This is what happens when interesting ideas, passion for technology, and experimental engineers converge

Each year, we host dozens of customer and partners in the Microsoft Garage. As we walk visitors through our community hub, makerspace, and most recently, our new Mixed Reality room, we often discuss everything from fostering innovation to designing spaces where people want to come together to collaborate. Across tech, banking, education, healthcare, and everything in between, one topic that….

PowerPoint team shows how hackathons and teamwork are the best testing grounds for giving life to ideas

Hacking culture comes naturally to Alex Gueniot. As the senior software engineer for PowerPoint driving technical implementation of new features, he just can’t give up on good ideas. “I compulsively need to create and to collaborate with people. That’s why I’ve been involved in almost 20 hackathon projects in the past seven years. One year, I was on six hackathon….

This Microsoft Garage intern shares how she refused to let fear define her

In high school, Kristen Laird experienced terrible burns as a result of a lab experiment explosion.  She struggled for years with fear of flames, and decided to turn it around by looking her fear straight in the face and becoming an EMT (emergency medical technician) and a volunteer fire fighter. Through this experience, she has learned to experiment, explore, and….

The Garage Reality Room arrives

Just as the Microsoft Garage has created makerspaces around the world to give our employees and interns the opportunity to get hands-on with 3D printing and hardware-oriented projects, we have recently created several “Reality Rooms” at our Garage locations. These specialized spaces provide quick access to the latest in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality (collectively called “XR”) all….

Seven hackathon lessons learned from my battle with lymphoma

Last week, I received some of the best news of my life.  And the news came at a pretty exciting time.  I received the phone call half an hour before the closing ceremony of Microsoft’s 2017 Hackathon, an event that my team puts on.  For the Microsoft Garage, a team helping change the way the company works 52 weeks of….

Fast design

You’re too slow! Come on Designers — keep up! With new books out on Design Sprints and Lean UX, the dozens of rapid prototyping tools now available, and thousands of Designers who can code up their own ideas, you’d think that the Design community was moving faster than it ever has. But, that’s just not true. “Design is doing some stellar work….