In celebration of The Garage Wall of Fame reaching 20 Wall of Fame inductees, we are recapping highlights about each honoree and their achievements. Honorees have roots either as an experimental project released through the Microsoft Garage, or as projects from The Garage produced global Hackathon, the largest private hackathon in the world.
Read on to learn more about these incredible projects, and follow us on Twitter @MSFTGarage to catch new Wall of Fame announcements.
3D Models in Office is a feature that enables users to easily insert 3D models into PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. The project brought 3D content into Office products with ability to resize, animate, rotate, and morph objects, and was featured as part of the Windows 10 Creators Update.
Azure Quickstart Center is a step-by-step guide built into Azure Portal that enables Azure customers to easily create, configure, and manage cloud workloads. Guidance includes set-up, start a project, and online courses to help customers deploy to the cloud with confidence and ease, improving customers’ onboarding experiences to Azure.
Azure Resource Graph is a service in Azure that gives enterprise businesses an efficient way to explore their Azure resources, analytics, and querying across subscriptions for large-scale environments. The project provides customers a clearer picture of their activity and environments across Azure for smarter and more efficient management of resources, saving time and money.
Eye Control for Windows 10 is an eye-tracking technology that empowers people with disabilities to use a compatible eye-tracker to operate an on-screen mouse, keyboard and text-to-speech experience in Windows 10 using only their eyes. Eye Control worked with nonprofit Team Gleason as well as the ALS Association to make Windows 10 more accessible.
FarmBeats is an IOT solution that enables farmers to leverage real-time soil and climate data to optimize their harvest. Many weather apps present predictions that cover large areas that can vary greatly from a specific farm. This solution empowers farmers, especially those in emerging markets without access to inexpensive wifi to power solutions, with high precision analytics about their climate and farm conditions. Utilized by farmers in India to increase their harvest and grow their business.
FindTime is an Outlook add-in that gives users the easiest way to schedule meetings across companies without needing to see calendar availabilities. Over hundreds of thousands of professionals have utilized FindTime to quickly send meeting polls to streamline and automate scheduling, eliminating hours of emails back and forth.
Microsoft Health Bot Service is a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering that enables enterprise developers in healthcare to build custom personal health assistants and chatbots. These AI-powered health agents empower patients, nurses, and doctors with self-serve capabilities, helping to improve services, processes, and outcomes while reducing costs.
Microsoft Kaizala is a mobile messaging app that enables large groups to communicate efficiently and facilitate work management both within and outside their organization. Kaizala helps millions of users worldwide including government entities, First Line Workers, business partners and customers stay connected securely as part of Office 365.
Microsoft Launcher is a launcher for Android that enables users with a Microsoft account to personalize Android devices with new home screens and enable cross-device experiences between phone and Windows PC. Microsoft Launcher became #1 launcher on the Android Play Store and celebrated 15 million installs.
Microsoft Learning Tools are free tools built into Office 365 and Microsoft Edge applications that empower users to improve reading, writing, and comprehension skills. Microsoft Learning Tools captured the Grand Prize at Microsoft’s 2015 Hackathon. It helps students of all ages and abilities, is an essential tool for teachers and classrooms, and has earned 10million monthly active users.
Mobile Sharing and Companion Experiences for Microsoft Teams Meetings are features in Microsoft Teams that enables users and meeting participants to seamlessly use computer and phone devices together in meetings including cross-device screen sharing, mobile video, photos, and PowerPoint presentations. This project won the Business category in Microsoft’s 2015 Hackathon and was showcased at Build 2017, before being officially integrated into Microsoft Teams.
Mouse Without Borders is a free app for Windows that enables users to control up to four computers from a single mouse and keyboard. This project created by a single developer was one of the first Microsoft Garage experimental projects and has achieved millions of downloads, top press accolades, and continues to be widely popular in the developer community.
New Data Types in Excel is an AI-powered feature recognizing data types beyond numbers and text strings that enables users to quickly retrieve relevant information from knowledge graphs based on context and directly populate cells or formulas. These new data types simplify the process of working with real-world data and enhances spreadsheets with richer content without needing to switch applications – relevant and contextual data can be injected directly into spreadsheets.
Personal Shopping Assistant is a browser plug-in that automatically identifies better deals for online shopping. The plug-in shows shoppers better deals and similar products when shopping. Shoppers can create boards of wish list products and the assistant will work for them in the background spotting deals.
Presentation Translator is an add-in for PowerPoint that allows presenters and audiences to display live subtitles in PowerPoint presentations with multi-language support. Presentation Translator is a vital resource for classrooms and people who are deaf or hard of hearing, helping audiences follow along with presentations and participate in discussions.
Seeing AI is a free app that empowers the blind and low vision community to navigate their day by narrating the world around them. Users can read labels, understand emotions and more, powered by Cognitive Services baked into the app. Seeing AI helps Microsoft empower the blind and low vision community while illustrating how AI can augment human potential rather than replace it. Multiple honors including American Council of the Blind, American Foundation for the Blind’s Helen Keller Achievement Award, CES Asia, Mobile World Congress.
Sports Performance Platform is a cloud-based, sports analytics platform that enables athletes and coaches to examine player and team data to make data-driven, predictive decisions that improve performance and inform strategy. Sports science staff from Seattle Seahawks, and other sports organizations local and global, have used Sports Performance Platform to support athlete performance and help reduce injuries and time off the field.
Video Indexer is a cloud service that enables users to extract insights from their videos using AI technologies. Video Indexer makes possible new forms of content discovery based on metadata, such as searching for spoken words, face, and even emotions in videos. Apps can leverage this service to build engagement experiences with recommendations, highlight clips, and interactive videos.
Watch For is an AI-powered computer vision system that enables livestreaming platforms and users to discover and analyze live video content, surfacing interesting parts of a livestream in real-time. This technology is what powers Mixer’s massively successful HypeZone channels and the livestream esports search results on Bing.
Xbox Adaptive Controller is an inclusive game controller that empowers everyone to play. The controller was named by TIME as a 2018 Invention of the Year in Accessibility.
Stay tuned to aka.ms/WallOfFame for more powerful projects that demonstrate what can be achieved with hackathons, experimentation, collaboration, and customer obsession. We announce new Wall of Fame honorees on Twitter @MSFTGarage.
