On 28 June 2016, the “Tech4Good” – Microsoft Day event, which was dedicated to the NGO sector, was held at the Orion Conference Center. This event was organized by the Metamorphosis Foundation, with the support of Microsoft Software Corporation, which allowed the civil sector representatives to find out more about the opportunity for receiving software donation from Microsoft’s civil sector support program implemented by Metamorphosis via the ТеchSoup Balkans platform. 
Agim Bekaj, in his introductory speech shared several facts related to the assistance from Microsoft via the software donations for the NGOs, and he also added that the estimated value of the donated software is $940 million. Plus, 11.000 NGOs received Microsoft Office 365 donations during the fiscal year. 
“The innovations in the IT technology can help governments and communities to deal with social challenges, which include enhancement of educational and health care system, training of workers on intensive economy based on technology and development of economy based on clean energetic resources. The novelties in the IT technology can make the public services easy to access, more secure, more transparent and faster. Microsoft is the one making this change and is helping the improvement of life, or in other words, the life in the digital world. By doing so, Microsoft supports their work in the community, and helps the community via the modern technologies and helps them to be more efficient and more innovative in their work.” –Bekaj said. 
“By using our products, we as Microsoft strive to encourage productivity, cooperation, sharing of ideas and creativity, which are key elements in the work of our products. Office 365 and Office 2016 are designed to allow people to focus on the progress, and not on the process, on the joint working and sharing of resources at any time on any device. We, at Microsoft, always recognize the importance of the work of the non-profit organizations and we believe that we can help them with our latest technology. Therefore, within our social responsibility programs, we created the “Technology for good” initiative in order to contribute towards solving complex social problems. Microsoft is proud that has the opportunity to cooperate with more than 86.000 non-profit organizations throughout the world including non-profit organizations in Macedonia, and Microsoft gives them technologies they need in order to work with local communities” said Vlora Ademi, Senior Business Development Manager, Education and Citizenship of Мicrosoft. 
According to Metamorphosis’ executive director, Bardhyl Jashari, such events are being organized in Kosovo third year in a row and they are part of the continuous efforts for building the civil organizations’ capacities, with the aim to make them more efficient, better, and more active when it comes to accomplishing their missions. 
“Metamorphosis assists the building of capacities of NGOs via spreading knowledge through training sessions and mentorships, securing access to knowledge via publishing activities, and also via securing access to various software – in this case Microsoft’s technologies. Specifically, Metamorphosis allows software donations via the TechSoup Balkans platform. With Microsoft’s support, Metamorphosis offers the NGOs from Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania opportunities for receiving legal software in the form of a donation. As a part of the platform, Metamorphosis allows direct consultations for the civil organizations in the open days (every second Friday), but also upon individual request, and all of this is done so more organizations in Macedonia can have the chance to use the donation opportunities.” – Jashari stated. 
For more information follow the discussion on Twitter and Facebook by using the #Tech4Good hashtag.
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