Build 2019 is packed with big potential to learn, create and have fun

Microsoft Build is our premier developer conference, providing access to cutting-edge technology, the ability to collaborate with peers, and an open door to fresh perspectives. Our goals are to foster community and transparently share our developer roadmap and monetization strategy — which we believe leads to even better collaboration and innovation.

While it maintains its roots of being produced by developers for developers, this year’s event is focused on empowering developers of all kinds, from experienced computer scientists to tech beginners with big ideas we have so much in store! Whether you want to learn a new technology or level up your skills in a certain area, we have you covered. With more than 180 sessions, from developing for accessibility to responsible AI design to building apps for HoloLens, and a gamut of topics in between, class is in session.

Speaking of class, for the first time, attendees are invited to bring two family members ages 14-21 to the event. The brand-new Student Zone is dialed in to provide students access to experts, hands on labs, co-coding opportunities and more. And for the first time, the Imagine Cup World Championship, a strongly contested student developer competition, will open the event!

In the competition spirit, we’re also showcasing eight innovative startups and we invite you to help us determine the “Startups at Microsoft Build: Attendee Choice Award.” Meet these cloud-born founders in person and vote on which startup you feel has the most compelling pitch. To turbo-charge their growth, the winner will be awarded a comprehensive set of go-to-market benefits, valued at more than $1 million USD.

We also have some very exciting news for our partners. We are deepening our investments and will be making several announcements benefiting both our ISV and reseller partners when they leverage our commercial marketplace to collaborate on joint sales. We also have dozens of partners on site at Build with deep dive sessions, hands-on labs, and an exhibition area with a ton of experts on hand.

But that’s not all. We’re weaving wellness and community-focused areas throughout Build as well. Our Hang Out lounge provides a cozy place to recharge between sessions and features a variety of content from our Cloud Advocates and LEAP Program participants. It also plays host to daily popup experiences, including an IoT day and an opportunity to get hands-on with classic Commodore 64s, among other engaging opportunities.

I encourage you to spend some time with the session catalog to craft your ideal schedule. These sessions are created and delivered by the engineers who create our products and provide a great opportunity to connect with them on a personal level. A couple can’t-miss sessions include:

From Zero to DevOps Superhero: The Container Edition
This is not another “Hello World” session with quick tips, but rather a deep dive into how you can truly go from zero to DevOps superhero by selecting container tooling built for simplifying the process. You’ll also learn how these tools can provide better orchestration for cloud services, abstraction and encapsulation for your microservices deployments and visibility into what runs where and why.

Azure IoT platform services: a comprehensive overview
In this demo-heavy session, you will learn what’s available for modern IoT developers. Azure IoT Hub, Device Provisioning Service, Time Series Insight, Azure Maps and Visual Studio Code will all be put to contribution and you won’t believe all that can be achieved in only 60 minutes.

And, we’ll have exciting speakers who were selected from the call for proposals, including this one:

Designing for speech
Designing a natural language interface can be difficult. Is the interface supposed to be able to interpret every single nuance of speech? And how about slang? Or should we aim more towards forced language and make our users learn how to interact with simple commands? According to Comscore, 50% of all searches will be made by voice by 2020. Today, 40% of adults use voice commands at least once per day. Get ready now and your bots and apps will be a delight to talk to!

While we’re hosting the physical event in Seattle, our aim is to make it interactive for those who can’t make it in person as well! Satya Nadella’s opening keynote will be streamed live beginning at 8:30 a.m. Pacific on May 6, and core sessions will be online for free viewing within 24 hours. You can find it all on the Build site.

For those headed to Build, we can’t wait to welcome you to Seattle, to share and collaborate, and to imagine, create and code together!

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Dell Technologies and Microsoft expand partnership with new VMware Solutions

The cloud is enabling organizations of all types to innovate and move faster toward their business goals. It has enhanced productivity and security and opened up new opportunities for companies to tap into the potential of technologies like artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT). The cloud is helping businesses in every industry transform: Retail is becoming more personal, banking is becoming more seamless, and healthcare is becoming more predictive and preventive.

This digital revolution demands that technology vendors be open and flexible to help address a wider range of customer needs. Over the years, we’ve worked with partners to create solutions that are customer-centric and enable easier adoption of technology. Some great examples include our partnerships with SAP, RedHat, Adobe, Citrix, and more. These partnerships are enabling customers to take advantage of Microsoft cloud solutions with the tools and technologies that already exist in their environments. Today, we are excited to continue this trend by announcing an expanded partnership with Dell Technologies to provide customers with a native, supported, and certified VMware experience on Microsoft Azure. Additionally, we are welcoming VMware into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to extend the management and security capabilities of Microsoft Intune, as well as extend the capabilities of Windows Virtual Desktop.

 Azure VMware Solutions

Azure VMware Solutions deliver a comprehensive VMware environment in Azure allowing customers to run native VMware-based workloads on Azure. Customers can now seamlessly run, manage, and secure applications across VMware environments and Microsoft Azure with a common operating framework. Customers will be able to capitalize on their existing VMware investments, skills and tools, including VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and vCenter while leveraging the scale, performance and innovation of Azure.

Azure VMware Solutions enable customers to extend and redeploy their VMware workloads natively on Azure dedicated hardware without having to refactor their applications. This integration also enables organizations to tap into Azure’s massive scale, security, and fast provisioning cycles to innovate and modernize applications while improving performance. Some of the more common customer scenarios include datacenter reduction or expansions, disaster recovery and business continuity and modern application development.

VMware workloads on Azure can be easily modernized via integration with a broad range of Azure services such as Azure Active Directory, Azure AI and IoT enabling new, intelligent experiences. Customers can also take advantage of unmatched Azure pricing and benefits for Windows Server and SQL Server hosted on Azure VMware Solutions including Azure Hybrid Benefits and free Extended Security Updates.

Shifting to a modern workplace

As customers embark on their digital workplace journey, Microsoft 365 provides organizations with a complete, intelligent solution to empower employees to be creative and work together, securely.

We are excited to welcome VMWare Workspace ONE into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Customers will be able to use Workspace ONE to manage and secure the powerful productivity features of Office 365 across devices via integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory Premium as part of the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security suite. VMware Workspace ONE will be updated to integrate with APIs provided by Intune to deliver device status and health data to update the Azure Active Directory conditional access policy resolution status. Configuration of conditional access policies for Office 365 and Azure-based apps will continue to be done in the Azure Active Directory administration portal. This integration will provide additional technology choices for customers as they accelerate their digital transformation.

We also recently announced Windows Virtual Desktop, the only service that delivers a multi-session Windows 10 experience, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Windows Server Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktops and apps. The excitement for the public preview has been incredible, and thousands of customers have already previewed the Windows Virtual Desktop experience. As a part of today’s agreement, VMWare will extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop to enable customers to further accelerate their cloud initiatives. Initial capabilities are expected to be available as a tech preview by the end of calendar year 2019.

Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. And we’re committed to realizing this mission through technology innovations and strategic partnerships that unlock shared value.  This collaboration is a great example of our ongoing commitment to meet the evolving needs of our customers.

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AA Association Update: American, AGAIN, Shows Their Unwillingness to Negotiate an Agreement – NMB Fails with its Strategy

April 26, 2019

Brothers and Sisters,

The Association leadership met with American Airlines’ negotiators and Federal Mediators this week in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The Mediator’s unorthodox approach to these negotiations failed to provide adequate space for the parties to face-off in the critical high stakes final issues to be resolved. The recent sessions were short three-day bursts that started late in the mornings and did not proceed into the evenings. The Mediators kept the negotiators in separate rooms instead of creating an environment that forced the negotiators to face each other to reach an agreement or stalemate. An arbitrary deadline was set (without agreement from the Association) that resulted in this session to be the last 3 days the NMB have scheduled for the parties to meet.

The company took advantage of this strategy (that undermines the process and favors the company) by continuing with their greed driven tactics and proposals. Company management is unwilling to acknowledge the workforce, whose sacrifices have created the world’s largest airline that makes Billions in profits.

Given the company’s unwillingness to move away from demanding massive concessions from our members, the Mediators have informed us that they will report to their superiors at the National Mediation Board (NMB) that they do not see a clear path to reaching an agreement. This process will take a number of weeks. It will be up to the NMB to determine the next step(s) in this process as outlined under the Railway Labor Act.

Since the beginning of these negotiations, company negotiators have continued to hold steadfast in their opening positions of massive concessions in SCOPE, failed to move off their substandard health and retirement positions and will not negotiate to secure best in the industry compensation. What they have focused on is continuing to spin their half-truths on Jetnet.

We are certain that the company will be lobbying the NMB to recommend a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) since they cannot get the concessions they want from your negotiators. The recommendations from a PEB could favor the company. We must be prepared to reject those recommendations.

It is time for every Association represented member to clearly and unambiguously let the company know you will not accept another concessionary agreement. Your Association leadership has let the Company know that they are in for a fight. All of us must accept the fact this fight is truly on and it does personally affect each of us from this day forward.

Our collective success is up to you.

Fraternally,

Your Association Negotiating Committees

 

AA Association Update: American, AGAIN, Shows Their Unwillingness to Negotiate an Agreement – NMB Fails with its Strategy syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

Augusta Community to Deliver Petition to Richmond County Board of Education: Put the Brakes on Toxic School Buses

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TWU Contact: Heather Laverty, 269-598-2235
Bus Driver Contact: Yolanda Brown, 706-513-4879
Parent Contact: Timothy Howard, 706-399-1367

April 22, 2019

Augusta Community to Deliver Petition to Richmond County Board of Education:
Put the Brakes on Toxic School Buses

WHEN: Tuesday, April 23 at 6 p.m.

WHERE: 864 Broad Street, Central Office Boardroom, Augusta, Georgia

WHO: The Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represents School Bus Operators and Mechanics for Richmond County, parents, students, teachers and drivers will deliver a petition to the Richmond County Board of Education demanding they upgrade the county’s defective and dangerous school buses.

WHY: On Thursday Oct. 18, School Bus #267 experienced mechanical issues and caught on fire. Children were evacuated from the bus by the operator and luckily no one was hurt.

On Nov. 9, 2018, TWU members attended the Richmond County Board of Education meeting, asking for an investigation into the dilapidated school buses. Instead, the superintendent alluded that the fire was arson.

On March 7, 2019, the TWU hosted a Citizen’s Town Hall: Toxic School Buses in Crisis to find solutions and demand answers from board members.

On April 23, 2019, we will deliver a petition signed by thousands to Board of Education members to ensure the safety of Richmond County students as they ride to and from school on bus service provided by the county. The petition demands that the board:

• Upgrade the aging school bus fleet: 31% are over 11 years old and have outlived their usefulness.
• Make school bus driving a great job: Buses are overcrowded as a result of poor pay and conditions that cause high driver turnover. A full-time school bus driver has an enormous responsibility and must be fairly compensated.
• Immediate independent investigation into the environmental hazards at Mike Padgett Depot: 72% of drivers at the depot report having health symptoms as a result of working there. 50% reported missing work because of the symptoms.
• Hire additional mechanics to secure the safety of the fleet: Government inspectors found 420 defects – 54 which were listed as serious in 2018. 75.6% of buses had defects.
• Install fire suppression systems on all school buses: With three school bus fires this school year, it’s clear that fire extinguishers alone are not enough to protect students.

For more info, visit www.ToxicSchoolBus.org.

Augusta Community to Deliver Petition to Richmond County Board of Education: Put the Brakes on Toxic School Buses syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

From finance firms to factories — technology powers industry innovation

Judson Althoff joins in the Redmond opening of the new Bank of America on Microsoft’s campus. The branch is testing new technologies powered by Microsoft Azure and AI.

Recently, I joined a ribbon-cutting at the new Bank of America location on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington. The financial center is a great example of co-innovation with our customers. It features some test technology only available at this location, like a holographic greeter, with capabilities in English, Spanish and American Sign Language. The bank’s associates are equipped with Surface Pros to help stay connected and deliver customer service.

Like Bank of America’s example, businesses around the world are transforming. Our customers across finance, health and manufacturing are partnering with Microsoft to power solutions across cloud, AI and IoT, including companies like Neiman Marcus, Albertsons Companies, TomTom, Goodyear, ExxonMobil, Schneider Electric, Telefónica, AT&T, Razer, Emirates, Daimler AG, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Electrolux, Airbus Defense and Space and Siemens Gamesa. We also announced new details about the Open Data Initiative, our partnership with Adobe and SAP that will enable mutual customers like Unilever, among others, to unify their business data across lines of business applications and unlock new AI-driven insights.

There are innovation stories behind each of the diverse brands with which we have partnered over the last quarter. What I find most inspiring are examples of how customers are using our IP to innovate faster than ever. Here are just a few examples:

A year ago, we announced a $5 billion investment in IoT. Fast forward to today, where customers like Starbucks, Chevron, Walmart, Walgreens, BMW, Volkswagen and Toyota Material Handling Group are leveraging Azure as their cloud platform with IoT and AI services to accelerate their digital transformation. In fact, IoT is creating a big impact in industries you encounter daily. For example, Ohio-based GOJO Industries, the inventor of PURELL Hand Sanitizer, is a growing digital innovator in public health. The company is using Azure IoT to power its PURELL SMARTLINK Technology solutions. It has about 25,000 connected dispensers that help more than a hundred healthcare facilities streamline hand hygiene compliance through motion sensors, Internet-connected dispensers and a cloud platform that collects and analyzes data.

GOJO Industries, inventor of PURELL Hand Sanitizer, helps hospitals monitor hand hygiene with secure IoT dispensers and hand hygiene data from a PURELL SMARTLINK Technology solution running on Azure IoT.

In the manufacturing sector, digital transformation from the top floor to the shop floor continues to reshape how customers and partners run their businesses. At Hannover Messe 2019, for instance, we partnered with BMW Group to launch the Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) built on the Azure Industrial IoT cloud platform and designed to break down productivity-slowing data silos by creating an open technology framework and cross-industry community. The OMP’s goal is to significantly accelerate future industrial IoT developments, shorten time to value and drive production efficiencies while addressing common industrial challenges.

Microsoft’s Azure Industrial IoT cloud platform powers the partnership announced with BMW Group.

A long-standing challenge for manufacturers is how best to boost productivity while simplifying employee training and development. Commercial truck designer and manufacturer PACCAR shows digital solutions can be applied to manufacturing and across other industries as well. Thanks to its adoption of Dynamics 365 Guides and HoloLens 2 — our next generation  wearable holographic computer that enables businesses to take advantage of out-of-the-box applications — PACCAR employees can access step-by-step holographic instructions to guide them through unfamiliar tasks like assembling a truck door or follow lighted arrows from each instruction card to the precise hole where a wire needs to be threaded or to the location of the correct tool on the factory floor. Holographic drawings superimposed on the actual door demonstrate how to perform that task and brighten structures behind the steel panel that normally cannot be seen.

PACCAR is exploring Guides and HoloLens 2 to improve manufacturing productivity and employee onboarding. PACCAR employee Chelsey Potts works on a Kenworth truck assembly line.

Toyota Material Handling Group offers an additional manufacturing example. The company is the largest forklift maker in the world, but its customers require much more than warehouse trucks and equipment. By providing solutions with artificial intelligence, mixed reality and the IoT, Toyota Material Handling Group is helping customers meet the global rise in ecommerce, and move goods quickly, frequently, accurately and safely. With Microsoft technologies, the solutions range from connected forklift and field service systems available today to AI-powered concepts that pave the way for intelligent automation and logistics simulation – all designed with Toyota’s standards for optimizing efficiency, operation assistance and kaizen, or continuous improvement.

Toyota Material Handling Group innovates forklift, factory, service and logistics solutions with digital transformation, and Microsoft Azure AI, IoT and mixed reality.

Customers looking to accelerate the digital evolution of their business need partners who can collaborate, co-create and co-innovate with them. That was the impetus behind the February launch of the Accenture Microsoft Business Group, a venture created by Accenture and Microsoft, in conjunction with Avanade, that brings together more than 45,000 professionals — the world’s largest group of Microsoft solution experts — to advance organizations’ digital transformation agenda.

When it comes to collaboration and the modern workplace, Razer is a global phenomenon in a multibillion-dollar industry that boasts 2.3 billion customers worldwide. Razer has 15 offices and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers. Today, the company uses Microsoft 365, a complete, intelligent solution that supports creative teamwork, to achieve the same rapid communications, fast decision making and real-time collaboration required to win a game, while using these same attributes for a competitive advantage in the business world.

Virtual teamwork that happens regularly in the Teams collaboration environment inspires creative problem solving at Razer where stakeholders in product development weigh in on design issues, despite time zones and geographies.

In the airline industry, Virgin Atlantic wants employees to have the tools and information they need to make each travel step as smooth as possible. Using Microsoft PowerApps and Dynamics 365, Virgin Atlantic now has a better view of its customers and can quickly and easily develop apps that help its business and field workers excel at their jobs and create an enjoyable travel experience.

Virgin Atlantic turns to Microsoft PowerApps to help increase customer satisfaction, boost employee engagement, and reduce costs.

Digital is also changing how public sector agencies help families and children. For example, New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) caseworkers are using Microsoft  365 security, Office apps, and Surface Pro devices running on Windows 10 to investigate more than 50,000 cases a year of suspected child abuse or neglect. That time-sensitive work used to involve hours of typing reports and multiple trips between families’ homes and the office to retrieve documents. Now, from anywhere in the field, they can instantly access critical resources and capture notes to focus on protecting and advocating for children and families.

New York City children’s services caseworkers are using Surface Pro devices enabled with LTE to help manage their digital files and notes securely. Shown here: Eric Blackwood, Child Protective Specialist.

No matter the industry sector or geography, digital continues to drive how companies and organizations are reimagining their business models — from how they generate new data and insights, to how they engage customers and enhance workplace experiences for employees. We look forward to extending our collaboration with our customers and partners as they unlock new capabilities and pursue new markets thanks to their digital transformation.

From finance firms to factories — technology powers industry innovation syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

Microsoft acquires Express Logic, accelerating IoT development for billions of devices at scale

IoT sensors are being infused into just about everything, from industrial equipment to consumer devices, and increasingly these devices are connecting to the cloud. By 2020, Gartner predicts there will be more than 20 billion connected devices*. In April 2018, we announced we’re investing $5 billion in IoT and the intelligent edge over the next four years. Since then, we’ve been making a number of investments from product innovation – including Azure Sphere, Azure Digital Twins, Azure IoT Edge, Azure Maps and Azure IoT Central – new partnerships with DJI, SAP, PTC, Qualcomm and Carnegie Mellon University for IoT and edge app development, and programs to help drive the next wave of innovation for our customers.

Today, I am incredibly excited to share we have acquired Express Logic, a leader in real time operating systems (RTOS) for IoT and edge devices powered by microcontroller units (MCUs). Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS has over 6.2 billion deployments, making it one of the most deployed RTOS in the world. This widespread popularity is driven by demand for technology to support resource constrained environments, especially those that require safety and security. Manufacturers building products across a range of categories – from low capacity sensors like lightbulbs and temperature gauges to air conditioners, medical devices, and network appliances – leverage the size, safety and security benefits of Express Logic solutions to achieve faster time to market. Even highly constrained devices (battery powered and having less than 64KB of flash memory) can use Express Logic solutions. Over 9 billion of these MCU-powered devices are built and deployed globally every year, many of which can benefit from Express Logic solutions.

With this acquisition, we will unlock access to billions of new connected endpoints, grow the number of devices that can seamlessly connect to Azure and enable new intelligent capabilities. Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS joins Microsoft’s growing support for IoT devices and is complementary with Azure Sphere, our premier security offering in the microcontroller space. Our goal is to make Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS available as an option for real time processing requirements on an Azure Sphere device and also enable ThreadX-powered devices to connect to Azure IoT Edge devices when the IoT solution calls for edge computing capabilities. While we recommend Azure Sphere for customers’ most secured connections to the cloud, where Azure Sphere isn’t possible in highly constrained devices, we recommend Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS over other RTOS options in the industry because of its additional certifications and out-of-the-box connectivity to Azure IoT Hub.

As we’ve stated consistently in the past, our primary goal is to simplify IoT – from the cloud all the way down to the smallest MCU based devices. We do this by meeting our customers where they are with the right developer tools, software and intelligent cloud services to manage their solutions at scale. Express Logic’s technology and team will be an incredible addition to Microsoft in our quest to give every customer the ability to transform their businesses, and the world at large, with connected solutions.

 

*Gartner, Inc., “Leading the IoT: Gartner Insights on how to Lead in a Connected World”, by Mark Hung https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/books/iot/iotEbook_digital.pdf

Microsoft acquires Express Logic, accelerating IoT development for billions of devices at scale syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

Local 568 Member’s Life Saved by Union Brothers at Safety Meeting

On March 13, a run-of-the-mill Air Division Safety Meeting quickly became a real-life lesson, when one TWU member began choking on his lunch and was saved by his union brothers.

After a long morning session, attendees were especially hungry when lunch arrived. Local 568 Safety Chair Joe Rodriguez took the first bite of his steak sandwich – but it “didn’t go down.”

He said he remained calm and tried to drink some water, but it came up through his nostrils. Rodriguez got up to go to the bathroom and gave a thumbs up that things were okay when someone asked.

“The worst thing I did was go to the restroom myself,” Rodriguez said, recalling how he was trying to bang his chest against objects to dislodge the food. He started to feel numbness in his jaw – one minute and eight seconds had already passed.

That’s when Rodriguez returned from the bathroom and made the international sign that someone is choking – holding his throat.

“These guys jumped up and did the Heimlich. The first attempt didn’t work,” Rodriguez said.

“The guys” he is referring to are heroes Mike Szwed, Vice President of Local 512 and Jay Sleeman of Local 513.

Still choking with his arms going numb, Sleeman threw Rodriguez “around like a wet rag,” performed the Heimlich maneuver and his throat finally cleared.

“When it came out, I couldn’t move. I was so exhausted from the lack of oxygen,” Rodriguez said. “I was embarrassed, but at least I was alive.”

‘Nothing Really to It’

Sleeman has a background in safety working with the fire department. He said performing the Heimlich on Rodriguez “all worked out great. There’s nothing really to it. You don’t think about it, especially if you’ve been trained. It’s a lot better feeling when it works out than when it doesn’t work out.”

The Heimlich maneuver works by putting your knuckles into the abdomen of the choking person, with a hard press in towards the backbone and up towards the throat. This swift motion pushes out air, which in turn knocks out whatever is lodged in the throat.

Sleeman said safety measures such as CPR and the Heimlich maneuver are something everyone should learn.

“It’s a rewarding thing to know,” Sleeman said, however adding, “I don’t feel like I should take a bunch of glory for it – I did it and I’m happy it worked out.”

TWU Family Strong

Rodriguez said he now looks at life with a different perspective. “You don’t realize how important life is,” he said, adding that when he got home, the first thing he did was hug his kids.

“I could not have been in better company when it happened because every guy there was a safety guy,” he said.

Rodriguez is a second generation TWU member – his father was a section chairman out of San Juan for Local 501. “All of my life I’ve been around the TWU. I was born into this family and they literally saved my life,” he said, adding that he is a former OSHA trainer and has been a TWU member for almost 30 years.

Rodriguez said he choked due to acid reflux, something he has had for many years. He ate something that didn’t sit well with him the previous day, which inflamed his esophagus, making it difficult to swallow.

“It’s something that happens once in a blue moon, but always review safety briefings, even with family members at home. If someone is choking, how do you communicate? What signal can I give?” Rodriguez explained. “Always prepare for the unexpected.”

Local 568 Member’s Life Saved by Union Brothers at Safety Meeting syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

Future Leaders Organizing Committee Formed

Members of the TWU Future Leaders Organizing Committee (FLOC) met April 3-5 at International headquarters in Washington, DC, planning the committee’s goals and next steps.

Four leaders were appointed: Co-Chair Raychel Armstrong, Co-Chair Wyatt Gray, Recording Secretary Jordan Bravo and Communications Committee Chair Jarrod Gillen.

Armstrong, FLOC co-chair and member of Local 577, said that one of FLOC’s goals is to change how young workers interact within the labor movement.

“It provides me with a space to educate myself, challenge the way I think, and reflect on what I’ve done to bring workers together,” Armstrong said. “Instead of asking what my union is doing for me, the question shifts to, ‘How am I participating and helping my fellow workers?’”

Gray, FLOC co-chair and member of Local 513 said that he has renewed hope for the TWU’s future after seeing all the “passion and motivation” from his fellow FLOC members.

“I’m so proud to work alongside other young workers helping get our fellow young workers and future leaders active and energized in the union, as well as re-engaging with members with higher seniority to keep this movement going into the future,” Gray stated. “Being a member of FLOC, I know the TWU will do great things.”

Jarrod Gillen, Jordan Bravo, Raychel Armstrong and Wyatt Gray

Gillen, Local 568 Chief Shop Steward and FLOC Communications Committee Chairman, noted that after only two meetings, a lot of progress has been made establishing ways to better organize young workers and get them more involved in union activity.

“My enthusiasm definitely jumped after meeting other young TWU members from all over the nation and finding out there were people just like me who shared the same goal,” Gillen explained. “Even though we all know we are up against powerhouse corporations trying to destroy the labor movement, we are all still ready to dive in head first. That, in itself, is very inspirational and keeps me on my toes to strive to do a good job.”

Bravo, FLOC Recording Secretary and Local 510 Shop Steward said that since joining FLOC, the uncertainty he once had about the future of unionism is gone.

“Being able to have the opportunity to work side-by-side with such a passionate group and share ideas and visions to find solutions to real-time problems feels amazing,” Bravo said. “Focusing on not only our future, but the futures of our fellow members’ well-being, I was able to come to the realization that we need to stick together. Being a part of FLOC has given me a whole new view on the future as a TWU member.”

The next FLOC meeting is currently being scheduled. Stay tuned for updates on FLOC social media pages.

Click here to view more photos on Flickr.

Future Leaders Organizing Committee Formed syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

Building for the future: Helping students become global innovators

Every year, professionals from around the globe join us at Build, our premier developer conference, to learn about new technologies, gain hands-on experience, and level-up their development skills. It’s one of my favorite events, and this year, it’s getting even better as we extend these opportunities to students.

For the first time, Build attendees are invited to bring up to two family members aged 14-21 to participate with them—for free. We’ll also bring in local Seattle-area high school students to participate in some of these learning opportunities. The newly created Student Zone at Build is designed to provide an immersive educational experience for the students and attendees, with access to a Surface-equipped lab, on-site experts, a career center, workshops, tech talks and live co-coding opportunities. Naturally, there will be Minecraft—and so much more. Students can talk to cloud engineers, explore data with Azure Cognitive Services, learn about how to code on GitHub and use Visual Studio Code. There will be opportunities to learn more about AI and explore the most important technologies and skills developers of tomorrow will need.

Microsoft is committed to empowering the next generation of creators to pursue their dreams through access to technology, resources and learning opportunities. One way we encourage students to break boundaries and address real problems is through the Imagine Cup, which has seen students from around the world continually raise the innovation bar through teamwork. Now in its 17^th year, the competition empowers tomorrow’s talent to use their creativity, passion and diverse perspectives to solve the world’s most pressing issues.

Momentum for the Imagine Cup continues to grow—more than 2 million students from 190 countries have competed in Imagine Cup since it started—and this year, I’m excited the World Championship will be held during Build. In fact, the Imagine Cup champion will be announced to kick off Day One of the event and will be immediately followed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote.

Returning host, Corey Sanders, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Solutions, is especially fitting for the Imagine Cup—he holds four patents and was the creator of the Infrastructure-as-a-service offering for Azure, so he’s deeply familiar with the innovation cycle on many dimensions. Last year’s MC, Kate Yeager, is also making a return appearance to call the action.

To get to the World Championship, teams must win their highly competitive regional competitions, which are wrapping up soon. These finalists have developed truly life- and world-changing ideas, like last year’s winning concept, smartARM, a robotic hand that uses a camera embedded in the palm to recognize objects and calculate the most appropriate grip for the object.

This year’s champion will take home $100,000 USD, $50,000 USD in Azure credits, mentorship from the team at M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures) and a mentoring session with Satya Nadella. A team of business and technology professionals will collectively decide the 2019 winning team, and you can watch the championship via live stream on the Build site on Monday, May 6 at 8 a.m. Pacific Time. If you are interested in attending Build and haven’t signed up, there is still time to register.

Judges include:

• Amy Hood, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, who leads Microsoft’s worldwide finance operations, including acquisitions, treasury activities, tax planning, accounting and reporting, and internal audit and investor relations.

• Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, who built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. Her firm is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBTQ.

• Amjad Masad, CEO and founder of it, who has dedicated his career to making programming more accessible. A founding engineer of Codecademy, he helped build the platform that introduced tens of millions of people to coding. He later joined Facebook to lead the JavaScript Infrastructure team to build and maintain developer tools like React.js. With Repl.it, he’s focused on building collaborative developer tools that lower the barriers to entry for building and shipping software.

Each year, I’m more and more impressed by the solutions created by Imagine Cup students. And I’m thrilled that hundreds of students will be joining us at Build this year to form lifelong memories while exploring what could become a future career in tech. The future is in their hands, and I’m confident they’re up for the challenge!

Building for the future: Helping students become global innovators syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/

AA Association Update: American, AGAIN, Shows Their Corporate Greed

April 4, 2019

Brothers and Sisters,

The Association leadership met with American Airlines executive management Wednesday, April 3rd in Washington, DC. The idea was to have an unfiltered discussion with company decision makers to, hopefully, break the logjam in negotiations.

The lower level company negotiators had reached the end of their authority and steadfastly continued their concessionary demands that the Association give up healthcare options that already exist, accept inferior retirement provisions and allow our work to be outsourced. Your negotiators refuse to accept these concessionary demands.

The higher level executives doubled down at the meeting by reinforcing all of the company concessionary demands. They unflinchingly argued that their proposals should be good enough for the Association workforce to accept. They glowed about the future rosy outlook for the company while simultaneously stating that the workforce should shrink and be happy about it.

Consider this: over a 5-year period, American Airlines has authorized that $15 billion of company money be spent to buy back company stock. The cost of our contracts, with all of our proposals including work protections, would only be a fraction of that money. The leadership of this company is clearly driven by greed over consideration of the long term survival of its workforce.

Sisters and Brothers, we are in the fight of our careers. The executive leadership of this company has made it perfectly clear that they will not play fair.

The choice for every Association represented member is to either lay down and accept this or clearly and unambiguously let the company know you refuse. Your Association leadership has already let them know we are in for the fight.

The rest is up to you.

Fraternally,
Your Association Negotiating Committees

AA Association Update: American, AGAIN, Shows Their Corporate Greed syndicated from http://reloadedpcgamespage.blogspot.com/