Smallholder farmers in South Africa are set to benefit from a 2.3 million dollar Microsoft investment aimed at driving sustainability in South Africa’s agricultural sector.
Through the investment, Microsoft will use technology to solve some of the challenges these farmers face. That prevents them from becoming commercially viable, efficient and sustainable.
Microsoft notes that smallholder farmers form an important part of the agricultural workforce in South Africa.
Lillian Barnard, Managing Director at Microsoft South Africa notes the investment is aimed at making a real difference in one of South Africa’s most vital sectors.
“There is no doubt that South Africa’s smallholder farmers have significant potential to drive growth and employment opportunities. As well as enable other sectors within the country to ultimately drive food security.
This makes it critical to invest in the sector to address the challenges they face. Key challenges are a lack of infrastructure, access to competitive formal markets, production and business skills, funding and financial support to re-invest in their farming activities, and compliance with foodsafety regulations and legislation.”
“Our investment is aimed at making a real difference in one of South Africa’s most vital sectors by harnessing the power of technology. High-impact technological solutions will improve efficiencies in smallholder farming, lower the cost of production, improve access to local and international markets, improve compliance with legislation, and drive access to information, among others.
By investing in the agriculture sector and unlocking the potential of technology to act as an enabler for growth and skills development, we are showing our commitment to driving sustainability and creating opportunities in one of South Africa’s most critical, job-creating industries.”
Lillian Barnard, Managing Director, Microsoft South Africa.
Investments in AgriTech
Last year, Microsoft South Africa announced a new evolved Microsoft Equity Equivalent Investment Programme to focus on investments in technology solutions in agriculture and digital transformation in the manufacturing sectors.
Central University of Technology, South Africa, is introducing an Artificial Intelligence university programme powered by Microsoft.
To firstly skill employees with the in-demand skill and secondly address the demand for the skill in the province and South Africa in general.
The Artificial Intelligence university programme is developed by Microsoft and will be delivered by Microsoft Partner Gijima. The initiative is also in partnership with the Free State Provincial Government.
It will comprise of a 12-month blended learning model of self-study, online learning, classroom instructor-led training and a flipped classroom. The program will include; Mentorship and coaching by industry experts, Business skills, Microsoft Azure AI Associate Certification, Flipped Classroom, Guest Lecturers, Career days, Examination and Certification.
The program is designed to pass on skills employers value and need. By teaching graduates with limited or no work experience to explore, transform, model, and visualise data. As well as to create the next generation of intelligent solutions.
The collaborative nature of the Artificial Intelligence university Programme will unlock the value of AI and the role it will play in workplaces of the future says Microsoft South Africa Managing Director, Lillian Barnard.
By bringing together private and public sector partners, students, facilitators, mentors, coaches, and industry experts, the programme will enable the development of critical AI skills that will help our young people become more work-ready and employable, as well as help organizations, adapt to the ever-changing demands of the world of work.
Lillian Barnard
The training and certification program started on the 3rd of July 2020 with the Innovation Services of CUT (CUTis) and the Free State Provincial Government. The program will become available to the general public for enrolment from 2021.
Microsoft announces a new Africa Research Institute (MARI) as its latest investment on the continent.
The Microsoft Africa Research Institute according to the company will focus on foundational research to improve productivity in areas such as work, health and society.
Microsoft notes that MARI’s mission is to understand how technologies such as cloud and AI help to solve local challenges. As well as how this understanding can be used to influence product creation and unearthing opportunities.
“I am excited to see what we can achieve with this new project, around new ways of work, social development, financial inclusion, and economic growth in Africa, shares MARI director, Jacki O’Neill. We hope to not only help solve many challenges Africa is facing but address global challenges as well,” she concludes.
MARI will integrate foundational research with product development shares the company. By bringing together researchers, engineers, designers, local academic institutions and the community to build talent and encourage a two-way flow of ideas.
We are seeing some really fantastic momentum in our work at the Microsoft Africa Development Center (ADC). And this new research institute will help us partner to solve local and global challenges, says Jack Ngare, managing director, Microsoft Africa Development Centre in Kenya.
“We are very focused on how innovative cloud technology is driving the future development of the continent. The work this team is seeking to do align closely with our overall goals for the ADC,” he continues.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is a managed Kubernetes service on AWS that makes it easy to run Kubernetes without needing to install, operate, and maintain your own Kubernetes control plane or worker nodes.
Here are four benefits of using Amazon EKS
Highly Secure EKS automatically applies the latest security patches to your cluster control plane.
Multiple Availability Zones EKS auto-detects and replaces unhealthy control plane nodes and provides on-demand, zero downtime upgrades and patching.
Serverless Compute EKS supports AWS Fargate to remove the need to provision and manage servers, improving security through application isolation by design.
Built with the Community AWS actively works with the Kubernetes community, including making contributions to the Kubernetes code base helping you take advantage of AWS services.
Amazon EKS also supports adding Windows nodes as worker nodes and scheduling Windows containers. EKS supports running Windows worker nodes alongside Linux worker nodes. Allowing you to use the same cluster for managing applications on either operating system.
In terms of pricing, Amazon says you pay $0.10/hour for each Amazon EKS cluster you create. The service is also available in all AWS regions.
Ahead of Microsoft Inspire 2020, the company has announced its 2020 Partner of the Year Award Winners. We bring you a list of Africa partner winning organizations building new and innovative solutions for their customers.
Microsoft uses the partner award to recognize outstanding partner accomplishments within its community.
This year, the company received over three thousand entries from one hundred countries. There were in all one hundred and forty-six award winners across various categories.
Ghana recorded an award winner for the first time this year. Senegal for the second year in a row failed to register an award winner. Côte d’Ivoire also failed to register an award winner this year.
At Microsoft, we believe our partners make more possible. That’s why we recognize exceptional partner contributions.
Below are Microsoft Partner Africa winners from the country and region category.
Microsoft Partner Africa Award Winners country category
Egypt Partner of the Year Global Brands Group
Ghana Partner of the Year Cloudware
Kenya Partner of the Year Cloud Productivity Solutions
Mauritius Partner of the Year MC3 Cloud
Morocco Partner of the Year Exakis Nelite
Namibia Partner of the Year Salt Essential IT
Nigeria Partner of the Year Wragby Business Solutions & Technologies Limited
South Africa Partner of the Year BUI
Tunisia Partner of the Year Cloudshift
Uganda Partner of the Year Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited
