Beyond the Blue Badge

Microsoft alum Njideka Harry is founder and executive board member at Youth for Technology Foundation. Njideka is a social entrepreneur that experienced the “Digital Canyon” first-hand when she moved from her native Nigeria to the U.S. for university. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Njideka about her personal journey to start and grow YTF, Microsoft’s influence, and why she’s passionate about ensuring technology training and lifelong learning skills are available to all communities in sustainable and accessible ways.

Dr, Kai-Fu Lee helped establish Microsoft China and Microsoft Research China before moving on to do the same for Google. He now is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures and he’s invested in more than 350 different companies in China. He’s literally written the book on AI and innovation. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, he speaks with podcast host T.A. McCann about the differences between entrepreneurs in China and the U.S., innovations in health tech, the many companies in China that are led by Microsoft alumni.

Orlando Ayala retired from Microsoft in 2016 after 25 years in a number of leadership roles, including overseeing 40,000 people in 115 subsidiaries around the world to working directly with Bill Gates on his senior leadership team as Worldwide Sales Marketing and Services Group’s executive vice president. But retirement didn’t mean slowing down. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, Orlando talks with host Rick Kaplan about his Microsoft days and how he’s using his knowledge of tech and his position on company boards to disrupt and transform the healthcare and energy industries.

Microsoft alum S. Revi Sterling heads the U.S. Agency for International Development Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative’s WomenConnect Challenge. What that means is that she gets to put her passion for eliminating the digital gender divide to work every day in places around the world. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Eddie Pate will talk with Revi about her time at Microsoft, how the seed for what she’s doing today was planted there, and the impact she’s having from a socioeconomic, cultural, policy and financial-inclusion perspective.

When Jon Browning looks back at his 24-years at Microsoft, he thinks about the mentors who helped him along his career path from first installing telephones fresh out of college to eventually becoming a director at the tech giant. When he left the company, he knew that there are so many people who don’t have anyone help them bridge between the academic world and the professional workforce. He founded Global Mentorship Initiative to change all of that. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Jon about Global Mentorship Initiative, helping underserved students bridge that gap, and matching mentors with hundreds of individuals from around the world, including refugees from Chad, South Sudan, Syria and Palestine. They also talk about how you can help.

Building and managing a fast-growing company with more than $1B valuation Outreach.io is one the rare "unicorn" startups with more than $1B in valuation, and Microsoft alum Manny Medina is at the helm. Manny talks with T.A. McCann about fundraising, how his Microsoft experience helps, and advice to fellow entrepreneurs in the second part of this two-part episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast.

Outreach.io is one of the fastest-growing tech companies with a valuation of more than $1.33 billion. Microsoft alum Manny Medina is at the helm. Manny talks with T.A. McCann about managing, building the right team and board, fundraising, and rapid growth of this “unicorn” in the first part of this two-part episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast.

Steve Ballmer has always been a numbers guy. When he left Microsoft, he started to dig into our nation’s numbers to get a better picture of where his philanthropic dollars could do the most good and USAFacts was born. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, host Rich Kaplan talks with Steve about USAFacts, big data around some of the nation’s biggest issues from the economy to the elections, from COVID to obesity and why seeing and understanding all the data matters.

In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, host Eddie Pate talks with Sean Kelley, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and veterans' advocate while in his roles at Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon. On this Veterans Day episode, Eddie and Sean talk about hiring veterans in tech and beyond, why advocacy and inclusion of veterans for a diversified workforce is essential and smart business, and how alumni can fight the good fight.

Beyond the Blue Badge host Paul Shoemaker speaks with fellow Microsoft alum Terri Cole on National Philanthropy Day about her work with Social Venture Partners and United Indians of All Tribes. They talk about listening and learning, being an advocate and ally, her work with United Indians, where she derived her passion for philanthropy, and more.