Meet a recent Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador graduate: Vidushi Gupta

Meet a recent Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador graduate: Vidushi Gupta

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This is the next segment of our blog series highlighting Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors who achieved the Gold milestone, the highest level attainable, and have recently graduated from university. Each blog in the series features a different student and highlights their accomplishments, their experience with the Student Ambassador community, and what they’re up to now.  


   


Today we meet Vidushi Gupta, who recently graduated with a bachelor of computer science from SRM Institute of Science and Technology in India. 
 
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.    


 


When did you join the Student Ambassadors community?  


 


I joined the Student Ambassadors community in January 2021. This was the time when I started to learn about tech communities, and MLSA was my first.

What was being a Student Ambassador like?  

Being a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador was a transformative experience in my tech journey. It provided me with a supportive community and an exceptional program team, creating a safe space for me to learn and grow. Through this opportunity, I not only expanded my knowledge of new technologies but also made significant advancements in my existing tech skills. The program encouraged me to participate in hackathons, where I not only utilized my skills, but also emerged as a winner in some instances. Along the way, I had the privilege of meeting exceptional individuals who shared my passion for technology. Overall, being a Student Ambassador has been an incredible journey, filled with continuous learning, personal growth, and the development of unwavering confidence.


Was there a specific experience you had while you were in the program that had a profound impact on you and why?

During my time as a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, there were three experiences that had a profound impact on me. In 2021, I was awarded the Microsoft advocacy sponsorship to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). This experience highlighted the importance of diversity and inclusion, and witnessing the safe space provided to women and gender minorities at the conference was inspiring. Since then, I have maintained my association with GHC, attending the conference in 2021 and serving as a mentor in 2022. I am currently aiming to attend the conference again this year.


 


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Vidushi, Gold Student Ambassador, in Amsterdam during her student exchange program experience where she learned how to improve business by using data to drive decisions.


Tell us about a technology you had the chance to gain a skillset as a Student Ambassador. How has this skill you acquired helped you in your post-university journey?  


As a Student Ambassador, I collaborated with Jasleen, a fellow Ambassador, on Microsoft’s data science and machine learning curriculums. This experience enhanced my skills in R, a language not commonly used in many projects. Acquiring proficiency in R has been invaluable in developing my data science portfolio and giving me a head start in my career. It has equipped me with the confidence and practical knowledge to tackle data-driven challenges and extract insights from complex datasets.


What is something you want all students, globally, to know about the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador Program?  


The MLSA program is an inclusive community with an amazing and supportive program team. It emphasizes the power of community and peer-to-peer learning, providing a safe space for diverse voices to be heard. Through MLSA, I learned the value of collaborating with fellow ambassadors, gaining support, guidance, and lifelong connections. I encourage all students worldwide to join this program and experience the transformative impact it can have on their tech journey.


What advice would you give to new Student Ambassadors, who are just starting in the program?  


Five words – Trust the process and learn.


 


Look beyond the swag, look at the network you’re going to build, and grow!


Share a favorite quote with us! It can be from a movie, a song, a book, or someone you know personally. Tell us why you chose this. What does it mean for you?  


“You v/s You.” This has always been my favorite quote. It always reiterates for me that I am my only competition. This helps me to work on being a little better than what I was yesterday. This quote also helps me to stay away from the comparison loop because yesterday’s Vidushi is my only baseline and no one else is!


 


Student_Developer_Team_2-1696627458653.png


Vidushi with fellow Student Ambassadors at the Microsoft office.

Tell us something interesting about you, about your journey.  

When I joined, I had already experienced gender discrimination in tech. That experience led me to believe that women have to put in a lot of work to stay at the table. I was disheartened but wanted to get involved with a global community like MLSA to understand the importance of women and gender minorities in tech. I started off being doubtful about tech, even though I enjoyed it. Through my experience in the MLSA program, I became a confident public speaker, a mentor, a tech enthusiast, a data storyteller, a diversity and inclusion evangelist, and so much more!  

You can follow Vidushi here:   


Personal Portfolio Website https://vidushig.com


LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidushi-gupta07


Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vidzene_


GitHub: https://github.com/Vidushi-Gupta


Twitter https://twitter.com/Vidushi_Gupta7

Release Announcement || Summarization container is live!

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We are excited to announce the availability of Azure AI Language Summarization Container! It comes with both Disconnected and Connected options, along with Commitment Tier pricing. Summarization in Azure AI Language provides ready-for-use solutions with task-oriented and -optimized LLM-powered models to summarize documents and conversation transcripts.


 


All resources are now LIVE and ready for use. Customers interested in the Disconnected container should go through the gating process to get approved.


 


This release is a significant step toward democratizing Generative AI and Large Language Models, offering key benefits to our customers:



  • With disconnected container, customers with high demands for data security and confidentiality are unblocked to bring the value of summarization to scenarios in a fully disconnected secure environment.

    • It is ideal for sensitive use cases where data isolation is critical, such as defense, legal, healthcare, financial industries, intelligence agencies.

    • Customers have full control over their environment, minimizing data exposure.

    • Organizations is empowered to harness the Cloud summarization capabilities in secure and confidential settings.




 



  • With container, both disconnected and connected option, customers will utilize summarization AI now in more regions and countries, beyond what is supported by the Cloud offering today.


 



  • With Commitment Tier pricing, customers will benefit from

    • Cost savings based on their commitment level, making it a cost-effective choice for long term usage.

    • Predictability in pricing, making budge planning more straightforward

    • Flexible commitment tiers, accommodating the specific needs and usage patterns.




 


These benefits cater to a wide range of customer needs, ensuring that they can choose the option that best aligns their requirements and preferences.


 


Please find below for more details and resources about the launch:


What is People Science?

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Hi, I’m Jaime Gonzales and I lead the Viva People Science R&D team. Our goal is to enrich the Viva journey with the science of employee happiness and success, to deliver exceptional and impactful experiences for humans at work. 


 


As People Science experts, we are consultants, researchers, analysts, content authors, product consultants, and customer advocates with deep expertise in engagement and employee experience. I’ve worked in HR and OD roles for many years and now love sitting in a product team where we have the scale and reach to improve the lives of millions of people at work.


 



What is People Science? 


 


I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that businesses win or lose based on the strength of their people. The better the connection between the two, the greater likelihood of success. As organizations seek any advantage to overcome strong economic headwinds, I think this notion is more important than ever. Those who prioritize what makes people feel happy, successful, and motivated to do their best work will find a competitive leg up. This is what People Science is all about – finding the intersection between people’s engagement and business performance. 


 


People Science: our definition at Microsoft Viva 


 


Let’s start with how we at Microsoft Viva think about People Science, and what it means for our customers. People Science is a research-backed and people-centric approach to the study and practice of happiness and success at work. It integrates fields of study like industrial-organizational psychology, organizational development, and occupational psychology with increasingly relevant fields like data science, product management, and design to reimagine an employee experience that drives better individual and organizational outcomes.  


   


How Viva People Science creates value 


 


Viva People Science transforms how people and organizations succeed by building new habits and mindsets. We help people bring their best selves to work so that they can do their best work. First, we invest in building a team of intellectually curious People Scientists who can transform themselves and their customers into People Science pros. We produce industry-leading research that challenges conventional HR practices, leveraging our unique data and expertise. We weave this research into our product and marketing outreach to design a human-centric Viva experience that improves employee engagement and ultimately business performance. As a team, we work to continuously evolve our skills, procedures, services, and toolkits to delight more and more customers and make People Science accessible to everyone. 


 


For customers, we offer professional services to deliver connected insights and enable change 


in three key ways: 


 


1. We help customers shape and get buy-in on a tailored strategy that measures and improves aspects of their employee experience most related to engagement and business performance.  


2. We help customers become People Science pros, elevating them in their roles and ensuring the partnership’s success.  


3. We alleviate customer pain points by infusing our product with deep user empathy and our experience as People Scientists. 


 


My colleagues and I will continue to explore the foundations of People Science with you over the coming months through this blog. But in the meantime, take a minute to watch this video that looks at People Science working with Viva Glint customers. I think it captures the essence of People Science at Microsoft. 


 


Interested in how Viva People Science can support your organization’s success? Learn more here. 


 

Announcing Commerce Copilot in Site Builder 

Announcing Commerce Copilot in Site Builder 

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Introducing the first AI copilot experience for Dynamics 365 Commerce 

For Merchandisers tasked with managing large product catalogs, the creation of high-quality “enriched” marketing content for their digital commerce channels can be a daunting and labor-intensive process. Especially if the Merchandiser is untrained in the creation of marketing copy. Yet it is incredibly important to have “enriched” content at the product level, where it can increase customer engagement, improve customer understanding, and drive natural search engine ranking, which all lead to higher conversion rates. 

It is for this reason that Dynamics 365 Commerce is thrilled to announce the preview of ‘Commerce Copilot’, which provides a fast and efficient way of authoring product enrichment content for your B2B and B2C digital commerce websites. 

Use Commerce Copilot to jump-start the creative process by first selecting a tone, configured by you, that aligns to your brand, like “adventurous”, “luxurious” or “bold”. Then select an audience choice from choices managed by you, like “sports enthusiast” or “college graduate”. Copilot will then use these prompts to craft compelling and engaging content that makes use of your existing product information like name, description, attributes, price and more! 

You can further augment your newly enriched content with key product highlights or tune it to be optimized for search engines. But you always remain in control and have the ability to review and modify any content before it is published! 

The Commerce Copilot for enriched product content is now available as a public preview for digital commerce customers based in United States. Additional market availability will be enabled soon. 

The post Announcing Commerce Copilot in Site Builder  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Keep Microsoft Teams meetings compliant with Communication Compliance

Keep Microsoft Teams meetings compliant with Communication Compliance

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

In today’s digital age, collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams have become the norm for businesses to communicate, stay connected, and share information. However, as organizations increasingly rely on these platforms, there has also been a surge in regulatory compliance and business conduct violations that occur on these platforms. Collaboration and messaging apps are one of the top three sources and that’s concerning. Many organizations, particularly financial institutions, healthcare providers, and other regulated industries face significant legal and reputational risks if non-compliant messages are shared during meetings.


 


Across Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and third-party apps like Instant Bloomberg, Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides the tools to help organizations detect regulatory (e.g. SEC or FINRA) and business conduct compliance violations, such as sensitive or confidential information, harassing or threatening language, and sharing of adult content. Built with privacy by design, usernames are pseudonymized by default, role-based access controls are built in, investigators are opted in by an admin, and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy. 


 


We continue to invest in Communication Compliance and Microsoft Teams integrations to ensure compliant collaboration, including our existing capabilities like the ability to detect regulatory compliance or business conduct violations in a Teams chat, channel, and more.


 


Live transcription of Microsoft Teams meetings not only makes your meetings more productive and inclusive for participants but they are also official documentation, putting emphasis on detecting potential regulatory and business conduction violations all the more critical.  With Teams supporting up to 34 language options for transcription, Communication Compliance is able to detect potential violations in all 34 languages.


 


This feature is only available for Teams meetings that attendees have opted in to record.


 


Communication Compliance Investigators with designated role-based access control permissions can then review the policy match in the meeting transcript alongside the video snippet feature that will be rolled out in October.


 


Additionally, Advanced eDiscovery can collect & review critical metadata associated to Teams meeting recordings and video files in OneDrive and SharePoint, including transcripts/captions, chapters, and custom thumbnails. This metadata can be used to identify the critical data within a Teams meeting more efficiently, especially with the ability to view the transcripts right within the review set.


 


Figure 1: View of meeting transcript shown alongside video snippet of regulatory compliance violation that occurredFigure 1: View of meeting transcript shown alongside video snippet of regulatory compliance violation that occurred


Learn more about detecting communication in Microsoft Teams


Watch our latest video to learn how Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance can help safeguard Microsoft Teams data and ensure communications meet regulatory and business conduct requirements.


 



 


Get started


You can get status updates for this and other Communication Compliance features at Microsoft 365 Roadmap | Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance.


 


We also are happy to share that there is an easier way for you to try Microsoft Purview solutions directly in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal with a free trial (an active Microsoft 365 E3 subscription is required as a prerequisite). By enabling the trial in the compliance portal, you can quickly start using all capabilities of Microsoft Purview, including Insider Risk Management, Communication Compliance, Records Management, Audit, eDiscovery, Information Protection, Data Lifecycle Management, Data Loss Prevention, and Compliance Manager.


 


Visit your Microsoft Purview compliance portal for more details or check out the Microsoft Purview solutions trial (an active Microsoft 365 E3 subscription is required as a prerequisite).


If you are a current Communication Compliance customer and are interested in learning more about how Communication Compliance can help safeguard sensitive information and detect potential regulatory or business conduct violations, check out the resources available on our “Become a Communication Compliance Ninja” resource page.


 


Thank you,


Ahmed Mahmood, Senior Product Marketing Manager


Christophe Fiessinger, Principal Product Manager

Discover new AI for Microsoft Dynamics 365 at our tenth Business Applications Launch Event

Discover new AI for Microsoft Dynamics 365 at our tenth Business Applications Launch Event

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

AI is ready to support work—the question is: What will your business do with it?

Join us at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event on October 25 and explore how to create an AI-powered business that helps people and teams be more productive, solve problems quickly, and focus more energy on building revenue.

This will mark our tenth Business Applications Launch Event—a milestone in our commitment to business app innovation, our customers, and our partners. But we’re just getting started. To see what’s next—and what it means for your organization—you’ll hear directly from Microsoft leaders about their vision for AI, customer service, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and low-code solutions.

Register for a glimpse at the future of business AI, with thought leaders and Dynamics 365 experts guiding you. Be first to see the latest AI advancements in action, including:

  • The latest AI in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales that provides relevant recommendations, summarizes data, retrieves information, and performs actions within the flow of work.
  • Advanced Copilot capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service that streamline agents’ workspaces, let them see transcripts of live chats and voice calls in their inboxes, and allow them to respond to customers quickly with the right information.
  • New Microsoft Sales Copilot features that help compose emails, update customer relationship management (CRM) records, recap meetings, and offer real-time tips to help sales teams close more deals.
  • Enhanced automation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance to help handle accounts payable and bank statements, complex tax scenarios, and e-invoicing requirements in more markets.
  • New Copilot features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to help marketers quickly create memorable customer experiences using whole new levels of personalization for emails, images, and layouts.

Plus, learn about updates for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources—all ready to help your employees be more productive, build customer loyalty, and drive meaningful growth. You’ll also hear from Charles Lamanna, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Business Applications and Platforms, about what’s driving innovation today. Then catch some of the newest AI capabilities in action, with demos led by the people behind the 2023 release wave 2, offering expert guidance on how these updates will help you:

  • Improve insights, save time, and fuel creativity with the latest AI-powered solutions.
  • Empower your employees to focus on revenue-generating work and avoid repetitive tasks with automation.
  • Connect people, data, and processes across your organization using modern, AI-enhanced collaboration tools.

Insights on putting AI to work for you

The Business Applications Launch Event is more than our chance to showcase hundreds of new features and updates. It’s also a great opportunity for you to learn expert tips on how to apply these new technologies to some of your business’ biggest challenges. And if you have questions about new features, the role of AI at work, the evolution of copilots, or what’s ahead for business apps, get them answered by experts—we’ll be hosting a live Q&A chat at the end of the event, so be sure to stick around.

It’s been inspiring to see all the new features that the Dynamics 365 team has been working on, and we’re looking forward to celebrating 10 events’ worth of advancing business applications ahead.

Colorful graphic design

Business Applications Launch Event

Explore how to create an AI-powered business.

We hope you’ll join us.

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

 9:00 AM–10:30 AM Pacific Time (UTC-7)


The post Discover new AI for Microsoft Dynamics 365 at our tenth Business Applications Launch Event appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.