Office 2010 blog microsoft-celebrates-ramadan

As various of you know, the holy month of Ramadan was recently celebrated around the world. And, I was invited to a Iftar dinner party in the Building 34 Café on Microsoft's Redmond campus. I was flattered by the invitation and definitely made it a point to be there in person to learn about this tradition.
I went to the event with one of my very close friends, Heidi. What we saw amazed us in the most pleasant way. Café 34 was packed with over 700 people from across the company, it was a very diverse group of people from different parts of the world. Some of them, just as curious as we were, came to learn more and connect with peers. We were greeted by smiling volunteers who welcomed us and offered sweet dates and sweet drinks. They told us that they typically break the fast at the end of the day with something sweet.
As we took a seat in the cafe, we noticed that each table was filled with a great deal of appetizers and also had a brochure with the agenda for the evening. On the agenda, I saw that Lisa Brummel (Senior Vice President of Human Resources) was the guest of honor and the Keynote speaker. I also saw that Sophia Salim was going to do a presentation on the tradition and celebration of Ramadan. I was so filled with emotion when I saw Sophia’s name, because one year ago, I was Sophia’s recruiter and we hired her during one of the Dubai recruiting trips. It was excellent to see Sophia become a part of the MS family, going up on the stage and presenting to a crowd of 700 people...and in front of Lisa!
I also met with so a great number of of my hires (folks that we hired on my international recruiting trips) who are all superb friends now. I was delighted to see them all displaying their leadership skills and organizational capabilities. I met with Ikram, Murad, Burhan, Mian Fahim, and Sufian to name a handful of.
In addition, I would like to mention two more names here: Asad and Salman,Office 2010, who were on the forefront of organizing this event. I would like to personally thank them and congratulate them on pulling off such a successful event of this magnitude, based entirely on volunteering efforts. I approached them to see if they would like to do a short interview about the event for Jobsblog, and they were excited and very willing to give us some of their time.
Asad is a Senior Program Manager with MS Business Services Online Group, which is defining the Software as Service platform for the key enterprise services. He joined MS about two years ago. Salman is an SDET in Exchange Front End Server team. He has been working at MS for over 5 years now working primarily on the active sync protocol. Both Asad and Salman are associated with multiple DAC aliases and work with a bunch of volunteer efforts
I started off by asking Asad and Salman to give us an idea of how this whole thing began.
Asad: The idea was to promote diversity, cultural awareness,Office Enterprise 2007, and interaction among diverse groups at Microsoft. Hence, promoting harmony and tolerance among diverse cultures and ethnic groups at MS,Office 2010 Activation, making it a great place to work. Events such as these make Microsoft not only serve as a successful business model, but a fantastic model of harmony and tolerance among a very diverse set of people. Salman chimed in by adding: “For me it was more about providing a platform where mutual learning could occur”.
Is this the first time we are doing this event at Microsoft?
Actually, we started the tradition last year. It all started out at the grassroots level. We came together as a volunteer group of about 10-12 people. We met a number of times to plan the event, and launched a massive poster campaign in all kitchens, on all floors of all MS buildings. We served food from 6 different restaurants, covering all corners of the world. Last year, about 400 people attended. This year the attendance almost doubled and we had more than 700 people attend, about 60% of which do not practice Ramadan.
I almost know the answer to this question, but would still love to hear from you… what’s the feedback been like?
The feedback has been nothing short of outstanding all around the company. People not just enjoyed the food from all over the world, but they had a genuine interest in learning more about the Muslim tradition of fasting in the month of Ramadan. I think 700 MS employees taking their time off in the evening, sitting through the presentations, and joining us for Iftar and dinner is a moving story in itself. We had a video presentation, followed by Iftar (traditional breaking of fast at sunset) and a couple of short personal presentations explaining the philosophy and the mechanics of the tradition of Ramadan, followed by dinner.
What is your long term vision around this?
We would like to continue this tradition,Windows 7 Download, and hopefully we will see it grow into an even bigger event. Lisa Brummel, SR VP - Human Resources, has been very supportive and graciously accepted to be the chief guest for the second year in a row. Lisa has been a fantastic source of encouragement and support to all of us, and it speaks volumes of Microsoft’s commitment to diversity and making it a better workplace for people with different religions, national origins, and cultural and social backgrounds. Promoting diversity and harmony is an ongoing effort.
How much work is it to pull-off an event like this?
A lot of work. It took the volunteer team more than a month of planning and execution that resulted in such a successful event. We met 6 times during this time,Microsoft Office 2010, going over every minute detail of the event. Hosting 700 people entirely by volunteers, takes a good deal of planning and effort. This included preparing presentations, editing video presentations, coordinating logistics and making sure we had an elaborate menu with food from almost every continent.
I feel like I can't say enough about how remarkable this event was, to do it justice. It was one of those moments where, once again, I felt proud to be a part of this company. I feel like we TRULY practice what we say.
In addition, I would like to thank Lisa, on behalf of all the folks who attended. Her presence meant a good deal and is definitely a terrific source of encouragement for all. I look forward to a lot of more enlightening events like this one in the future.
- Priya