In commemoration of World Autism Awareness Day, Microsoft, in partnership with Specialisterne, a Danish nonprofit employment agency which specializes in training and finding job opportunities to people affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), announces a program that will fill 10 full-time office positions at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington this coming May.
In a recent company blog, Mary Ellen Smith, Microsoft's corporate vice president of worldwide operations, wrote "Microsoft is stronger when we expand opportunity and we have a diverse workforce that represents our customers." She also mentioned that her 19-year-old son was diagnosed with ASD at four years old and that she is now a very proud executive at Microsoft, a company that is committed to enabling people with disabilities to be successful for a long time.
"We believe that diversity enriches our performance, our products and services, the communities where we live and work, and the lives of our employees," Smith added.
This is not just a recent move by the company in regards to assistance to people with autism. Back in 2001, Microsoft expanded its health benefits plan to cover therapy for employees' children with ASD which was later followed by other tech companies such as Intel, Apple, Qualcomm, Cisco Systems and Oracle. Microsoft's decision, to cover Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to treat children with ASD under its health and wellness benefits, made them a corporate leader in autism coverage, and the company also promotes ASD education to its employees.
Microsoft's Bing Fund and community partners also hosted a weekend hackathon, which brought together developers, designers and other experts to come up with technologies to address issues related to ASD. The winning project, "First 100 Days," is a mobile application to help parents develop an action plan for the initial period after a child has been diagnosed with ASD.
In 2013, SAP also worked with Specialisterne, in line with the German database company's corporate global aim of having 1 percent of its workforce to be people with ASD by 2020.
"People with autism bring strengths that we need at Microsoft, each individual is different, some have amazing ability to retain information, think at a level of detail and depth or excel in math or code," Smith noted. "It's a talent pool that we want to continue to bring to Microsoft!"
Smith also announced that interested applicants for the pilot program can email their resumes to Microsoft at msautism@microsoft.com.
