One day in March 1999, as refugees were streaming out of Kosovo, a few Microsoft executives in the company's Paris office had lunch in their basement canteen - "down in the dungeon", recalls Frank Schott, one of those present. Their conversation soon turned to the refugees. For days they had been watching on television as Kosovars loaded their goods and grandmothers into cars and drove off to flee the Serbs. Microsoft had a tradition of chipping in when a local tragedy occurred, such as a flood. Now employees from around the European region were e-mailing Paris to ask what the company would do for Kosovo.
Ever since that canteen lunch, Microsoft has been helping refugees. This article is not meant as an advertisement for the company. Nor is it a heart-warming story for a holiday season overshadowed by a natural disaster of unimaginable scale and suffering. Rather, it asks why in this case a few people did something useful that is still functioning five years later, when usually after watching a crisis on TV we do nothing.
