We bring you a list of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the year country award winners from across Africa. The announcement comes ahead of Microsoft Inspire 2022 where Microsoft will celebrate exemplary achievements from across its global partner ecosystem. The 2022 Microsoft Inspire partner event is set to take place July 19-20 as a free global digital event.
Microsoft uses the partner award to recognize outstanding partner accomplishments within its community. Highlighting organizations building new and innovative solutions for their customers using Microsoft technologies. This year, the company received over three thousand nine hundred entries from one hundred and twenty-six countries. Across categories including, partner competencies, cloud-to-edge technologies, entrepreneurial spirit and social impact.
Below are Microsoft Partner Africa winners from the country and region category.
At Microsoft, we believe our partners make more possible. That’s why we recognize exceptional partner contributions.
2022 Microsoft Partner Africa award winners – country category
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Microsoft has opened a new advanced innovation hub in Lusail City as it seeks to increase its investments in Qatar. The new office facility is located at the Burj Alfardan in Lusail City. One of Qatar’s planned cities along the Arabian Gulf in the southern part of the municipality of Al Daayen. The hub becomes the company’s fourth office and largest headquarters in the country.
The new innovation hub in Lusail will serve as a regional hub, serving Qatar and the Microsoft Middle East region. It will host workshops and sessions at its Customer Innovation Center to stimulate innovation and creativity among partners and customers. Microsoft says the office will also host technology startups, students and community organizations from across Qatar. It will further support the company’s effort to train, develop, attract and retain talent to build advanced solutions.
It uses the latest green technology to achieve energy and water efficiency. It also provides equal opportunities for all employees to access their duty stations through features such as easily accessible parking, automatic doors, Braille room signs and audible and video alarm systems.
“With the launch of our new offices and our Customer Innovation Centre, customers and partners will have the opportunity to co-innovate, ideate, and envision groundbreaking solutions that will revolutionise their industries.
I look forward to welcoming customers, partners, visitors and Microsoft’s team members to our new office.”
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LG Electronics is announcing the 2022 LG gram series of premium laptops that come with the latest hardware, are ultra-lightweight and promise an excellent battery life. The 2022 LG gram devices include gram 17 (17Z90Q), gram 16 (16Z90Q), gram 15 (15Z90Q), gram 14 (14Z90Q) and gram 2-in-1 (16T90Q and 14T90Q).
Each new gram laptop provides powerful performance backed by a 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processor, LG says. The company notes that this year’s models have also been upgraded to use the latest Gen4 NVMe™ SSD. They also use low-voltage LPDDR5 RAMs to achieve a performance boost. The 2022 LG grams will deliver excellent battery life giving users up to 23.5 hours of nonstop power.
The new LG Grams are available for purchase at LG.com and at select LG-authorized retailers. The least configuration starts selling at $1199. Check out the full device specifications and prices below.
2022 LG Gram laptop specifications, price – 17″, 16″, 15″
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Technology is progressively assisting us with working on our lives, incrementing efficiency, and saving time in numerous areas, including football. From 21st November to 18th December, the biggest men’s football tournament on the planet, FIFA World Cup 2022, will officially take place. Hosting 32 nations including Ghana and Senegal in Qatar.
Let’s take a look at some of the technologies that will be applied in the tournament to make it fair and decisive.
1. VAR Technology
Following quite a while of testing with many matches, the IFAB has formally placed into utilization video assistant referee (VAR) innovation. The 21st FIFA World Cup is the first competition to apply this innovation to help arbitrators. After the progress of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, VAR innovation will likewise be applied in the 2022 World Cup. Thanks to this technology, the transparency in football in particular, and sports, in general, has been significantly improved. Also, sports betting players can be assured of the results when placing bets at reputable betting sites like soccer Betway.
VAR associates three distinct camera frameworks:
Hawk Eye: comprises 7 to 14 high-velocity cameras mounted on the top of the arena. Peddle Eye will foresee the way of the ball to guarantee that no less than two cameras can record it. At the point when the ball turns over the objective line, the official’s watch will flag that the ball has entered the net.
GoalControl-4D: incorporates 14 cameras put on the goal, following the ball’s movement and conveying messages to the arbitrator’s watch.
GoalRef: is an electromagnetic enlistment framework mounted on the crossbar and vertical post of the goal, making an attractive field. At the point when the ball turns over the goal line, out of the touchline, the chip inside the football will sound, and the ref’s watch will likewise get a sign.
As needs are, a gathering of colleague refs will observe all improvements of the match through TV screens and sit in a different room of the arena stands. When distinguishing mistakes from the choice of the ref on the field, they will convey a message to the referees on the field to survey what is happening through TV. Obviously, the ultimate choice actually lies with the ref, yet this innovation will assist with settling disputable circumstances well.
2. Goal-line technology
At the 2014 FIFA World Cup, France’s Karim Benzema was quick to profit from goal-line technology as the ball crossed Honduras’ objective inside milliseconds. . Goal-line is a technique that utilizes PCs to decide if the ball has totally crossed the objective line or not. This innovation assisted officials with tackling up to eight circumstances at the 2015 FIFA Ladies’ Big showdown in Canada.
At the 2018 FIFA World Cup, arenas in Russia were all furnished with Goal-line innovation with 14 high-velocity cameras, which can convey a message to the official’s watch in less than a second when the match shows up. The ball crosses the goal line. What’s more, this innovation will continue to be applied in the 2022 World Cup competition.
3. Electronic tracking system
This innovation will constantly be utilized in each match at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, including various specialized apparatuses and gadgets for the two teams. The specialized and clinical staff of the partaking groups will be furnished with workstations and a devoted line to speak with mentors, as well as clinical staff on the seat. By investigating the player’s movement on the field, the mentor can change the strategies as needed.
Who will emerge as champions of the 2022 world cup at the end of the competition? We will wait and see.
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Every good work done deserves an acknowledgement or reward and Microsoft recognizes technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with their community by honouring them with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. The MVP award spans over 100 contribution areas in 11 award categories across developer and IT Pro products and services technology areas including open source.
The Microsoft MVP global community has over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries who support in the advancement and adoption of Microsoft technologies. Out of which 56 recipients are awarded in nine African countries. South Africa and Nigeria record the highest number of MVPs with 16 each, followed by Ghana with 8. Egypt has 5, 4 in Morocco, Mauritius and Tunisia with 2 each and Senegal, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire with 1 MVP each.
Before the year 2019, even though there were Microsoft MVPs in Africa and the Middle East region, there weren’t any from Ghana. This however changed when Abou Conde founder of the Microsoft User Group Ghana community got awarded in the Azure category. The situation has improved over the past few years with Microsoft turning its focus and commitment towards Africa. The number of award recipients in Africa has since increased from 32 to 56. Ghana now has eight Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals across five award categories. Microsoft Azure, AI, Business Applications, Data Platform, Developer Technologies and Office Apps & Services.
Here below are Ghana’s Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals passionately sharing their knowledge with the community. Read on to get to know them, and follow and contact them on their channels.
Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals Ghana
Abou CONDE – Award category: Microsoft Azure
Abou is a Senior Cloud & Infra Security Consultant in Avanade’s Security Talent Community based in Paris, France. He was awarded the first MVP in 2019 before moving to France in August 2021 to join METSYS as a System Architect and then Avanade. He lived and worked in Ghana as a Senior Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Consultant at Axxend. He also worked with GITS and IPMC. He became the first-ever Microsoft MVP in Ghana and Microsoft Azure MVP in West Africa.
He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert in Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, Microsoft Certified Solution Associate in Microsoft Azure Security, and Microsoft 365 Security. He is also an expert in cloud solutions architecture, including the IaaS, PaaS, and hybrid cloud scenarios, migrations/deployments, systems administration, and virtualization.
Abou is the Founder of Microsoft User Group Ghana Community (MUGGH), Speaker, and Blogger. He is a frequent speaker and organizer at various Microsoft Azure, Cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, Windows Server Events, and other User Group conferences.
Samuel Segbornya Kodzo Adranyi – Award Category: Microsoft Azure
Samuel is a Senior Software Engineer and Technical Lead with extensive experience and knowledge in most areas of application development, data analytics, internet of things, artificial intelligence, mixed reality and machine learning.
He is an early adopter, abreast with emerging technologies, trends, patterns and architectures with applicable skills in Cloud Development, SDLC, application life cycle management (ALM) and DevOps spanning over 15 years in all phases of small to large-scale software projects.
With a strong passion for problem-solving, he loves curating and mashing up technologies from IoT, AI, ML and programming to solve the most demanding, and complex challenges you throw at him. He has built, trained, managed and coordinated dedicated, capable and technical distributed offshore teams, especially in Africa and led them to deliver beyond expectations and world-class solutions.
Aside from his technical competencies, Samuel is a community leader, Blogger, Pod-caster and Streamer. He is the Co-Organizer for the Accra .NET User Group and the Organizer of the Accra Power Platform User Group. He has a weekly podcast that highlights Africans all over the world in Technology and streams 3 times a week on IoT (IoT Tuesday – Tuesdays), General Azure and Technology (Demystify Tech – Fridays) and Power Platform (Power Series – Sundays).
Frank Arkhurst Odoom – Award Category – Developer Technologies
Frank is a software consultant, a Managing Partner at Accede and the co-organizer of the Accra .NET User Group. He loves teaching software development and contributing to the open-source ecosystem.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the .Net Foundation with the goal of creating a strong awareness and presence of open-source .NET technology in underserved communities. He also serves as the .Net Foundation Education Committee Chairperson.
Dawuda Iddrisu – Award Category – AI
Dawuda Iddrisu is a full-stack software developer and Chief Technology Officer at BezoMoney. He is a B.Sc. graduate in Information Technology and former president of the Computer Science Society of the University for Development Studies (UDS).
He is passionate about creating innovative products and changing lives with his soft and technical skills by organizing training programs and workshops. In 2019, while still at the university, he served as a Microsoft Gold Learn Ambassador and his activities as an ambassador earned him the outstanding Microsoft Student Partner EMEA Award.
He is also an ambassador at AI Gaming and a board member of the Global AI Community.
Bernard Obeng Boateng – Award Category – Office Apps & Services
Bernard is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Financial Modeler and Data Analyst with over 10 years of work experience in Banking, Insurance and Business Development. He is a certified Microsoft Excel Expert skilled in Business Analytics, Dashboards and building Financial models for Budgeting, Business Valuation, Scenario Planning and Investments.
He runs the Finex Project, a pro bono student training outreach program for students in Microsoft Excel, Office Tools and Financial Modeling. Bernard provides consultancy services for SMEs (start-ups and existing ones) in Financial Management, Business Planning and Research.
He has an active audience of about 16,000 followers on his LinkedIn where he shares tips and tricks on Microsoft Excel and other Office Apps.
Eric Entsie – Award Category – Business Applications
Eric Entsie is a Chartered Accountant by profession and manager at the National Health Insurance Authority with a career objective to improve business work processes through the use of information technology.
He is also a Power Platform enthusiast and a Super User in the Power Apps Community Platform. He likes to contribute to the community by providing support to users.
Thomas Festus Cudjoe – Award Category – Data Platform
Festus is a Microsoft Certified Power BI Analyst, a Google Certified Data analyst, a Chartered Accountant, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant with professional qualifications from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK (CIMA).
He is the founder and the lead trainer at FestMan Learning Hub, a Leading Edtech firm that provides premium Digital Skills Bootcamps in Data Science, Financial Modeling, Data Analytics, UX Design, and Digital Marketing.
Festus has trained over 1500 professionals in Data Analytics, Financial Modeling, Modern Excel, and Power BI over the past 5 years. He is passionate about technology and loves sharing his experience with others.
Shadrack Inusah – Award Category – Business Applications
Shadrack is a software developer, ex-Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador (MLSA) and a member of the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors Low Code No Code League. He is also a Power Platform Specialist with community-building experience, assisting experts and citizen developers.
Shadrack loves to network and help students learn and build to solve a technical world problem. He also likes to mentor students for the MLSA program in Africa.
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Africa is known as the land of unending opportunities…the aphrodite for the ailing global economy. The continent is taking baby strides in different aspects, and there are people who are moving forward to be the harbinger of change so far as the African economic resurgence is concerned. Let’s discuss a few African Tech Tycoons and get to know more about their story here.
So let’s have a look at the African tech Tycoons …the black pearls of business in this article. (In no particular order).
1. Tunde Kehinde, Co-Managing Director Of African Courier Express
Tunde Kehinde is a London-based businessman who co-founded Jumia, Africa’s first unicorn, with a financial investment of around $1 million from a rocket internet German startup. Presently the company has set a strong foot in Nigeria, and it is now the country’s top eCommerce website.
The path of success with Jumia is so pronounced that Tunde Kehinde set up another tech business in the year 2014, collaborating with Ercin Eksin, founder of Africa Courier Express (ACE). This company aims to streamline the logistics of delivery for various companies working in Nigeria and other African countries.
Tunde recently co-founded Lidya; a digital fintech lender which allows SMEs to unlock one-click, same-day credit and build a credit rating for the first time.
So he is someone who can be a role model for African Youth. Indeed a pathfinder!
2. Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Founder And General Partner, Future Africa
At the early age of 29, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji co-founded some of the most innovative and disruptive tech companies in Africa. Talk of Andela and Flutterwave, companies working actively to transform the tech innovation infrastructure for Africa. His efforts turned Africa’s challenges into opportunities.
With Andela, Aboyeji was of the opinion that Nigerians would love to if they thought they could earn around $105000 or even half from remote work. He joined Flutterwave in the year 2016 and helped raise funding of $35milion in a Series B round. Presently the company has gone on to become the fastest growing payment technology business and Africa’s unicorn.
Iyin is currently looking to help African startups reach the same scale as western companies with Future Africa. By removing the issue of funding, a primary barrier to a startup’s success.
3. Ken Njoroge, Co-Founder Of Cellulant
Ken Njoroge started with just $3000 on his credit card and co-founded Cellulant, a mobile payment system that connects consumers to merchants.
Presently Cellulent has fitted its flag successfully in 10 countries in Africa. The company now connects to 200 merchants and 44 mobile network operators.
Impressed by reputation and integrity, the government in Nigeria turned to the company and offered it a four-year-$8.9 m contract to run a registration and validation system for fertilizers at friendly prices.
4. Obi Ozor, Co-Founder, Kobo360
Ozor Obi began with a small logistic company using the savings that he made by working part-time at a supermarket whilst in school. His small side business began to bring about $7000 every month.
Then he began his business, Kobo 360, a logistic business that uses technology. At that time, the infrastructure of this very business in Africa was not that good enough. But with a never say die attitude, the company has gone on to become one of the largest supply chain providers in Africa, reaching people with resources. It raised $37 million in its series A round.
Conclusion
Other than these, there are other prominent names like Bright Simons, president of mPedigree Network, Jason Njoku, Founder iRokoTv, and Michael Macharia, the group chief executive SevenSeas Technologies.
We are all as interested in Africa’s rise, and we know so are you too. There are many books and resources on Africa that you could download at thepirateproxybay.com to gain comprehensive knowledge.
Indeed the names discussed above are like stars that the African youth like to chase. They are working extremely hard to bring in fortunes for themselves, the company, and the continent in general.
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