Update: New date for Nigeria event announced. Watch the full Kenya event below.
Join Microsoft Africa Development Center software engineer and program managers as they share their journey and experiences. Also, get to know the Microsoft product and services they are and have been working on. Finally, find out what it will take for you to join them in this virtual meetup.
There will be two virtual meetup sessions for each site location. The site in Lagos focuses on building Microsoft AI and Mixed reality services. Whilst the Nairobi team builds solutions and experiences for Windows and Microsoft 365. Click to register to participate in the event. There will be a Q&A session. so come with questions.
Introducing the Africa Development Center in Nigeria will now take place on the 4th of March 2021, 5:00 pm-6:00 pm (GMT+1). It was earlier scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 21 October at 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm West Africa Time (GMT +1). But due to the end SARS protests Microsoft has since postponed the Nigeria event and will be announcing a future date.
“Our team has been thoroughly assessing the recent situation (ENDSARS protest) in Nigeria, and based on the latest news, we decided to postpone our live event for a more suitable date in the future. We will come back with regular communications regarding the potential date of the event.“
Missed the Nairobi, Kenya event? Watch the it below.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella notes the Microsoft Africa Development Center will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions that benefit Africa and the entire world.
This year the Microsoft software engineers in Africa celebrated their first anniversary. The Lagos team also saw Azure Object Anchors mixed reality service for HoloLens become available in private preview as announced at Microsoft Ignite 2020.
Update February 22 2021, 6:40 PM GMT: Article updated with the new date and time for Nigeria event.
Update October 16 2020, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 16, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 27 2020, 2:30 PM GMT: Article updated with Youtube video of the Nairobi, Kenya event.
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.
Some of these software engineers took to social media to share the one-year anniversary package they received from Microsoft. Check out some of the posts below. Thereafter we will look at how far the company has come on its journey with the continent.
Africa is a unique opportunity … we are opening these development centers … where you see people who are very qualified for the kind of work we do
Phil Spencer, executive sponsor of the Microsoft ADC
Microsoft in Africa
Microsoft has been operating in Africa for the past thirty years. Having local offices in Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. With South Africa hosting the oldest Microsoft offices in Africa.
However, this has mainly been on the sales side of the business. Providing consumers and organizations, mostly governmental ones with various services. The closest you could come to Microsoft workers in Africa were either through partner organizations or Microsoft employees acting as technical account managers who implement, onboard and deploy Microsoft services for customers and clients.
The launch event came off on the backdrop of a lot of backlash to self-professed Africa’s biggest online e-commerce site Jumia. The CEO had claimed a lack of local software engineering talent. Microsoft shared it believed in the growing local talent and that it was time to tap into that pool.
Our new Microsoft Africa Development Center will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions that benefit Africa − and the entire world. https://t.co/DlIrdkfMaF
Phil Spencer, Microsoft corporate vice president and executive sponsor of the Africa Development Center, and Michael Fortin, corporate vice president at Microsoft and the lead in establishing the first ADC engineering team in Nairobi, led the pomp and pageant opening ceremonies in Nairobi, Kenya and were joined by Microsoft Technical Fellow, Alex Kipman, for the Lagos launch event.
The Nairobi Microsoft Africa Development Center site software engineers contribute to building Windows and Office 365 products and services. Whilst the Lagos site software engineers contribute to building Microsoft Azure services that power new Augmented Reality experiences.
At the launch events, Microsoft executives shared the company was going to hire about five hundred software engineers by 2023, across both center sites. With plans to hire 100 software engineers by the end of 2019.
We reached out to Microsoft for the latest updates on the Microsoft Africa development centers and haven’t gotten any feedback as at publishing this. We will bring you updates when Microsoft responds.
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
Microsoft Education Lead for North, West, East & Southern Africa, Levant & Pakistan countries, Angela Nganga, shares on what learners and facilitators can do to ensure a safe digital learning environment as they learn.
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world, quoted South African activist and former president Nelson Mandela. Investment in education is one of the biggest investments any country can make for its current and future generation. Currently, around 420 million people across the world would be lifted out of poverty with secondary education consequently improving the quality of life globally by more than half.
Today, as more and more people across the African continent are required to stay home due to government lockdown interventions, we are seeing a massive shift towards remote learning. This has meant the growth in the usage of collaborative tools such as Microsoft’s Teams to create virtual classrooms wherein educators can communicate with their students in real-time.
In the Middle East and Africa Emerging markets alone, over 1.5 Million students and teachers are leveraging Microsoft Teams as the remote learning platform during this period.
Through such platforms, educators can connect with and support students in much the same way they could in person with live meetings wherein they are able to show video, share presentations, and even invite external speakers for virtual field trips.
But, as students and educators move online, naturally there is an increase in the risks to security and safety.
As we adjust to the new normal and governments take the much needed next steps towards safely re-opening the economies and adopting possible return to school strategies, blended learning will play a key role in ensuring that some of the non – essential aspects of learning that do not require face to face interaction are enabled while ensuring the online safety and security of students.
Educational institutions, therefore, need to take steps to ensure that digital learning environments are safe by setting up concrete policies and restrictions when using these tools to guard students’ safety, while also ensuring that online classrooms remain engaging and giving educators the tools they need to create a focused learning environment.
Restricting access to meetings can safeguard students
There have already been multiple occurrences around the world wherein unauthorised users have gained access to virtual classrooms.
Just this month alone we’ve seen an online graduation ceremony interrupted with racial slurs by hackers, last month a man gained access to an online class and exposed himself and another online lecture was interrupted by playing audio of inappropriate content.
When educators set up meetings to teach students a link is created which participants can use to enter these meetings. Sharing these links online to reach students can seem like a quick and easy way to communicate with students when and how to enter live meetings but this also opens meetings up to anyone who sees the link.
To ensure the safe digital learning environment of educators and students, administrators should instead create identities (or profiles) for each student and teacher which requires them to log into the tool to join the meeting. Within Teams, administrators can thereafter choose to turn off the ability for anonymous users to join the meeting by changing it within the meeting policies.
Within meetings, educators can also make sure that all students are present in the classroom and there are no unexpected attendees by selecting “show participants” in the meeting controls giving them greater control over who is admitted into the lesson.
Managing the virtual classroom keeps students safely engaged
Educators are often required to manage students in physical classrooms to ensure good behaviour and keep students focused on learning the coursework being taught. This is required when teaching online as well.
Online classrooms introduce a new dynamic for both teachers and students alike making managing disruptions and curbing inappropriate messaging, a task which educators need to perform in new ways. Now, these disturbances can also appear in the form of unauthorised users with disruption often being their main goal.
To manage disruptions while ensuring the safety of students, administrators should limit students’ ability to schedule meetings, initiate private calls, and monitor chat sessions to remove inappropriate messaged in channel meetings. This can be done by restricting meeting roles for students within a meeting.
Educators can control the learning environment further in Teams by creating meetings for classes within specific channels which allows them to disable student-to-student chat if necessary and allows them to track class discussions in context.
Other functionalities such as being able to blur video backgrounds, mute participants, and control who can present during the meeting are key for ensuring safe learning for students with Teams.
A new world of learning
We have entered an unexpected and often challenging time where in just over a month the education landscape has completely transformed. But as we have also seen, technology is a powerful tool that can be used to overcome these challenges and sometimes even improve on functions such as learning. With technology, education can be interactive, engaging, and controlled as long as we ensure digital security to protect students and staff online.
As a way to support educational institutions as they work to ensure a safe digital learning environment, Microsoft has created a more in-depth guide to serve as a foundation to their safety plans, and thus help to give teachers, students, and parents’ peace of mind while also making learning more productive.
Microsoft invites leaders of organizations across the Middle East and Africa to join its Reimagine Tomorrow virtual summit to explore ways to adapt, reinvent and transform using technology. The virtual conference will take place on July 7 and 8 2020.
Noting these are unprecedented moments, the company is inviting leaders at all levels to what it calls, “explore the art of the possible“. Microsoft shares that “technology will be a key ally in re-booting enterprise” as countries start preparing for the post-Covid-19 era.
The event will feature session tracks in HR, CIO, CFO, CMO, Retail, Telecommunications, Financial Services Industry, Education, Energy, Mining and Manufacturing.
The event invitation form Microsoft reads;
This is your exclusive invite to join the Microsoft Re-imagine Tomorrow virtual summit, where we will explore the art of the possible for you and your business, and start to move forward, together!
Lillian Barnard, Managing Director, Microsoft South Africa will lead the keynote session. Peter DeBenedictis, CMO Microsoft MEA, Gavin Holme, Services Lead Microsoft South Africa and other Microsoft and Microsoft Partner executives will lead various sessions over the two days.
Visit the Reimagine Tomorrow Virtual Summit event page to register for free and participate.
