Microsoft Philanthropies Commit to Donate $1 Billion in Cloud Computing Resources

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella announced a new three-part initiative to ensure that Microsoft’s cloud computing resources serve the public good. As part of this initiative the recently formed Microsoft Philanthropies will donate $1 billion of Microsoft Cloud Services, measured at fair market value, to serve nonprofits and university researchers over the next three years.

Microsoft’s three-part commitment focuses on ensuring the cloud can serve the public good in the broadest sense by providing additional cloud resources to nonprofits, increasing access for university researchers and helping solve last-mile Internet access challenges.

“Microsoft is empowering mission-driven organizations around the planet with a donation of cloud computing services — the most transformative technologies of our generation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Now more than 70,000 organizations will have access to technology that will help them solve our greatest societal challenges and ultimately improve the human condition and drive new growth equally.”

In September 2015, 193 heads of state and other world leaders unanimously adopted 17 sustainable development goals to achieve by 2030. This ambitious agenda — which includes ending poverty, ending hunger, and ensuring affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all — will only be achievable with the benefit of significant inventions and technology innovations. The scale and computational power enabled by cloud computing will be essential to unlocking solutions to this list of some of the world’s seemingly unsolvable problems.

“We’re committed to helping nonprofit groups and universities use cloud computing to address fundamental human challenges,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith. “One of our ambitions for Microsoft Philanthropies is to partner with these groups and ensure that cloud computing reaches more people and serves the broadest array of societal needs.”

Belingon Ready to Seize ONE Championship Gold

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Like most Filipino mixed martial artists, Kevin “The Silencer” Belingon (13-4-0) of Baguio City, Philippines is working hard towards realizing his dreams, when his efforts materialize into a world title shot. More importantly, each one of his victories has presented the opportunity to live a better life.

This Saturday, January 23, at the Helong Stadium in Changsha, China, Belingon will receive the opportunity of a lifetime when he challenges Bibiano “The Flash” Fernandes (18-3-0) in a five-round battle for the ONE Bantamweight World Championship.

Since joining ONE Championship and debuting for the promotion four years ago, Belingon has had his fair share of highs and lows. He’s had spectacular wins as well as heartbreaking setbacks, but what’s consistent with the 28-year old’s performances is his desire for all-out action from start to finish.

And he knows exactly how he’ll approach Fernandes once they are both staring each other down from across the ONE Cage.

“I know where I can catch Fernandes and that's in the striking department,” said Belingon.

“[Fernandes] has a great ground game, but I'm working on my takedown defense and I'll look to hit him with something he won't see coming."

Globe Telecom’s Proposed Open Access Law Possible as Priority in Next Congress

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD) of the House of Representatives may include in its priority list in the next Congress the proposed Open Access Law of Globe Telecom for the telecommunications industry.

In a letter to Globe, CPBRD requested for additional details on the telecommunication company’s proposal of an Open Access Law as a way to mitigate bureaucratic red tape and other political hurdles that stand in the way in the deployment of telecommunications and broadband infra such as cell sites.

Globe General Counsel Atty. Froilan Castelo emphasized that an Open Access legislation for the telecom industry would help minimize bureaucratic red tape and expedite the issuance of all relevant permits for all telecommunication facilities at the local government level. “Legislation of an Open Access law is extremely important if we are to support growth and development of the next generation. The interest that the CPBRD has shown for our proposal further motivates us to remain aggressive in developing a robust telecom infrastructure that we hope will support business capabilities of local industries,” Castelo said.

According to Castelo, the quality of existing telecommunication infrastructure in a given locality is oftentimes a direct result of the LGU permitting environment. He pointed out that securing different permits at LGU level could become very challenging, from the sheer number of permits to the different political personalities that mobile operators have to deal with.