With worldwide celebrations recognising International Youth Day, August 12th was the ideal date for Microsoft to share its #GiveMeMyOffice campaign, which allows students to enjoy the powerful Office 365 tool free of charge.

When a school combines the Office 365 programme with other Cloud services from Microsoft, such as Exchange, SharePoint and Lync (all available free of charge through Office 365 for Education), students gain access to the same set of tools and productivity services that large companies from around the world use, from anywhere and at anytime.

These regional universities already give Office 365 to students.

• Brazil: The Brazilian University Anhembi Morumbi was the first to grant these benefits to its students and to offer access to the complete Office 365 solution without additional cost. The students of this University can use Office on up to five devices, including smart phones and tablets.
• Dominican Republic: At UNAPEC, more than 20,000 people have benefited from the free Office 365 programme.
• Mexico: The Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades, an institution of higher learning affiliated with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma of Mexico; the Autonomous Metropolitan University; the Autonomous University of Querétaro; and various public schools in Jalisco as well as the Centre of Research and Advanced Studies, are all offering Office 365.
• Trinidad & Tobago: The University of Trinidad and Tobago, with five major campuses across the nation, adopted Microsoft Office 365 as its cloud computing solution. The result has been a whole new level of integrated university-wide communications, which gives students greater access to information and communication resources.

There are also many others in the process of integration and adaptation, including the University of the West Indies.

Office provides the following tools to students:

Perform school work and take notes with OneNote no matter what device or platform they use.
Create and modify documents and projects with Office Tools.
Collaborate in real-time with colleagues using Office Online.
Explore and use a wide variety of templates, apps and tools available with Office 365

#GiveMeMyOffice, how to ask for it?
This is an offer that allows students to work with the latest and best version of Office 365, which includes all applications of the traditional Office package including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Lync, Publisher and Access.

The institution must have licensed versions of Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus for employees and teachers, and therefore they will have access to Office 365ProPlus for Students without any additional cost.

To begin the process, you can contact an expert in Office 365 or subscribe to Office 365 for education here.

Students interested in obtaining their free Office can enter here for more information.