Software Is Empowering

Microsoft ran their first ever Super Bowl commercial over the weekend. While it is obviously a advertisement for Microsoft and Microsoft products I see it as an advertisement of the empowering and life changing potential of computer software. That is a message I try to give to my students on a regular basis.
Computing is so much more than business machines or game machines. In so many ways computing is making a big difference to empower people in their daily lives. In the commercial we see a bit about the connection between medicine and computing about which so many people are unaware. I see this as an important message for many of our young people to see and hear.

The commercial highlights, very briefly, some major empowerment of some people and is pretty moving. The Microsoft video site though has longer (about 2 minutes apiece) videos on each of the people in the commercial. I’ve listed them below with direct links in case you are interested.

• See how Skype is allowing students around the world to take virtual field trips. (VIDEO)
• Watch the amazing story from @teamgleason. (VIDEO)
• Technology changed a little boy’s life. Watch his story here.
• Imagine hearing for the first time at 29 years old (VIDEO)
• Once an artist, always an artist. (VIDEO)
• Surgeons provide better care to patients using @GestSure and Kinect. (VIDEO)