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Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Microsoft Elevate and the Rise of Credentialed AI Talent Worldwide with Naria Santa Lucia
Naria Santa Lucia is the General Manager of Elevate at Microsoft, where she leads global education, workforce, and skilling programs that have already reached over 100 million learners. With 20+ years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and international organizations, she has partnered with the UN, World Bank, and Ministries of Education worldwide to advance AI, cybersecurity, and sustainability skills.
💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why Microsoft calls this a once-in-a-generation workforce moment
- How Elevate combines global reach with local trust
- Which AI and human skills will define the future of work
- Why credentials are central to equity and career pathways
- How public-private partnerships drive scale and impact
✨ Episode Highlights
[00:02:04] Why this is a unique moment for workforce development
[00:04:24] 70% of job skills may change by 2030
[00:07:55] Inside Microsoft’s Elevate global skilling initiative
[00:10:14] Public-private partnerships to scale AI education
[00:13:29] Teachers using AI and Copilot in the classroom
[00:18:50] Designing for users, developers, and organizations
[00:24:21] Credentials as signals of AI readiness
[00:28:11] Teachers in Jordan earning pay bumps with AI certifications
[00:33:17] The rise of human skills in the AI era
[00:37:19] Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and organization
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[00:00:00] Naria Santa Lucia: One mantra that we have on my team, which we are the ones that kind of create the programs and then form the partnerships with different entities, is we try to be as global when necessary, but local as much as possible. And I think that that is the secret to a lot of these, like introducing new skills, especially when there's maybe some fear or hesitancy or a skepticism.
And so that's why we always partner with the local nonprofit. Or school or entity that has the trust of the community. We provide the top level as much guidance as we can on the core content, but we always ask our partners to localize it to that local context, to that person.
[00:00:45] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early. Childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders.
[00:01:00] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar.
And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.
[00:01:24] Alex Sarlin: We have a super special episode of EdTech Insiders This week. We are here with Naria Santa Lucia. She's the general manager of Elevate at Microsoft. She's leads global education, workforce, and skilling programs that have reached over a hundred million learners with a focus on AI. Cybersecurity and sustainability.
With over 20 years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and international organizations, she's partnered with the un, with the World Bank and with ministries of Education worldwide. A lawyer by training Naria has been recognized as a Puget Sound Business Journal, 40 Under 40 Honoree. Naria, welcome to adtech Insiders.
[00:02:04] Naria Santa Lucia: Thanks so much, Alex. It's wonderful to be here.
[00:02:07] Alex Sarlin: It's really, really great to speak with you. We have talked so many times on this podcast about Microsoft, about all of the amazing work you guys have been doing in AI to scale things, to build resources for everybody, but we've never actually talked to you, and I'd love to hear it from Microsoft itself.
Naria, you have said this is a unique moment. And workforce development. We totally agree. What makes this moment different from previous shifts in the global skills landscape, and how is Microsoft approaching it?
[00:02:37] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, that is a great question and it is truly a unique moment and I'm glad that you agree on that point.
Just a few years ago, I remember we used to always go around and talk about AI in this nebulous term like, Hey, we need people in data. We need people in machine learning. But now we actually. Every single person has the power of that tool in their hands and at their disposal. And like any other great general purpose technology, right, whether it's electricity or the internet or the personal computer, we think that generative AI and AI in general, those technologies are gonna be in every single part, in every single way that we work, that we learn that we.
Live our daily lives. And so if one person has the skills and the ability to leverage those tools to supercharge their work and the person next to them doesn't, we have a moment here. We can either make sure everybody has access or we can create. Even more of a divide. And Microsoft, we have really put the stake in the ground to say we are one of the creators of these technologies.
We take that responsibility very seriously and we really do wanna make sure everyone can thrive in this increasingly AI economy. So that's what we've done. It's really, it's kind of stunning, but our colleagues at LinkedIn, they did a study and they're predicting that by 20, 30, 70% of the skills that people have.
In their jobs right now are gonna change. And a lot of that is because of AI. So if we have that moment where jobs work, everything is shifting, let's make sure it's not gonna just be the same people who get access to those tools. Let's really go deep, dig deep, we can do this. There is no problem that we can't solve if we don't do it together.
So that's what we're trying to do.
[00:04:24] Alex Sarlin: That emphasis on leveling the playing field, on creating upskilling opportunities, even leapfrog opportunities. Yes. Where people can jump into these new skill sets and new jobs is so important. I love that you're citing different metaphors for the impact of AI. We do this all the time on the podcast.
Yeah. My preferred one is the internet. I think it's the internet. Because it's one of these things that really snuck up on us, right? The internet was around for a few years before there was email, before there were web browsers, there were before there was anything, and then suddenly it was part of everybody's job and everybody had an email address and everybody had a website and they started seeing logos on every corporate site, and things started being sponsored by big tech companies and.
It just took over everything. And I think AI is the same way, and I think people see it coming this time. That's the difference, right? They're like, oh, this is going to be that and we're gonna have some of the same leaders, which is different than back then. Right? Some of the same leaders. Yeah. Being the leaders in the AI age that were the leaders in the internet age.
So you mentioning upskilling, this idea of leveling the playing field, creating pathways. Why has Microsoft put billions of dollars literally. Into this upskilling initiatives and what do you see as these most critical skills that are gonna replace the 70% of skills that we think may be disappearing?
[00:05:36] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, and just on the point about the internet, which I completely agree with you, but I just remember back in the days of I'm dating myself in college, we had Telenet and used to go online and try to do email, and then it was like this big spike where like suddenly there was commerce on the platform and everything.
Right. And I just think this moment is like that, but it is incrementally so much faster. And I do think it's because there's ability to have people leverage a tool to be more productive, but also do more business, engage in commerce. And that is just gonna completely. Skyrocket. So again, back to the importance and then I was justly thinking about talent in my mind as you're talking about
[00:06:18] Alex Sarlin: strategy comper the early A.
Exactly.
[00:06:22] Naria Santa Lucia: But to your question about just why, why are we even doing this and. When you do look at these kind of the divides that have happened in the past or like different technologies, there's a amazing graphic that, you know, we have at Microsoft that we look at constantly is like how electricity came on board hundreds of years ago.
But when you look at the night, sky Africa is still dark. For the most part, many parts of Africa, many parts of the world are still dark. And so if we think about this way again, because that underlying statement of this is gonna change everything, every single, pervasive part of every single person's life, we do need to make sure that people have those skills.
I think we are a company that has partners that are incredible around the world. We are able to, through our skilling programs, partner with systems like the United Nations. Like the international Labor Organization like unicef, like unesco, like the World Bank. But we're also able to partner with tiny nonprofit organizations that are in community that are like helping five farmers train and be more productive.
So because of the reach of our partners and Microsoft coming along and enabling them. With the ability to have the right content on the right, how do you use AI, what are the different use cases? And then helping unlock different opportunities and really empowering those organizations. We know we can do it and we do have that responsibility to do that, so that's truly why we're very much leaning in and like you said, investing billions into the space.
[00:07:55] Alex Sarlin: It's amazing. And you're talking about these sort of public private partnerships. You didn't use that word, but that's really, that's really in there, right? I mean, UNESCO is, but you know, public NGOs are, small. Nonprofits around the world are public. And then Microsoft, one of the biggest companies on earth, literally unbelievably large.
Private company. First off, we haven't actually defined what Elevate is, so I'd love you to tell us what the Elevate Program is, and then talk a little bit about the nature of those public-private partnerships and how Microsoft can sort of drive enormous scalability and power and enrichment into all of these different projects all over the world.
[00:08:30] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, great. Elevate for us is the way that we are coming forward to really meet this moment and help people transition and scale up for this AI economy in a nutshell. And we're doing that by bringing together our technology, and especially for schools and nonprofit organizations, as well as the skilling piece, to make sure people have the skills to use that technology.
And then I think this gets to your last point too, which is. The policy part. Mm-hmm. Because we are the creators of technology, because we have partnerships around the world, we do know that we can't do it alone. Right. There's only so much one company can do. But if we can help governments think about the right conditions, the right ways that their people, like how can they invest in their citizens and their residents so that they're most effective?
That's like teaching the person to. Fish. Right? And so policy is a really big part of what we're doing, and we think that if we can bring these things together and then do that in partnership, like that public-private partnership, that's where their magic will happen. There is a really great quote. I use it all the time.
I heard it first from somebody at MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, but it's, you know, if you wanna go. Fast go with the private sector because we are breaking facts, moving, you know, moving, breaking back, whatever that quote is. Yeah. If you wanna go deep, you've gotta go with nonprofit organizations because they are the trusted members and partners and community.
And if you wanna go wide, you gotta go with government and there's no other way. At this moment, we have to all come together, all three and do our part so that we can go fast to meet the moment. We can go deep and get it right and don't get it wrong like some of the other transitions we've had, and also do it at scale.
[00:10:14] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, you've used a couple of metaphors here that are really sticking with me. When you talk about the dark skies over certain parts of the world, even though we've had electricity for a hundred plus years, you talk about the person next to you, you getting the AI skills, but if you don't get them, then suddenly the divide is gonna start moving.
And I think we're all sensing that this is that kind of moment where it's gonna be a jet pack for certain people, certain countries, certain demographics, certain groups, and we're already in a time of a lot of inequality. How do we. Make this not push that even further. Yeah. And of course we wanna think about that and education.
Education in the United States is also very unequal. We have enormously different outcomes for, based on different groups, different types of schooling. AI is already reshaping education in so many different ways, from K 12 to corporate training to early childhood. When you look at the AI education landscape right now, we talk about this on this podcast all the time, what are some of the most exciting things you see when you look around the world?
Who is doing. Who's sort of light to what AI and education could and should look like.
[00:11:16] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah. First of all, I think a lot of people, like I do love the energy around trying different things, so I think there is a theme of not, you know, I can't necessarily say like, oh, it's this country or this group that's getting it right.
But I think a lot of groups are really. Trying and you know, sometimes getting a wrong but always taking that effort. One thing that I'm really proud of, of the whole community doing, and this is because we all stand on the shoulders of lots of different people, right? And the whole computer science movement I think is something that's amazing to look at because people really came together on that movement code.org, the private sector government states, and we went state by state together and said, let's make CS count as a math or science credit.
And that was amazing. I think that coalition has come together in a really cool way. So I love seeing this teach AI group that's come together.
[00:12:10] Alex Sarlin: Me too.
[00:12:11] Naria Santa Lucia: They're thinking not just about the people who create AI, but like also the people, like the teachers who use AI. So like how can teachers teach about. And with AI, and I love that they've used a coalition, so we're not starting from scratch.
We don't have to start from scratch. Let's actually, let's use the trampoline to leapfrog, to use a metaphor versus like build it again. But what I love that they have done is they've come together, they've thought about this AI moment, they've created a framework. They went to the OECD and they got buy-in from multiple countries and now already we're like gotten such a fast start from computer science education around like AI.
So I love seeing things like that at the framework level. But I also love, like the teachers that we meet with, you know, in partnership with a FTI saw a teacher do a demo about how they use copilot and the prompts that they've created to help with lesson planning and they just, they geek out on it. I just love seeing that, and teachers too are trying different things, right, and trying different ways of flipping the classroom or for the basic things like writing emails to parents and things like that.
Those are all great, but I'm getting very excited about the ways that teachers are super powering their pedagogy and changing how they teach with these great tools.
[00:13:29] Alex Sarlin: Totally agree with you. We've had Pat Rad from Teach AI. We just talked to the CPO of, oh Teachs,
[00:13:34] Naria Santa Lucia: one of my favorite people.
[00:13:36] Alex Sarlin: Amazing. And I mean, that coalition is unbelievable.
Remember? Unbelievable outside and being like, there's like 50 countries listed on this coalition site. And it just started like this. Amazing. And then we talked to code.org just last week. We just talked to the. Chief product officer of code.org and they're already launching their hour of AI. Yeah, yeah.
Building on the momentum of the hour of code movement and as you say, all the work that's been done over time to try to bring coding into the classroom with some, with a lot of success. Not as much as I think we wanted still, because there's still poll, but it has been a lot of success, so it's really exciting to see all the learnings being put into action with this totally topic.
It's amazing. Just to riff for a second on your point about the teachers, one of the things that's so interesting about this moment is in the early internet or even early electricity, the people who were, were geeking out to use your word mm-hmm. Were the geeks. They were people who like knew how to write in machine code or had to knew how to wire up their own lights or things like that.
And I think what's so interesting about this moment is that AI is by nature because user interfaces are so accessible. Anybody can geek out. I mean, no matter who you are, you can actually go in and build tools. You can ask it to do things that nobody in the world has thought to ask it to do before and just do it.
You don't have need much training. I mean, that creates a really interesting moment. It's unlike some of the other ones where you'd have to be like really deep in the tech to do much until there were blog sites or social media. It took a lot of work. You had to learn a lot to be able to make a website.
That's not true now. Totally. Today that you've never thought of with AI. So when you think about all that power that is getting into the hands of everybody, frankly, right? That's how I think about it. How do you think about your training programs and your approach? You've created these huge libraries of resources, you are putting billions of dollars in, and with all of these partnerships, how are you helping people sort of get the courage to get their hands dirty?
Yeah. Buy things and geek out and take shots as they think about, Hey, what is my job gonna look like in the next 10 or 20 years?
[00:15:32] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, I love your energy and all the great points you made. And I'll have to say, 'cause me too, like, you know, you said in my bio, like I'm a lawyer by training liberal arts person.
Solid. Barely made it outta calculus. But I, I'm signed up to do a training to build my own agent and I'm super excited to, I'm gonna build an agent that's gonna be able to wait in line for my concert tickets. You know?
[00:15:52] Alex Sarlin: Exactly. There you go. So like,
[00:15:54] Naria Santa Lucia: that's amazing. I have no CS background or knowledge, but I'm gonna able to build that.
So I agree like. It opens the doors to so many things that I never dreamed could be even possible for myself, much less like my kids and other young people around the world. One mantra that we have on my team, which we are the ones that kind of create the programs and then form the partnerships with different entities, is we try to be as global when necessary, but local.
As much as possible, and I think that that is the secret to a lot of these, like introducing new skills, especially when there's maybe some fear or hesitancy or skepticism. And so that's why we always partner with the local nonprofit or school or entity that has the trust of the community. We provide the top level as much guidance as we can on the core content, but we always ask our partners to localize it to that local context.
To that person as much as you can get it down to the teacher and even better the elementary school teacher, or even better, the second grade teacher that has this kind of span of their professional year and we can provide training to that the better. So that's the mantra and the work that we try to take in.
So we have global partnerships that are really a big scale, but we also partner in 21 countries depth and find local partners on the ground, which I think it's a winning formula and one that we found to be very. Very successful.
[00:17:19] Alex Sarlin: It's exciting to think about all those partnerships and as you say, localizing to different contexts, to different needs, to different existing careers.
You know where people are, are like, what could I do with AI that would help me in my job tomorrow? Well, that's a question that literally can be answered for almost any job already. But you have to actually meet people where they are. You can't say, oh, we're gonna do a project and it's just creating an AI X.
It has to be, no, what is actually gonna help you? And how do we help you help yourself with this tool? And then that's how you're gonna actually get excited and get hooked. And we just see that over and over again with people who like stayed up all night to figure out if it could do this certain thing.
And then from on they're like, okay, it could do it. I'm in, I'm sold. I'm gonna start using this. Yeah. So Microsoft is a technical company. You mentioned co-pilot is an absolute, hugely used tool, especially for coding support among other things. And I think we're gonna see this spread in the future. Even if AI, as with the electricity or the internet or the computer, even if it's part of every job, there will still be this wide spectrum of how it's.
Being used. There'll be people. Mm-hmm. New models, creating agent networks, creating these, and then there'll be people using it to, you know, do existing work or to train the models, or there's still a spectrum. I'm curious when you just, I know it's early. Yeah. But you start to think about this spectrum of different skills and how AI is going to be incorporated into different job segments or into different types of.
Future work. How far can we look ahead to try to make sense of that? Is it starting to emerge what that sort of taxonomy of skills will be? Or is it moving so fast that we just have to, every three months we gotta tear it up and do it again?
[00:18:50] Naria Santa Lucia: I think it's a mix of like moving so fast and we have to be very responsive and take a look over and over again.
I think LinkedIn is putting out a quarterly report right now. The ways that like jobs are being augmented or the skills are being augmented or how jobs are automated.
[00:19:06] Alex Sarlin: Right? That's, that's the big part on automation. This is augmentation
[00:19:09] Naria Santa Lucia: and you'll kind of see like Karen Kimbro, who's her chief economist, always laughs like the most safe job right now.
He's like a locksmith from generative AI, which is interesting, right? Like you cannot augment being a locksmith at this point with gen AI. So I think a lot of you are putting out really interesting research and things and how we're kind of thinking about the ways the three audiences that we need to really help and help with that training are the users, like basic users, knowledge workers, people who have the, like you're not a technical person, you're a business user, and that you need to like understand how to leverage these tools in your day-to-day job.
To be more productive. So that's one group that we're very much thinking about and designing for. The second group is that whole, the developers and the creators of the tools. Because we do think and continue to think like, you know, we need to make sure that the language models are, you know, trained by people from diverse backgrounds, that they have different live perspectives.
You know, language is a huge thing. For example, like we need to make sure like that there are models in Korean, in Swahili, so we need to make sure that we're actually reaching people so that they can. Those that want to and are inspired to become AI developers have the ability to do that. The third group that we are actually thinking about that may not be as like top of mind for people, but is really important are like, how do businesses, how do firms, how do schools, how do nonprofits take the technology and actually integrated into their workflow?
Because it could be like one person using AI over and over again. But if you don't have a system around it, if you don't do that responsibly, that firm may not fully utilize AI to the way that they could. So we're also thinking about that group as well and designing for them and also making sure they have, we have free content available, we have credentials and certificates available, that we have a place where people can train.
[00:21:00] Alex Sarlin: That is fantastic. Yeah. That organizational approach, the policy of the, the resourcing approach. Again, I know I feel like I'm going back to this a lot because I think it's such a strong metaphor for this, but this is also true in the early internet age, right? You have people at individual companies saying, we need a website to sell our widgets, but if the powers that be were like, what's a website?
Why would we do that? Exactly. Whatcha even talking about You have a problem there, right? I think that top down, bottom up approach to what is our AI strategies. Is huge. I love that you're looking at it from both sides. I think there's a sense we're talking about leapfrogging and equity. There's a sense in which, well, AI might be part of everybody's life, but if you know it in certain kinds of ways, right?
If you could start your own business using just AI or automate something, so, and be a three person company that operates like a hundred person company, that's a huge advantage. You could do something really amazing, and I think people see that mirrored in the, in the coding revolution as well, right? All these tech people who start Instagram was like.
12 people or something when it was bought by meta years ago, it was tiny, but it had this huge outsize effect and AI is gonna have that same kind of effect. So I guess my question there is, as you think about the difference between the the user and the developer persona, how might we get to a place where we don't accidentally replicate the same issue where the people who are users now stay users and the developers stay developers and this sort of no crossover.
[00:22:15] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, that's actually a really great point and I do think it goes back to kind of even what you were saying before, that like being a developer now is very different. It means different things because you know, like I think, I forget who it was, it said English is the new coding language.
[00:22:29] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Andre, for
[00:22:31] Naria Santa Lucia: the, I think it's true.
So I do think there is a little bit more of like, look at me. I'm a user, but I'm gonna develop an agent using these tools and copilot apps. Exactly. Awesome. And I think, you know, actually that's really good feedback and I'm gonna take it back to my team too and see if we can make more connections and make sure we have like pathways between the two personas and audiences.
[00:22:52] Alex Sarlin: Well, just to your point about the 70% of skills being coming obsolete, it's like in that world you don't want that same situation we've been talking about, you know, how do we retrain truck drivers to become coders? That's been like Exactly, we've all been talking about. That's a tall order, and I don't think we've actually cracked that.
So I know,
[00:23:09] Naria Santa Lucia: I know. And many of us tried to do that. I'm not gonna lie. We're like, wait, these are the jobs. You're a truck driver. I, I don't know anything about like your passions or your skills, but you go do that. And you know, AI is actually a way where if that truck driver really does wanna do it, I think even just the way that you can learn using AI Yes.
With tutors, with like, you know, all different ways, like there is more of a plausible pathway to do that and make
[00:23:32] Alex Sarlin: that there really is. You don't have to start from the hello world and start from this, like I feel like I have no idea what's going on. That's, I think one of the really exciting parts for us about AI and education exactly, is that you can actually start doing things you wanna do right from the get go as you start playing with AI, rather than you're doing building TikTok toe for the next three weeks, but someday calm, you might be able to.
Right, that you may be able to do something very much on the same page here, and I'm, I'm happy to hear that you're thinking about those crossovers. So tell us what's next or elevate, I mean, things are moving so quickly and Microsoft is one of the absolute giants in the field. It's been sort of a big part of the ecosystem since day one.
What kind of long-term impact do you wanna have with these global skill initiatives? You're working with the un, you know, you're thinking truly globally. What kind of impact would you like to have if you could. Put on your feedback.
[00:24:21] Naria Santa Lucia: I love that. So this year we're like super anchoring on credentials and we're trying to do like kind of a little bit of a handoff into up the value chain, I would say, in like a workforce like kind of mentality.
We're training many, many people on AI last year and we, some of them, you know, we're. We're more like, come one, come all, come quickly. You know, just get excited. That was like the energy we're trying to build a few years ago and this year we're really thinking about what are the skills that people are learning for what roles teachers, and we're really anchoring on that to like teachers, nonprofit professionals, government workers at focus on like education and workforce as well.
We really wanna think about those engines of change and how can we help these individuals and we want people to learn. And then have some kind of credential that they can signal their learning acquisition to the world, put that on LinkedIn, put that on their resume so that they have that kind of full experience.
So that's where we're really focusing and we're, we're actually interesting 'cause we're part of the TI coalition and we're closely with org on many things. And then now we're working with IS D-A-S-C-D and we're going to be creating skilling content with them that's related to that framework with a credential.
We're gonna do that in the social impact space for nonprofit change makers, and then we'll do that for government employees as well who are in education and workforce space. That's a big bet for us this year. And then my guess is that, you know, in the future as we think about this, we're, we're gonna be thinking about livelihood opportunities and really doubling down on that.
'cause I do think, like to your point as you were talking, I was actually thinking about a woman in our. Women in digital business program with the ILL in Africa. Yeah. Who basically got a device from one of our connectivity partners, a mobile device, and is starting to sell her artisan wear and using AI to make the pictures more, you know, pop, like writing the copy, you know, and this is a woman like changing the game for her family.
She's able to use this technology and unlock that opportunity. And that's where I think where I would love to see us head more and more like bringing that together, the skilling, the credential, and then the economic opportunity, which is so important.
[00:26:36] Alex Sarlin: I love hearing that, and I think in a fast moving space, credentials are so important because there's so little signal for.
Space, what it means to be knowing AI or using AI, or being AI literate or an AI change. May, you know, I, I don't know the names of your certificates, but like without a authority and Microsoft is one of very few big, big tech authorities, especially in conjunction with SDA, CCP for teachers that without the an authority saying This is what it means to be an AI using teacher, or somebody who's at this level of AI literacy.
Nobody knows. Follow up question for you though. Yeah. Up, down, bottom up. Right? You're talking about the organizational level? Yep. At the individual level, are you thinking about things like how might a school system reward people who have that AI certification or how might they build systems that actually provide more professional development hours or more incentive?
Because that sandwich is really, you know, top down and bottom up together really accelerates the change. Yes. And it's only on the individual level. If you get the certification, but it doesn't turn into, you know, revenue or, or changes in your job. Yeah. There's still something missing.
[00:27:37] Naria Santa Lucia: And that's totally where the policy piece comes in play for us.
Right, exactly. It's like, hey, what are the po, and actually they're in the Middle East, you know, as we were just talking to, we did a Minecraft workshop and like Minecraft, they have that agent and chicken and the AI curriculum. I dunno if you know about this, I don't. But there, yeah, look, it's actually pretty cute.
We were having a teams meeting just yesterday with a group in Jordan, and you know, they love these trainings because. The teachers actually in some Middle East countries, and I think other countries too, by getting these credentials, they actually get bumps in their pay.
[00:28:10] Alex Sarlin: That's what you need.
[00:28:11] Naria Santa Lucia: That's how you in, you know, like incent the system.
So we also have a program with, for our educator community, the Showcase Schools and Microsoft Innovative Educator Program. And in some of these countries we're seeing these huge spikes of people. Signing up up because they're getting pay bumps. And what that means for that school then is that they have access to all of the ways that, you know, our first products and like information about what's coming and they get a chance to tell us through our educator community what we should be doing better.
So like we can do this. It's not rocket science, you know what I mean? It's doable,
[00:28:47] Alex Sarlin: but it's a system change. It's a big change. I'm gonna you one more follow up question because I'm so curious. Are you thinking about certification at the institution level? Can you be an AI certified school or an AI certified NGO, and are there incentives there?
And I can imagine a world in which, you know, yeah, if you're a school and 60% of your teachers are AI certified, then you're an AI certified school. And if you get that, you get additional money from the Yeah. And like now you're talking about a really robust incentive system.
[00:29:14] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, we definitely like try to, at the institution level through our showcase goals, do that.
But I think that we can do as many. Certification, but you have to tie it to what the government, you know, connection. Right. Actually, and this is what we did in Mexico too. We, we have our teacher training certification and you know, Mexico, Brazil, like we actually infused it into the teacher training model.
You have to connect it into the system. The US is tough because schools are so localized and that's good. You know what I mean? Like I believe in that. I believe we should have local school control and like that's really important, but it's hard sometimes to move these things at scale. So it's just that balance of how do you like, keep it local but also take these best practices and, and do it at scale.
I think that's somewhere private sector we can all help by, you know, kind of. Sharing insights by funding. You know, there's lots of different ways I think that we, we do have a role in helping too.
[00:30:07] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, that's a great point. That at a country level, at a Ministry of Education often actually can move quicker and be sort of more aligned to creating those top down incentives.
It's a little trickier, the, the federation that we have. In the us I know we talk about this on the podcast a lot. I've ranted about how we should have a ministry of education in the us but I know that's a controversial uh,
[00:30:28] Naria Santa Lucia: well, you know, grass is always greener on the other side. Right,
[00:30:32] Alex Sarlin: exactly. Exactly.
But it is really interesting to hear when you're saying, you know, in Jordan where they have incentives for their financial incentives for being certified, you see giant jumps in certification. It makes so much sense and I feel like even if we're gonna keep local control, I think that could still create an amazing environment where.
Areas, districts, states that are like, we want to be a leader in AI. Let's lean in. We're gonna get X million dollars from X benefactor. If we can become AI certified, let's do it. There's something really exciting and I think it just, it's a different way of thinking about systemic change that feels just very practical.
Yes. You've talked about balancing localization and local needs with this, obviously you're thinking very globally. I mean, we've talked about, I think 10 different countries already in this podcast. I'd love to just like drill in on that a little bit. You've given some great examples of it, but as you're thinking about working with.
CD for example, or the un which, you know, works across states or across countries. And then saying, but what about that African entrepreneur who needs to be able to, to sell her art? Like it's two different ideas to hold in your head at the same time. I'm curious how you think about that spectrum and, and how you sort of put the pieces together.
'cause it, it can be complicated.
[00:31:41] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, it can be complicated and there are trade-offs. You know, if we could do everything everywhere all at once, like we would absolutely do it and we can't boil the ocean. And I think the strategy that we do believe does work is to like our mission. We're not at the center, we're enabling.
Right. And so, you know, we are able to kind of create those offerings that can enable the, enable UNESCO's of the world, but also can land at like your local four H school. You know, like we, we come with that content and our expertise, they run with the community because that's what they're really great at.
And you know, I, I didn't answer this question, but I wanted to come back to it 'cause you talked about like what are the skills, right? Yeah. And how are skills gonna change? And I always like talk. I love the work that our colleagues at LinkedIn are doing on human skills and the uniquely human skills in this age of AI because we know all the AI skills are like in high demand and growing, but we're seeing those human skills growing at exactly the same rate.
Communication, collaboration, compassion, empathy, working on a team. Those things are so important and that's what like local partners bring 'cause they know the local context and like what is like that. The cultural aspects, the team building aspects that we need to train on. So, you know, that's why I don't think we can't be everywhere all at once.
We have a lot of free offerings that anywhere, everywhere, all at once can access. So you know, please go and access those. opportunity.linkedin.com is a good place to start. But. You know, I think that through partnerships we certainly can reach and do a lot of the work that we aspire to do.
[00:33:17] Alex Sarlin: That's a terrific point.
And you know, I think sometimes I'll speak for myself, I forget about Microsoft has such enormous umbrella reach. It's made some very strategic acquisitions over the years, including LinkedIn and, and Minecraft, which you both mention.
[00:33:31] Naria Santa Lucia: GitHub,
[00:33:32] Alex Sarlin: GitHub, right? No small thing at all. That's how good copilot is.
Absolutely ubiquitous. So this is a very high ranging question, but let's start with the Minecraft example, because I think I didn't respond to that and I'd like to. You know, Minecraft is one of very few universally known game building worlds engines, places where kids gather and love to be all over the world.
There is already a pretty robust Minecraft for education community and sets of tools. I didn't know about the chicken, but I'm gonna check that out. When you think about a surface area like that, you say, we are Minecraft, we are LinkedIn. Yeah. We are places where millions and millions and millions of people are every day.
You know? How do you think about instilling some of this AI training and this sort of preparation mentality like. The world is changing and we have all these tools and resources to help you. How do you think about getting those into those properties, into those surfaces without, you know, scaring people off without Yeah.
Changing experience. I'm curious how you think about that, because it feels like a, a vital question for Microsoft.
[00:34:32] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, absolutely. And it is truly exactly because they are those places where like people are coming and it's like a beloved community. You know, my kids grew up on Minecraft and my daughter is like aspiring to be indie developer because of all the Minecraft worlds that she created.
You know what I mean? So like it's an amazing place where like. People, they know that when they go there, the experience that they have will be a positive one. And so it's been a great way for us to like put in some concepts. And the Minecraft education team has done a great job of doing that, whether it's around sustainability or cybersecurity, the online safety bit, that's really like they have great curriculum about that.
And then now more recently with AI, I just think it's like we're so lucky to have these kind of properties in our portfolio. Because like peop, millions of people can go there. And again, it's like, it's part of that responsibility we have. And I do know every single business unit within Microsoft is really like thinking about how do we bring everybody forward?
How do we help everyone and, and especially in this AI moment, and do that through the tools that we have.
[00:35:36] Alex Sarlin: What a combination. I, I can imagine doing a, a contest of who can build an agent that builds amazing Minecraft worlds, the a hundred winners and it's, it's 13 to 18. The winners get to post that on their LinkedIn and become LinkedIn famous, and they become immediate at that.
And then, no, you should have
[00:35:51] Naria Santa Lucia: been at our workshop yesterday, Alex, like, I'm sure you think.
[00:35:56] Alex Sarlin: What a moment, right? What a moment where you're like, the world is changing again. When we see it happening this time, we're ahead of it this time. And you're sitting there with these unbelievably exciting communities of practice and you know, beloved properties and all of these resources and all of this money.
I mean, let's talk about billions of dollars. Last question for you. Part of what inspired this conversation where some of these incredible announcements about the literally billions of dollars that Microsoft is putting into these readiness projects, green AI and cybersecurity and sustainability, how does.
A company like Microsoft decide internally to double down on a project like this versus, you know, more product development in GitHub?
[00:36:33] Naria Santa Lucia: Yeah, I mean, all things are important and product development in GitHub and everything else will be very important, but I do know that there is like, like what we've been talking about all day today.
Right? It's like. There is this moment that is a huge moment of transition. We are a company that really needs to, we believe it to our core that we wanna empower every person and every organization to achieve more. And the every part, like you can't get to every without. Helping schools without helping nonprofits, without thinking about government.
And so it's absolutely makes sense that we would make this big commitment and I'm so proud to like work for a company that's thinking in these ways and hopefully, you know, working in partnership with these different organizations and, you know, hopefully meeting the moment as we have a responsibility to do.
[00:37:19] Alex Sarlin: It's all about the every. I love that. Wonderful. It's been such a great conversation. Naria Santa Lucia is the general manager of Elevate at Microsoft leading global education, workforce, and skilling programs that have reached over a hundred million learners already with a focus on AI, cybersecurity and sustainability.
Thank you so much for being here. It's been a really fascinating conversation. Thanks for being here with us on EdTech Insiders.
[00:37:45] Naria Santa Lucia: Thanks so much, Alex. Really enjoyed it. You're coming to our workshop next too. I'll be there. You got great ideas.
[00:37:53] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community.
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