It is an extreme honor for Microsoft to be selected as CTA’s technology partner for CES, the world’s most influential technology event. It won’t surprise you to hear we’re bringing Microsoft Cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Power Platform, together with partner solutions to create the technology platform for the all-digital event that will bring together the entire global tech community and be the CES 2021 experience.

We are thrilled to be able to work side by side with the team from CTA. What I’m even more excited about personally, though, is the opportunity this will give us to share all that we’ve learned about digital events over the past many months as world circumstances have necessitated that we rethink everything we thought we knew about how to host a major event.

My team knows how to put on a live event. So, it was devastating when we realized earlier this year in March that the events we had planned for 2020 could not go on – at least not as we had planned them. We’d already put a lot of work and preparation into getting ready for events like Microsoft Build, which in a typical year sees people travel from all over the world to Seattle for several days of expertly produced keynote and breakout sessions. We had already started down the path to make events like that happen, and that path was now going nowhere.

This was going to be hard, but this team was definitely up for the challenge. We lamented the events that wouldn’t be, but then immediately shifted our focus to reinventing those events anew. Every person gave it their all, rolled up their sleeves, and learned everything they could. In a few short months, our team went through what is probably years of transformation and growth.