Microsoft Office Information Worker Board of the Future Offers Its Vision of Technology

Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com) today released the predictions of its Office Information Worker Board of the Future, a group of 12 university students representing 10 countries who gathered here last week to debate technology trends, interpret research data and share their perspectives on the imperatives for information technology (IT) in the next decade.

The three-day conference, first held last year at Microsoft headquarters in the United States, was created to give students a unique opportunity to offer their insights to the world’s leading software maker while providing Microsoft with perspectives from highly accomplished and motivated members of the “NetGen,” the first generation of people who have grown up with computing and the Internet as a normal part of life.

“One billion people around the world are getting ready to enter the work force, so engaging with these young people is an important component of our product planning,” said Wolfgang Ebermann, general manager of Microsoft’s Information Worker business group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The students — hailing from Brazil, China, Hungary, India, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden and the United States — were selected by Microsoft from more than 550 applicants based on their personal and academic achievements as well as their work with private companies and nonprofit organizations.

The Board of the Future closed the conference by compiling its predictions of what the workplace will look like within the next 10 years. This work was facilitated by analyst Tom Austin, group vice president at Gartner Inc. and a Gartner fellow.

“As part of the process for informing Microsoft® product development, the board’s work is definitely real and valuable,” said Daniel Rasmus, director of Information Work Vision at Microsoft and leader of the Board of the Future project.

“I am going to be a scientist, and today I work for a researcher who is studying complex systems, such as societies or systems in the human body,” said Board of the Future member Máté Szalay, a second-year student at the Technical University of Budapest.