By Business & Finance 
Cathriona Hallahan, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland (Photo: Naoise Culhane)
The Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland, Cathriona Hallahan, outlines the importance of the new state-of-the-art One Microsoft Place campus at Leopardstown in the transformation and growing development of the company.
We are living in an era of momentous change. Technology is rapidly changing how we live, work and play. A staggering 90% of the data that currently exists was created in just the last two years. To embrace the news opportunities of this 4th industrial revolution, people, organisations and society must transform and embrace the future that lies ahead.
At Microsoft, we’ve embraced the need for transformation. Under the leadership of our CEO, Satya Nadella, Microsoft has ‘hit refresh’ on our quest for new energy, new ideas and continued relevance and renewal. By using the latest technology and fostering new ways of working, Microsoft has become a major force in fostering digital transformation for businesses and organisations not only throughout Ireland, but across the globe.
Today marks an exciting milestone on this journey of transformation for Microsoft in Ireland as together with the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD, we officially opened our new €134 million, 34,000 square-metre campus in Leopardstown, Co. Dublin.
In bringing together over 2,000 employees from 71 different nationalities at One Microsoft Place, we can help make our mission a reality – helping every person and every organisation on the planet to do and achieve more.
As a perfect symbol of our transformation as a company, the new campus fosters a growth mindset – breaking down barriers so that the strengths of our collective talents can be used to make a difference in the lives of everyone. This inspiring new space will without doubt encourage and support the next wave of technological innovation and development.
Built around the idea of One Microsoft with neighbourhoods and collaborative spaces, One Microsoft Place is unique in co-locating groups of employees from the sales operations to engineering team close to each other. In doing so, we believe that creativity can thrive.
To fuel that collaboration, employees have lots and lots of food choices, a gym, a yoga space, a spa, a music room, a podcast room and much more. Combine all these great wellness facilities with the talented people that come through the door every morning and this truly becomes one of the most inspiring places to work in the country.
But our local ambition is not simply limited to our employees and our customers. At Microsoft Ireland, we want to open everyone’s minds to the limitless possibilities that technology can create by inspiring the next generation to do more and achieve more.
That’s why we made the exciting announcement today that we’ve created a dedicated innovation and education hub – DreamSpace – within our new building. Over the next four years we plan to bring 100,000 primary and secondary schools students and their teachers to visit DreamSpace. Through immersive, interactive experiences, leaders of the future will be given the digital skills necessary to create the future that they wish to live in.
Our announcement builds on our work to date to equip our young people with the skills to participate fully in the digital world. Hour of Code has given 15,000 students a glimpse at the fun of coding whilst Youth2Work has helped 13,500 young people to develop IT skills.
But we want to do more. And we are doing more. In DreamSpace, our children will get the skills to reach their potential in today’s world and will start to imagine their own future worlds. And help to shape that world – making it better for themselves, their classmates, their families and society.
In looking to that bright future, One Microsoft Place will become a beacon of transformation. Although the opening of our new building is an important marker on our journey to ‘hit refresh’, we continue to transform. For change is a constant and by coming together and combining our skills, talent and passion, we can unlock the unprecedented opportunities that lie ahead.
You can find out more on One Microsoft Place here.
