Microsoft is proud to celebrate people and organisations who do great things. It has been truly exciting to see our employees and countless other people around the world take action over the last month to #UpgradeYourWorld.
Whether big or small, they have embraced this movement and are making a difference by sharing a meal with someone less fortunate, donating items to those in need or visiting a secondary school in Kenya.
After tallying fan votes and the outpouring of responses on social media, the Beagle Freedom Project has emerged as the winner of the tenth global nonprofit partnership. Their mission is to save the lives of laboratory animals and change the lives of people through these rescue operations. They will receive a $500,000 monetary donation and be upgraded with Microsoft technology and services to help aid the future success of the organisation.
This is just the beginning.
People around the world have yet another opportunity to use social media to make a difference in their local communities and be a part of the #UpgradeYourWorld initiative. Ten organisations from 10 different countries will each receive a $50,000 donation.
In Asia, fans in Australia (#upgradeyourworldau), China (#upgradeyourworldch), India (#upgradeyourworldin) and Japan (#upgradeyourworldjp) can vote via social media for their favourite local nonprofit to become eligible to receive a donation. To cast a vote, simply share the name of the organisation in a post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the hashtags #UpgradeYourWorld[countryabbreviation] and #vote. For example: “I #vote for @XYZ to #UpgradeYourWorldDE”.
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September also marks the celebration of our first #UpgradeYourWorld global partnership with Save the Children. We were fortunate enough to see the real impact of this organisation first-hand at a preschool in a remote community in Vietnam, which can be seen in this video.
Throughout the month, we will be working with Save the Children to provide them with a software upgrade, so they can do more good and create more impact around the world.
This has truly been an inspiring way to kick off a new generation of Windows and we look forward to sharing more great moments. In the meantime, you can follow along here for more information on the nonprofit partners we are working with as part of the #UpgradeYourWorld initiative.
Please cast a vote to #UpgradeYourWorld and show us what matters to you.
This piece was originally posted on the Windows Blog