  The Planck collaboration has provided us rich information about the early
universe, and a host of new observational missions will soon shed further light
on the `anomalies' that appear to exist on the largest angular scales. From a
quantum gravity perspective, it is natural to inquire if one can trace back the
origin of such puzzling features to Planck scale physics. Loop quantum
cosmology provides a promising avenue to explore this issue because of its
natural resolution of the big bang singularity. Thanks to advances over the
last decade, the theory has matured sufficiently to allow concrete calculations
of the phenomenological consequences of its pre-inflationary dynamics. In this
article we summarize the current status of the ensuing two-way dialog between
quantum gravity and observations.
