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Tag: Microsoft

  • YALI, Microsoft ADC To Improve Youth Digital Skills

    YALI, Microsoft ADC To Improve Youth Digital Skills

    The Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC) and the Young African Leaders Initiative Regional Leadership Centre East Africa (YALI) have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate to provide digital skills programs and solutions to young leaders in the region.

     

    According to the MoU, the ADC will provide YALI participants with capacity-building opportunities in digital skills such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, access to its innovation hub at the Microsoft Garage and avail mentorship and training opportunities.

     

    YALI, for its part, will collaborate with Microsoft ADC to develop the digital skills programs and will avail training participants and its alumni for training and idea competitions.

     

    The YALI alumni will also seek to spread Microsoft’s digital literacy training to other youth.

    Speaking at the signing ceremony, Catherine Muraga, the ADC Managing Director, noted that the partnership is another step in the organisation’s mission to improve digital skilling for African youth.

     

    “Partnerships are a vital part of our mission as Microsoft to empower everyone to do more. YALI provides essential skills to build a better future, and we are excited to contribute to improving digital skills among their participants. Preparing young leaders with the knowledge to excel within an increasingly digital-first landscape is a great way to set the continent up for success within the global economy,”

    said Muraga.

     

    Housed at the Kenyatta University for the East Africa region, YALI participants will benefit from skills-building programs co-created by ADC with the intention of improving their digital capabilities as part of their training to add more excellent value to society through sustainably impacting both public and private sector.

     

    Prof. Paul Wainaina, the Kenyatta University Vice Chancellor, said:

    “The engagement between the Young African Leaders Initiative and the ADC is an opportunity to grow the digital skills of our trainees while augmenting the vision and goals of both YALI and the ADC. It is also a great opportunity to engage in designing training modules for our program’s current and future participants.”

     

    The Africa Development Centre, Microsoft’s premier engineering arm in Africa, is already implementing various projects to improve digital skills, including the recently concluded Game of Learners university coding competition and several other initiatives from the elementary school level into the workplace.

     

    “Our digital skilling efforts align with YALI’s vision of providing access to all emerging leaders regardless of socio-economic status. We are actively investing in creating and fulfilling opportunities for all Africans in the drive towards continental digital transformation,”

    added Muraga.

  • Microsoft Enters Partnership To Grow Food Security In Africa

    Microsoft Enters Partnership To Grow Food Security In Africa

    Microsoft has announced a partnership with OCP Africa through its Africa Transformation Office, with the goal of positively impacting smallholder farmers and Agri-stakeholders across Africa by 2025.

     

    OCP Africa, an African company that provides fertilizer solutions tailored to local conditions as well as the needs of soils and crops throughout the continent, will collaborate with Microsoft to strengthen and scale its digital agriculture platform. This platform improves farmer productivity while allowing them to better manage their businesses.

    READ: Microsoft, IFC Partner In Digital Platforms To Promote Sustainable Agriculture In Africa

     

    “In this time of increasing food insecurity, enhancing the resilience and livelihoods for smallholder farmers is needed to drive increased agriculture productivity, including reducing losses in the food production chain. With the increasing impacts of more frequent extreme weather events, adaptation and resilience are of crucial importance to the food system’s transformation,”

    said Wael Elkabbany, General Manager for Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster.

     

    The announcement was made in Doha, Qatar at the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries. The collaboration will enable smallholder farmers to gain access to skilling and information through Agri-digital services, leveraging OCP Africa programs such as the Farmer Hub concept to support millions of farmers.

     

    OCP Africa will also collaborate with Microsoft to explore the use of big data, machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build their data and AI platform to improve operational efficiency and better serve ecosystem stakeholders.

     

    On his part, CEO of OCP Africa Dr. Mohamed Anouar Jamali said:

    “African agriculture is at a transformational moment in its history – and a time of incredible possibility and promise for farmers and industry alike. Digitising agricultural practices in Africa allows smallholder farmers to optimise their decision-making, which in turn helps optimise production. The partnership between OCP Africa and Microsoft will allow us to increase the services provided and scale-up our digital platform, expand our reach and make an even bigger impact on food security across the continent.”

     

    READ: A Sneak Preview of the World’s First Wireless OLED TV

    Collaboration with African AgriTech startups, agricultural firms, and partners to increase access to technology, skills, and agricultural knowledge is expected to optimize the industry and generate new revenue streams that will ensure global food security.

     

    The adoption and integration of technologies such as the Cloud, AI, Agri Data Platforms, and Azure App modernisation into the agricultural space is also expected to deliver transformation in the form of precision agriculture.

     

    “We believe that precision farming, brought about by the adoption of advanced technologies into the agricultural sector, will revolutionise food production and help to eliminate hunger and poverty in Africa. Technology is the key factor to enabling and increasing access to finance, equipment, and sustainability for rural farmers, empowering local farmers in Africa. Our partnership with OCP Africa will help to directly impact smallholder farmers and improve production,”

    added Elkabbany.

  • Kenyan wins coveted international technology award

    Kenyan wins coveted international technology award

    Shadrack Kiprotich is the 2022 recipient of the Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for actively sharing high-quality expertise with other technology professionals.

     

    With just over 3,000 awardees worldwide, the Microsoft MVPs are an elite group of experts who share a passion for technology, a willingness to help others, and a commitment to community, making them exceptional leaders who contribute to the industry’s success through knowledge sharing to solve problems.

     

    Kiprotich, who was nominated in the Business Applications category, will continue to hold the title and deliver amazing work in the community. He hopes to open up more opportunities for others to do the same.

     

    “The MVP award program will play a huge role in my journey since this is something I love; advocating for tech for all and making contributions to the community. As the only Kenyan MVP at the moment, I am looking forward to more people joining the program and we will be able to grow the MVP community in Kenya and get to empower more people,”

    said Kiprotich.

    A former MVP or a full-time Microsoft employee selects new MVPs following nomination, after which a panel considers whether the nominee displays passion, community spirit, leadership, and positive impact within the technical community.

    READ: Family Group Foundation Scales Up Scholarships Kitty

    Kiprotich holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree but picked up his programming skills by learning from a friend and honed them in the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program. He then went on to be a team lead in Season 2 of the Microsoft Game of Learners hackathon in 2021.

     

    Ruth Ferland, the Microsoft Africa Development Center Senior Program Manager for Ecosystem Engagements, noted that Shadrack’s journey to the award indicated the importance of introducing technical skills early, and maintaining a strong talent development pipeline for the technology industry.

     

    “As we congratulate Shadrack Kiprotich for his unwavering efforts to becoming one of the elite global technology professionals, we must consider the value of providing technical skills early on in people’s lives. With significant investment into the talent development pipeline, the possibilities of preparing people of all ages to make the greatest impact within their spheres of influence and beyond through technology is limitless,”

    said Ferland.

     

    The ADC runs several initiatives from primary school to higher education and professional level to provide technical skills as part of the contribution to Africa’s digital transformation journey.

  • Kenyan IT Firm shines at Global Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Awards

    Kenyan IT Firm shines at Global Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Awards

    A Kenyan IT company, Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited, was among 9 African companies that were feted at this year’s Microsoft Partner Awards event.

     

    The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards acknowledge outstanding achievements and innovations from across its global partner ecosystem. This impressive group of partners and their solutions demonstrates agility and creativity in building new technologies across the intelligent cloud to edge, all with the goal of exceeding customer expectations by bringing technology to life in meaningful ways.

     

    Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited (CPS) is a born-in-the-cloud partner that specializes in helping companies save money through innovation. CPS focuses on delivering products and services that improve customers’ business operations and has been instrumental in driving the highest number (60) of Microsoft 365 Accelerator workshops with the highest impact. They also had the highest Teams usage among partner in the region and the highest in Kenya.

    “This award is a culmination of the tireless efforts of many individuals behind the scenes and is a recognition of their inspiring teamwork. I’m grateful to Microsoft – our trusted partner, for creating platforms which have enabled us to succeed with our customers in multiple sectors, for the support and guidance in strategy formulation and through to capacity building for our team”,

    says Jeremiah Kibanga, Chief Executive Officer for Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited.

    Among other African companies feted included Computer Revolution Uganda, eSolutions Consulting Ghana, MC3 Cloud Côte d’Ivoire and Tarsus on Demand of South Africa.

    This year, over 4,400 nominations were received each providing an inspiring reflection of what Microsoft’s partners are enabling through their technology portfolios. Under the Category Awards, 56 winners and 160 finalists were announced across six categories.

    These include Azure, Business Applications, Modern Work and Security, Industry, Business Excellence, and the new Social Impact category. Under the Country/Region section, 108 partners have been announced as winners.

     

    “It has been a very tough year for our partners with the challenges that came with COVID-19; working remotely, team members impacted and customers struggling to adapt to the new norm.  But our partners were the first to adopt the new norm and with determination, they were able to not only adapt and sustain their business but bring the best our technology platforms can provide to help their customers, our customers, to transform and adapt to the new norm and grow their business,’

    said Amin Azab, Global Partner Solutions Lead of Microsoft Middle East Africa.

     

    ‘The awards this year have a different meaning.  It is a strong testament of the determination of the work the partners have done and the impact customers have felt across the region”.