“I am delighted to see this package of policies and reforms because a comprehensive suite of measures will be required if we are going to be able to compete with innovation leaders like the US, Israel, the UK and Singapore,” said Pip Marlow, Managing Director, Microsoft Australia.

Microsoft commenced a project called Joined-Up Innovation almost two years ago to make the case for a national, whole of ecosystem approach. 

“We called for Government vision and leadership, we called for policies that would encourage mobility, we focused on the importance of culture in driving innovation within SMEs and Government, and we recognised the need for the right skills and talent to be developed in Australia.”

“Last week we launched our latest report which focused on Boston as an exemplar of a city that has embraced innovation. We learnt that place matters and in particular physical locations that enable people to connect and collaborate are essential to building trust – a crucial element in innovation.”

“So we are delighted to see the Turnbull Government’s Innovation Statement has addressed many of these areas of concern.”

In particular, we welcome the following announcements:

• Government vision - establishing a whole of government approach to innovation, articulating the need to innovate and recognising that innovation policy is an ongoing approach
• Mobility - establishment of an Entrepreneur Visa to attract international entrepreneurs and the establishment of global launching pads in key innovation cities to assist Australian entrepreneurs take their ideas to the world
• Culture – insolvency reforms to allow start-ups to fail, learn and start again
• Place – the $11m investment in a network of incubators to help start-ups get the resources, knowledge and networks they need to take their ideas to the world
• Skills – the investment and focus on coding, STEM curriculum, funding to CSIRO and Data 61 and the focus on women in research and technology

Microsoft is also highly supportive of Government lowering the barriers to allow start-ups and small businesses to compete for Government contracts, stimulating innovation around national challenges and opening up public data sets. 

“We have over 10,000 partners in Australia, 69% of which are small businesses. Many of these companies are building their own solutions and services that can help deliver Government services and solve citizen problems. Making it easier for agencies to access and procure their services through the proposed Digital Marketplace is good for Government, it’s good for Australian small businesses and ultimately it is good for citizens who want Government to deliver better services."

Microsoft has also been calling for bi-partisanship on innovation – and congratulates the Opposition on the suite of policies it has been announcing since the Federal Budget earlier this year. 

“One of the lessons from Boston was that we need bi-partisanship on innovation. We are thrilled to see the real contest of ideas that we now have. However, it will be important that all parties work together on ensuring that policies are improved and implemented, rather than thrown out over political differences.”

This year’s theme is Inclusion Matters: Access and Empowerment for People with Disabilities – which resonates strongly with our ambition at Microsoft.

Our mission is to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. Our CEO, Satya Nadella specifically called out inclusion as one of the key attributes of the growth mindset needed to deliver on this mission.

According the ABS, nearly 20% of Australians of all ages have some form of disability. 2.2 million Australians of working age (15 – 64 years) have a disability.

We believe that people are defined by what they can do, and when empowered by technology, all people, including those with disabilities, can do amazing things.

We’re particularly excited in Australia about the potential for change through the Australian Government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Within the next four years, the NDIS will support nearly half a million Australians with a disability. This promises to deliver greater independence, choice and access to innovation for NDIS recipients, and technology will play a critical role in this.

By the National Disability Insurance Agency’s (NDIA) own estimation, by 2019 the NDIS will create a $1 billion per annum market for assistive technology in Australia.

That is why we’re working closely with the NDIA on how Microsoft’s innovation in accessibility and assistive technology can support the rollout of this important social reform.

This is a big task that will require us to work with many of our important partners in Australia.

To demonstrate that, our partners were front and centre of our participation at the NDIS New World Conference in Brisbane in late October.

Microsoft partners including Australian developed screen reader NVDA by NV Access; Infoxchange, ConnectingUp and Jintronix all appeared and did live presentations on our stand over the three days of the conference.

One of the demonstrations was Vision Australia’s Document Accessibility Toolbar (DAT) for Microsoft Word that helps people to create accessible documents (Microsoft Office 2010 and above). Developed with support from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) - the DAT is being launched today as a free beta.

Once downloaded, the DAT sits as a dedicated ribbon tab in Microsoft Word. As someone creates a document, they can work through each of the functions within the ribbon to ensure accessibility of the final document. Once the document is completed, the author can then validate its accessibility in real time.

We’re pleased to support this launch and encourage people and organisations to download the DAT and provide feedback to Vision Australia.

Our commitment to full inclusion and accessibility is something that we are working on tirelessly across the company and with our partner community.

Inclusion matters, and today we’re proud to honor this day.

To remain globally competitive, and maintain its high standard of living, Australia must quickly become a more innovation-driven economy. That means identifying the conditions required for competitive, high-value businesses    to thrive. It also means capitalising on today’s high level of interest in innovation and the role that governments, businesses, educational and research institutions, and individuals can play.

Against this backdrop, Microsoft recently helped to take 20 leading Australian politicians and business people to Boston and neighbouring Cambridge in the US state of Massachusetts. The group visited local facilities and met   a wide range of experts to learn firsthand how the state is reinventing itself as a major innovation centre to rival Silicon Valley and other innovation hotspots around the world.

We led the tour as part of our on-going Joined-Up Innovation

campaign, which addresses Australia’s urgent need to

 strengthen and future-proof its economy through world-leading innovation.

We led the tour as part of our on-going Joined-Up Innovation campaign, which addresses Australia’s urgent need to strengthen and future-proof its economy through world-leading innovation.

Here are three things the delegation learned from Boston and which we believe could be applied locally.

Place matters
Even in today’s online world, the Boston experience shows that physical spaces that bring people together are vital and result in increased collaboration, trust and innovation.

The Boston area has two major innovation hubs. The first is a new Innovation District south of Boston city, which features office buildings, co-working spaces and housing developments designed to allow people to live and work in the area. The other is Kendall Square in Cambridge, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at its core.

At places like the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), a rich array of start-ups across all industries work alongside venture capitalists and service providers. “The easiest thing to do to build innovation is to put all your strongest people together in one spot,” says Tim Rowe, founder of CIC. “It’s like when you’re building a fire. You don’t spread the sticks around. You put them all in a pile.”

Culture matters
The state of Massachusetts – which with 6.7 million people has a smaller population than New South Wales – boasts a US$460 billion economy underpinned by high-technology businesses in advanced manufacturing, information technology and life sciences. The ‘secret sauce’ that draws them to Boston is a sense of higher purpose – creating innovations and businesses that can change how the world works – and a culture of collaboration.

Fuelling this culture is a unique combination of circumstances, including:

• the presence of outstanding educational institutions, including Harvard University and MIT
• urban regeneration projects that have created business districts ideal for sharing ideas
• the influence of more than 40 incubators and business accelerators that work to help inventors and entrepreneurs get off the ground and succeed.

For Australian delegates, this broader view of innovation – as a cultural as well as technological phenomenon – was impressive, and pointed towards the possibility of extending innovation initiatives to businesses outside the technology sector.

“I’ve come to the view that saying innovation is simply about technology is wrong,” says delegate Ed Husic MP, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Opposition Leader Assisting with Digital Innovation and Startups. “It’s not about having the tablet or whatever; it’s about the way you find better ways of doing things – being smarter, more efficient, quicker and more responsive.”

 Experimentation matters
To strike out in new and exciting directions, start-ups and entrepreneurs must be able to take risks. The City of Boston itself has embraced this idea with a series of initiatives designed to create a pro-innovation atmosphere. For example, the city has created the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) as an internal innovation group that aims to solve civic problems, from graffiti to traffic, while offering public servants an opportunity to test their ideas quickly, cheaply and safely.

Next steps for Australia
Based on what they saw and learned in Massachusetts, participants in our tour of Boston and Cambridge suggested numerous potential steps Australians can take towards creating a more innovative business environment – as a nation and within their own organisations. These included:

• making innovation a national economic priority, at a national, state and city level
• increasing efforts to create innovation-heavy districts, especially within cities, including by making appropriate spaces available within publicly and privately owned facilities
• encouraging collaboration between all elements of Australia’s innovation ecosystem
• reforming work visa arrangements to attract globally mobile entrepreneurs and inventors.

Already, two delegates from opposite sides of politics – Wyatt Roy MP and Ed Husic MP – have applied what they learned in Boston to co-author an article titled ‘Embracing innovation is the key to our future economic growth’. Mr Husic has also announced that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) will create an Entrepreneurial Council to support innovators, and Mr Roy ran an innovation policy ‘Hackathon’ at BlueChilli, a start-up accelerator represented on the tour by its founder Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin.

The Hon Wyatt Roy MP, Assistant Minister for Innovation

Complementing these initiatives is the pending release of theTurnbull Government Innovation Statement. Wyatt Roy will no doubt be central to that effort and we look forward to the Government introducing a strong and coherent vision for the nation. We are also encouraged by the bi-partisan approach to this area of policy and the genuine contest of ideas. Innovation policy could certainly be informed by the Government leadership in Boston.

The trip also resulted in the South Australian Government expressing its interest in hosting the Boston-based business accelerator MassChallenge and borrowing ideas for a mobile app to engage citizens to help in achieving the state’s economic priorities. As South Australia’s Minister for Science and Information Economy Gail Gago says in our report: “We’re committed to transitioning from an old economy to a new economy… and by transitioning to become a leader in innovation we will be better placed to accelerate the changes we need to drive new business, industry and jobs.”

We believe Minister Gago really nails the challenge not just for South Australia but the whole country. We need to make sure we’re a new economy not an old one. To achieve that, we need to maximise the value of all parts of our innovation ecosystem. We also need to ensure that those parts are ‘joined-up’ to unlock the world-beating results that can come from working together effectively.

 Learn more by reading our full report – Accelerating Australia’s innovation ecosystem: Lessons from Boston and recommendations for a unique path forward.

It’s another good idea for stimulating the growth of Australia’s digital skills and innovation ecosystem, amongst a number of other ideas emerging from all sides of politics in recent months.

We need more young women exploring STEM skills, and particularly ICT careers. In Australia, women still make up only 20 percent of the ICT workforce, according to the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA).

To bridge that divide we need to inspire young girls to study computing and discover the rewarding career opportunities that exist in ICT and emerging digital industries.
Microsoft itself has developed a number of initiatives and tools such as the TouchDevelop platform, ITAcademy and #Wespeakcode, aimed at inspiring all young people to gain IT skills and explore digital careers.

Microsoft is thrilled that the policy debate in Australia is suddenly awash with ideas for supporting innovation, STEM skills and addressing the gender imbalance in ICT careers.

The Assistant Minister for Innovation, Wyatt Roy’s Policy Hack was a great initiative to generate ideas for stimulating Australia’s innovation ecosystem.

Our new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull similarly helped inspire more than 700 school children to learn to code at our #WeSpeakCode event at UTS in May this year.

We look forward to working with all sides of politics on driving Australia’s innovation agenda forward.

At Microsoft, we are committed to celebrating those who inspire others and make an impact in their community and around the world. Today’s Australian launch is part of the global Windows 10 #UpgradeYourWorld initiative, a year-long initiative that celebrates people and organisations doing great things, with a total global investment of US$10 million.

To nominate an Australian organisation, jump on social media, use the hashtags #UpgradeYourWorldAU and #Vote, plus tag your favourite nonprofit on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

The global initiative kick started with nine global organisations: CARE, Code.org, Keep a Child Alive, Malala Fund, Pencils of Promise, Save the Children, Special Olympics, The Global Poverty Project and The Nature Conservancy. Asking for people to vote for the tenth, Microsoft today announced the winning organisation – from more than 2,000 nominations. We’re very pleased to welcome Beagle Freedom Project as the new global partner to join the program.

Our local nonprofits are making a positive difference in our community and we are pleased to partner with these organisations, helping them to empower others to make an impact in today’s world. Our first five local nonprofits selected are:

• Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN) partner schools with business, with a goal to improve opportunities and outcomes for disadvantaged students by raising aspirations and increasing awareness of the personal, educational and vocational choices available.
• Indigenous Digital Excellence Initiative (IDX) has been developed as a partnership between the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence and the Telstra Foundation, undertaking projects that strengthen Indigenous participation, practice and entrepreneurship in the digital economy.
• Infoxchange is a nonprofit social enterprise with a mission to strengthen communities using technology to create positive social change – helping more than 300,000 people get online and improve their quality of life.
• Social Traders works to break the cycle of disadvantage and build resilience in Australian communities through social enterprise. Social Traders is dedicated to raising awareness of social enterprise, building enterprise capability, and opening markets for social enterprises products and services.
• The Smith Family provides disadvantaged Australian children with tools and support to thrive at school – with this help extending to the child’s family and community with wrap-around support essential to breaking the cycle.

We want to turn inspiration into action. From now until the end of September, we will be crowdsourcing the next five organisations, and we need your help! To nominate an Australian organisation, jump on social media, use the hashtags #UpgradeYourWorldAU and #Vote, plus tag your favourite nonprofit on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

So, what are you waiting for? #UpgradeYourWorldAU!

For more information, please visit www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/upgradeyourworld

The day will be recognised globally on Monday 25 May, with this year’s focus being on the safe location and recovery of children who have been abducted by a parent.

Commissioner Colvin said the location and recovery of missing children, including those taken by a parent, is often a collaborative law enforcement and community effort.

The AFP Facebook page is encouraging the community to replace their profile picture with a ‘Help bring them home’ white balloon to raise awareness of missing children on the day. Visit the Help Bring Them Home website to release a balloon of a missing child in support.

Parents were also alerted to the Australia Police Child ID App, which has been developed to assist parents immediately provide their child’s information to the police in the event that a child does go missing.

Read the media releases from the AFP below.

AFP Media release.pdf

If you haven’t stopped and thought about how you keep your private information secure, chances are you could be leaving it wide open for scammers to steal. When scammers get your details, they can use them for all sorts of identity crime such as making unauthorised purchases on your credit card, or using your identity to open accounts such as banking, telephone or energy services, take out loans or carry out other illegal business under your name.

Having your identity stolen can be both financially and emotionally devastating. It can take months to reclaim your identity, and the impact of having it stolen can last for years.

The good news is there are ways to minimise the risk of identity theft. National Consumer Fraud Week 2015 is all about learning how to keep your personal data safe from scammers, and prevent identity theft from happening to you.

To leave scammers out in the cold, follow SCAMwatch’s Top 6 Protect Yourself tips:
1. Keep your personal details secure
2. Think twice about what you say and do in an online environment
3. Keep your mobile devices and computers secure
4. Choose your passwords carefully
5. Beware of any request for your details or money
6. Get a copy of your credit report

If you think your banking details have been compromised, you should contact your bank or credit union immediately to let them know. If you think your identity information has been stolen, you should contact iDcare - a free government-industry service which works with you to develop specific response plans to your situation to reduce risk and impact
Visit the SCAMwatch website to find out more about the various forms of identity theft, how to protect yourself and what to do if you’ve been scammed.

Get smarter with your data
National Consumer Fraud Week 2015
An initiative of the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce

Microsoft is a supporter of the Taskforce and urges you to protect yourself against scams.

Patching of security vulnerabilities is the single most important activity any organisation can undertake to secure their information systems. Having modern, up-to-date and fully patched software is essential to providing a foundation on which other security controls can be overlaid. This is reflected by Australian Signals Directorate guidance that specifically calls out patching of operating systems and applications as two of the Top 4 mitigations against cyber intrusion.

Yet patching of systems within enterprise environments is often perceived as a complex challenge fraught with cultural, procedural and technical issues. Many organisations find it difficult to effectively prioritise and plan for deployment of patches within a consistent risk management framework. Others face significant challenges in consistently complying with policies for the deployment of patches within specified timeframes.

During 2014, Microsoft worked with some of the largest organisations in Australian government and enterprises to navigate these challenges and develop a pragmatic, realistic approach to improving patch management practices in complex environments. By mapping and optimising processes, identifying the root causes of issues, trialling different strategies and establishing performance metric-driven approaches, these organisations have made remarkable progress. As an illustration, one large organisation with more than 10,000 staff now achieve deployment of all priority patches to 90% of workstations within 48 hours – an improvement in timing of more than 3 months. These improvements have a very real impact on the security posture of organisations that are increasingly under threat from online risks.

So to support the work of the Australian Cyber Security Centre whose Conference begins today in Canberra, Microsoft is releasing a guide on how to perform patching in complex environments such as medium and large Australian government agencies and enterprises.  The approach outlined in this paper has been proven and refined in a number of organisations who are gaining significant benefits in terms of reduced risk exposure and improved compliance.  Perhaps of even more value, by significantly streamlining processes and resources, those organisations have been able to prioritise their efforts on high value activities and greater innovation.

The guide has been developed by Australian engineers in Microsoft Services, Jimmy Fitzsimmons and Rishi Nicolai, who will be sharing their experiences at 1:20pm at the ACSC Conference today 22nd April.

Security Patching in Complex Environments v1.0.pdf

I’d like to share with you some important news about the Certification of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).  Today, ASD established a Certified Cloud Services List and published a revised Information Security Manual (ISM) that provides a streamlined and effective way to verify the security of cloud services. 

Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure are now Certified by the Australian Government for the handling of Unclassified - Dissemination Limiting Markers (DLM) data. As we announced earlier, both of those services are now also delivered from data centres within Australia.

Increasingly, Australian Government agencies are turning to cloud services as a platform for innovation and efficiency. The Certified Cloud Services List streamlines the process by which those agencies can assure themselves of security and compliance by providing a Certification that can be trusted.

As the premier information assurance agency in Australian government, ASD is conducting this cloud certification on behalf of all government agencies.  Government, education and healthcare organisations across Australia can leverage the Certified Cloud Services List as evidence of the security of listed cloud services.

Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure are two of the first cloud services to satisfy the demanding requirements to be on this list.  This builds on the extensive assessment undertaken of both Azure and Office 365 for the handling of Unclassified (DLM) government data according to the Australian Government’s Independent Registered Assessors Program (IRAP).  A necessity for federal government agencies, this certification is also highly relevant to state government and enterprise organisations seeking independent assurance of the security of cloud service providers. 

Microsoft congratulates the Australian Signals Directorate on taking this important step that will enable greater innovation while ensuring the security and privacy of government data.

The Certified Cloud Services List is available here:
http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/irap/certified_clouds.htm

Further information on Microsoft Office 365 and Azure security are available here:
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/trust-center/
http://trustoffice365.com

Microsoft is absolutely committed to being the leader in security, privacy, compliance and transparency, and to providing the most complete and trusted cloud platform in Australia

We know that considerations around security, privacy and compliance are essential to how you evaluate and realise value from cloud services.  So I’d like to share with you some recent progress Microsoft has made in this regard as we announce the availability of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft CRM Online from local Australian data centres.

Your data is protected
Microsoft is committed to the protection of your data by operating an extensive security control framework and by providing security features you can tailor to your own needs.  And we’re committed to demonstrating that protection through independent verification of compliance.

Microsoft Office 365 has just completed formal security assessment for Unclassified Sensitive government data according to the Australian Government’s Independent Registered Assessors Program (IRAP).  Although a necessity for federal government agencies, this outcome is also highly relevant to state government, education, healthcare and commercial enterprises in Australia.      

Microsoft Office 365 is the first cloud productivity service to be able to provide this level of assurance in Australia, which builds on our recent assessment of Microsoft Azure under the same scheme.  You can find below the Letter of Compliance for Office 365 and find similar information for Microsoft Azure here.   

Some further information on security practices within Office 365 and Azure are available in the Microsoft Trust Centres for each service:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/trust-center
http://trustoffice365.com

You are always in control of your data
Last month,  Microsoft announced that we have become the first major cloud service provider to adopt the new ISO 27018 standard for the handling of private information within cloud services.  ISO 27018 is a new standard but is already referenced by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as a key international standard that consumers of cloud services should look for.  Microsoft’s compliance to ISO 27018 for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft CRM Online has been independently verified by the BSI.  

Some further information is available here.

Microsoft O365 - IRAP Assessment Letter of Compliance.pdf