these entrepreneurs and others like them, Microsoft recently launched BizSpark, a program that offers startups and entrepreneurs easy access to software, marketing support and visibility that can help lead to business success. Like other venture capital firms, Globespan Capital Partners has signed on as one of BizSpark's network partners.

With offices in Boston, Palo Alto and Tokyo, Globespan helps entrepreneurs gain access to markets around the world. As a partner in BizSpark, Globespan will play a key role in helping startups and entrepreneurs capitalize on the program's many benefits.

Through BizSpark, startups gain access to Microsoft's toolbox of design, development and production software tools and licenses, including a subscription to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). BizSpark also connects startups to a global network of business incubators, investors and advisors, and it offers the opportunity to be profiled on BizSparkDB, an online directory where Microsoft promotes promising startups. This is a three-year program with no upfront cost, and a total program cost of just $100.

Entrepreneurs and startups too often fall short because they are constrained by limited resources. They face even greater challenges in the current economic environment.

But with the emergence of new opportunities in software and online services, and programs like BizSpark, entrepreneurs have access to many exciting new tools to help them grow. And they have reliable allies in venture firms like Globespan Capital Partners and companies like Microsoft. As we've seen time and again, some of the greatest innovations and most successful entrepreneurs take root in tough times like these. And the growth generated by these entrepreneurial companies can play a pivotal role in creating new jobs and building sustainable local economies.

By Susan O'Connor - Director, Timothy Smith Network

They are smart, dependable, experienced — yet thousands of older adults in the Boston area are struggling to enter the job market or advance their careers because they lack something that today's employers increasingly require: information and communications technology skills.

With the current economy in turmoil and more people competing for fewer jobs, the need for workforce development programs that emphasize computing knowledge and business skills has never been greater. Since 1997, the nonprofit Timothy Smith Network (TSN) and its member organizations that serve residents of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood have responded by providing free or low-cost technology training and access at 34 computer learning centers in the community. A number of these offerings focus on training older workers who have been chronically unemployed or whose only work experience has been in jobs that did not involve using computers.

At the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, for example, the Mature Worker Program (MWP) teaches PC skills to men and women age 55 and older who are living at or below poverty level and have struggled to find jobs. They start with the basics — how to operate a mouse, navigate the Web, send e-mail — and then move on to using Microsoft Office software applications such as Excel and Word, which are widely used in many workplaces today. During the 2007-08 program year, one third of the nearly 150 MWP participants found work as a result of their training at an average starting wage of about $12.50 per hour, and most of the others have remained in the program to continue building their skills.

Nonprofit workforce training providers like the Urban League and others in the Boston community rely on support from the business community to sustain their programs, especially during tough economic times. Since 2004, Microsoft has provided more than $2.3 million in software and cash to help the Timothy Smith Network expand its technology programs and services to reach nearly 3,000 people each month. Last summer, more than 130 employees in Microsoft's Boston office volunteered at several TSN centers for a day — tutoring young students, sorting donated items, painting and lending other much-needed assistance.

TSN's business partners like Microsoft recognize that supporting workforce development in the community is a wise investment. These programs cultivate a pipeline of workers with the necessary IT skills required by employers across a range of industries, which in turn strengthens local economies. The network's member organizations also help clients deal with other socioeconomic issues — such as housing, substance abuse, childcare and education — so they are better equipped to succeed in the workplace and beyond.

The gains in business productivity, employment opportunity and local economic growth that accrue from these programs make Boston a stronger community.

By Phil Wellerstein - Executive Director, National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA)

Because U.S. competitiveness and prosperity depend on innovation, in the current economy it is more important than ever that we harness the creativity and energy of young innovators.

Each year, college and university students invent breakthrough technologies, some of which eventually spark important new products and successful businesses. Advancing more of these ideas toward the marketplace could help spur job creation and economic growth.

Demonstrating the huge potential of young innovators, tens of thousands of U.S. college students are working in teams right now to devise new technologies that may help solve some of the world's toughest problems. The teams hope their ideas will be good enough to earn them an invitation to Cambridge.

That's where the U.S. finals of Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2009 will be held, in May. Imagine Cup is one of the world's largest student technology competitions; last year, more than 185,000 students participated in 100 countries. The competition encourages young people to apply their imagination, passion and creativity to technology innovations that address global challenges such as reducing extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.

Hundreds of America's most innovative and creative students will compete in Cambridge at Microsoft's New England Research & Development Center. Because enabling young people to purchase social entrepreneurship is central to the mission of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, we are proud to partner with Microsoft on its Imagine Cup 2009.

The NCIIA stimulates technology innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education through grants, workshops, mentoring and seed investments. With a membership of 200 colleges and universities across the United States, the NCIIA engages more than 5,000 student entrepreneurs each year.

The NCIIA has sponsored hundreds of courses and product development projects over the past 14 years. Some 42 patent applications have resulted from projects supported by our grants, which have also helped create 60 new businesses, including many based here in New England. These companies manufacture and sell products in many industries; wireless technology, medical devices, alternative energy, construction, safety and transport.

At the Imagine Cup finals, the NCIIA will help evaluate projects to determine which teams go on to the world finals in Cairo, Egypt. Students will learn the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship at a NCIIA Invention to Venture workshop. And they will be eligible for NCIIA e-Team grants of up to $20,000 to help advance their technology discoveries through the commercialization process.

To solve the world's big problems, we need all the help we can get. Young people bring fresh perspective, energy, enthusiasm and freedom to take big risks in pursuit of big goals. By helping young people learn to use the tools of entrepreneurship to amplify their abilities, the NCIIA – and Microsoft's Imagine Cup – are helping change the world.

Concord-based Memento, Inc., has developed an innovative approach to tackling bank and credit card fraud – a growing problem that accounts for as much as $19 billion in annual losses for the financial services industry. Memento is harnessing the power and flexibility of collaborative Web-based software to help financial institutions protect their assets and their customers.

Traditionally, banks have detected fraud by creating special databases containing a relatively narrow set of financial transaction information. Simple rules are set to trigger an alarm if, for example, a customer withdraws money from an ATM hundreds of miles from home. Such systems, however, often send out false alarms that waste valuable time of bank analysts and investigators. And the databases are costly to upgrade when fraudsters find creative ways to beat the system.

Memento, which counts five of the nation's top 15 banks among its customers, has developed a more accurate and flexible system. Recognizing that attacks on a bank's security systems often come in new and unexpected ways, Memento's software indexes all of the bank's information databases – including both money-related transactions and non-transactional data like phone numbers and address changes – and then uses a proprietary search engine to scan the data for shifts in activity or behavior that might be noteworthy. The information is fed into Memento's case management application built on top of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, an enterprise information portal. Bank analysts monitor the warning signs and use the software to pursue further investigations as warranted. Bank executives say an investigation that previously would have taken all day can be completed in minutes with Memento's software.

The software also allows banks to target new forms of fraud that otherwise might escape detection. Increasingly, for example, sophisticated crime rings are using a combination of “channels” – including identity theft, counterfeit checks, and fraudulent online banking transactions – to steal money unnoticed from a customer's account over several months. Since Memento's software monitors all of these channels and brings the information together into one application, analysts are more likely to notice the fraud before it causes customer losses.

Memento is one of more than 6,500 information technology companies in the Massachusetts whose products are based on Microsoft's technology platform. This partner ecosystem employs more than 120,000 people in the state and generates $4 billion annually in revenues for local companies, according to an independent study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by global IT research firm IDC.

Innovation in software development is at the center of solving many of today's challenges, and Massachusetts companies continue to be at the forefront of these breakthroughs. That's why Microsoft continues to make significant, long-term investments in developing next-generation software and services, while collaborating with companies like Memento that are developing breakthrough solutions to pressing problems – both old and new.

This coming weekend, Boston and Cambridge will host a truly amazing demonstration of the incredible power of teamwork.

More than 8,500 athletes from 19 nations will compete in 57 different races as some 300,000 spectators line the banks of the Charles River. It's the world's largest two-day rowing event: the Head Of The Charles Regatta, now in its 44th year.

Teamwork will be most clearly on display as doubles, four- and eight-person crews glide up the river along the three-mile course, navigating past buoys, boats and bridges. Rowing epitomizes the essence of teamwork: a crew's momentary lapse in coordination can make or break an entire race.

Even the individual scullers rely on teamwork. Behind them, and behind the crews as well, stand coaches and family members whose guidance and encouragement bolster any successful competitor.

Consider also the teamwork required to successfully mount such a complex event. The regatta is a year-round effort involving many boat clubs, colleges and universities, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and more than 1,400 hardworking volunteers.

All these different kinds of teamwork have made the Head Of The Charles a beloved yearly ritual whose traditions and stirring displays of excellence and determination reflect something unique, and uniquely admirable, in the character of New England.

We at Microsoft are proud to be a patron sponsor of the regatta. We're proud too that several Microsoft employees are competing this year, and prouder still that many Microsoft people are helping as volunteers.

In this and a wide range of other local community activities, our growing involvement flows naturally from our growing presence in Massachusetts, where we now have nearly 1,000 employees. From our Groove Networks team in Beverly, to the Interoperability Laboratory that we opened with Novell last year in Cambridge, to the many Microsoft people working with customers throughout New England, our company has happily put down roots here.

And we're still growing. Just last summer, we expanded into a new research and development campus in Cambridge, overlooking the Charles, where some of the sharpest minds anywhere are working together to explore new ideas and bring innovative products and services to life.

In Massachusetts we have found the talented workers and collaborative spirit we need to continue creating new technologies that empower people everywhere. We've benefited enormously from our collaboration with many local business partners. And we've had great cooperation from state and local government. Our success here shows what comes from terrific teamwork.

Which is why we'll be out in force along the Charles. And we'll be cheering.

By Venkatesh Narayanamurti - John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences and former dean, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Creating innovative solutions to the many complex social and scientific challenges we face often involves breaking through the barriers that have historically hampered research. It's important that we encourage scientific inquiry that draws on the best minds across a broad range of academic disciplines and incorporates research from both the public and private sectors.

During its heyday, Bell Labs, where I spent 19 years as a research scientist, was successful partly because it eliminated the barrier between basic and applied research. By teaming up talented theorists with applied researchers, Bell came up with groundbreaking inventions such as the transistor and the laser, while also advancing basic research in such areas as information theory.

In a similar way, today's research challenges increasingly involve the interplay of technology and society. Consider computing, which has become central to storing and transmitting knowledge. Along with the convenience, productivity and enjoyment that the Digital Age has brought, the growing volume of personal data and the interconnectedness of networks raise significant social challenges in areas such as privacy, security and even work-life balance.

Tackling issues such as these will require us to break down the traditional wall between disciplines and to reach across the divide that often exists between basic and applied research. In the greater Boston area, thanks to our colleges, universities and teaching hospitals, we have one of the strongest and broadest academic communities in the world. To fully leverage this expertise, we must encourage sociologists to work with engineers, for example, and we must enable researchers to venture across professional and institutional boundaries. Academics can benefit from exposure to “real-world” problems, and professionals in the private sector can gain insights by collaborating with colleagues in the basic and applied sciences, from economics to theoretical physics and materials science.

This week, the value of interdisciplinary thinking was a key theme at a symposium sponsored by Microsoft Research New England. A sociologist explained innovative ways in which people are interacting in the Web 2.0 world; a mathematician who uses origami as an instrument of science showed how algorithms can help explain common social activities; and an economist looked at how auctions can be used to improve decision making.

Fostering cross-pollination can help generate fresh approaches to the significant technical and social challenges we face and can enable greater collaboration among scientists and professionals from all areas and disciplines. Through commitment to long-term, interdisciplinary research, institutions such as Microsoft Research are helping to build a dynamic community of thinkers and doers in our region dedicated to innovation and discovery.