Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Microsoft addresses the coronovirus
Microsoft’s chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, oversees thousands of engineers and scientists working in artificial intelligence, computer science and other research.
But right now he’s laser-focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s also out with a new book. “Reprogramming the American Dream” connects Scott’s rural upbringing in Gladys, Virginia, to his optimistic view that AI could help bridge the digital and economic divide.
Fewer than 20% of Americans live in rural areas but you, and Microsoft generally, have put a big emphasis on tech solutions for rural America. Why?
You need to be able to have equitable access to technology in order for communities to be able to employ technology to build better businesses, create more jobs and improve the lives and livelihoods of the people in those communities. You can’t even begin to have that conversation unless the people who live in those communities are connected to the internet. At Microsoft, many of us in leadership positions have come from these rural places. We still have friends and family there.
What’s a project you’re working on in response to the pandemic?
Biotechnology companies are very quickly trying to find therapies for the virus. One of the ways that we are getting more quickly to these engineered therapies is using machine learning. We’re trying to understand the human immune system.
Are there projects you’ve said no to?
There is this push – not from us – about doing mobile phone-based contact tracing as a mechanism for helping to manage the pandemic over the next handful of months. We would want to be one of the voices pushing to make sure that if it happens at all, that it’s done in a way that preserves privacy and confidentiality.
What do you tell family and friends about what your work is like right now?
One of the positive side effects of this is that I’m actually in touch with my friends more than I was before, doing virtual happy hours over video conference. I often find myself bringing news about how it is I see some hope over the horizon.
How would things be better?
We are all on this accelerated timeline figuring out how to work from home. It’s learning the culture and the rhythms of interacting with your colleagues by video conference and doing your work remotely. It means I will get to spend more time doing productive work and more time with my family. Another thing that is almost certainly going to happen is a massive acceleration in investments and innovation in the biological sciences. In the past when we’ve had crises of this magnitude, think World War II, the things we’ve done to react to it have created this very long tailwind that pushes progress forward.