(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella is among 23 guests invited to join first lady Michelle Obama to watch President Barack Obama's final State of the Union address, a case study in the complex considerations surrounding the annual rite.
Assembling the list for the first lady's viewing box in the House of Representatives is an exercise in political signaling for every administration. The mix typically includes men and women of different races and ethnic backgrounds who've overcome tragedy, risen as national symbols, or would benefit from a policy initiative; veterans; prominent figures in science, education or the arts; and company executives.
The guest box takes on an added sensitivity in presidents' final year, as they seek to acknowledge who shaped their political career and how they see the future of the nation unfolding.
The White House also said yesterday that the guest list will include two of the early inspirational figures in Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. They are Edith Childs, a county council member from Greenwood, South Carolina, who in 2007 famously coined the call and response, "Fired Up? Ready to Go!" that Obama adopted in his first presidential campaign; and Earl Smith, an Army veteran from Austin, Texas, who gave then-candidate Obama a military patch he had worn during the Vietnam War and carried for 40 years.
And while the White House has yet to release the full guest list for tomorrow night, the Obamas have decided for the first time in their tenure to keep one of 24 guest seats empty, to symbolise victims of gun violence.
At a women's technology event in October 2014, Nadella famously stumbled when he got a question about how women should ask for raises, by suggesting that women in the tech industry should trust in "karma" that they will get the pay they deserve. His rapid public apology won him praise; in a memo the same day, he said his answer had been "completely wrong," and that men and women should get "equal pay for equal work" and if women thought they were under-compensated "you should just ask" for a raise.
Nadella, 48, who took the helm at Microsoft in 2014, embodies many of Obama's priorities: an immigrant who has contributed significantly to the US technology industry, who has advocated for the inclusion of more women in executive positions, and is committed to environmental initiatives to combat climate change.
"Satya is honoured to attend the 2016 State of the Union and learn more about the president's vision for America's future," according to a statement released by Microsoft yesterday.
Microsoft also is one of the tech companies the administration has reached out to for help in a campaign to combat the Islamic State terror group. And it has been one of the biggest technology companies, along with Apple, to oppose overreach by National Security Agency spying programmes exposed by former US contractor Edward Snowden.
The company led a coalition that lobbied successfully for legislation curbing spying, which Obama signed into law in 2015. Microsoft currently is waging a legal battle to limit the US government from obtaining data on its users stored on servers in Ireland.
With gender equity and family balance taking on greater importance in the technology industry, Microsoft in 2015 announced plans to offer 12 weeks of paid time off to all new parents.
That, atop eight weeks of maternity disability, translated to 20 weeks of leave fully paid for women.
Only 12% of US private-sector employees have access to any paid family leave through their jobs, according to the US Labour Department. The US is the only nation in the developed world that doesn't mandate maternity leave with pay.
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