Google has announced that its first cloud region in Africa is now open for business.

Google has announced that its first cloud region in Africa is now open for business.

Google has announced that its first cloud region in Africa is now open for business. The new region, located in Cape Town, South Africa, will offer customers faster and more reliable access to Google Cloud services and products.

The Cape Town cloud region is the 24th Google Cloud region globally and the first one on the African continent. It consists of three availability zones, which are geographically separate locations within the region that are designed to provide high levels of reliability and redundancy. Customers can distribute their workloads across multiple zones to protect against service disruptions.

Google Cloud provides a range of services for businesses of all sizes and industries, including infrastructure, platform, and software as a service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS). Some of the popular Google Cloud products include Compute Engine, App Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Run. Customers can also access advanced solutions for artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and security.

According to Google, the Cape Town cloud region will benefit customers in several ways. First, it will improve latency for end users in Africa by up to 50% compared to the nearest region in Europe. Second, it will enable customers to store their data locally and comply with data sovereignty regulations. Third, it will support Google’s commitment to environmental sustainability by using renewable energy sources.

Some of the customers that are already using the Cape Town cloud region include Absa Group, a leading African financial services group; Travelstart, Africa’s largest online travel agency; and African e-commerce platform Jumia. These customers have reported improved performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency by leveraging Google Cloud.

Google also announced that it is expanding its Google Cloud Partner Advantage program in Africa to help local partners grow their cloud businesses. The program provides partners with technical guidance, sales support, marketing resources, and training opportunities. Google said it has already onboarded more than 100 partners in Africa, including system integrators, resellers, managed service providers, and independent software vendors.

The launch of the Cape Town cloud region is part of Google’s ongoing investment in Africa’s digital transformation. In addition to providing cloud services, Google is also supporting initiatives such as Google for Startups Accelerator Africa, Google.org grants for digital skills training, and Loon’s internet balloons project. Google said it is committed to helping African businesses and communities thrive in the digital era.

Microsoft hosts Startups Summit in Cape Town

Microsoft hosts Startups Summit in Cape Town

Microsoft South Africa is hosting a Microsoft for Startups Summit – Cape Town meetup targetting founders, entrepreneurs, developers, venture capitals (VCs), accelerators, and their teams. The free event is in-person and will take place on December 1st. At the Innovation City Darter Studio, Longkloof, Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa.

The Microsoft Startups Summit – Cape Town event will offer attendees access to best practices and practical tools to evolve their venture and grow. It will enable networking opportunities and conversations among ecosystem players. As well as help accelerate innovation for first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, or technical founders.

The invitation reads:

Every founder and startup is unique. Yet, there are common challenges that all founders face at different stages of their business journey, from validating ideas, accelerating the time to market to geo expansion, and gaining access to funding.

We are excited to present the Microsoft for Startups Meet-up Cape Town.

announcement details inviting start founders, developers VC to Microsoft Startups Summit - Cape Town event

This year, Microsoft announced new initiatives to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups and fast-track investment in Africa’s startup ecosystem over the next five years. Launching the Startups Founders Hub in Africa and partnering with accelerators and incubators to provide startups with access to markets, technical skills, and funding.

The startup summit agenda includes keynotes, fireside chats, breakout, networking, and cocktails sessions. There will also be a session on the startup journey with Microsoft from Founders Hub to Azure Marketplace. Speakers include Will Green Tech Founder- Grindstone, Ajay Lalu Co-Founder Q-HOP and David Rogers Founder and CEO, BancX.

Click to find out more details about the event and register to participate.

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Microsoft outfits new computer lab at Afrika Tikkun Zolile Malindi Centre of Excellence in Mfuleni, Cape Town

Microsoft outfits new computer lab at Afrika Tikkun Zolile Malindi Centre of Excellence in Mfuleni, Cape Town

Afrika Tikkun Microsoft computer lab launch

Microsoft South Africa has responded to the Afrika Tikkun Mfuleni center’s need for a greater student-centric IT facility. By outfitting the Zolile Malindi Centre of Excellence in Cape Town with a new computer lab. The new computer lab is larger, has modern computers and will be able to sit sixty students per class.

Until recently we had two computer labs that could only accommodate 44 learners at a time. This wasn’t sufficient for all the learners the centre caters to daily. Often we had learners pairing up at desks taking turns throughout lessons. In addition, the computers were outdated and the hard drives had started to fail.” Says Lizo Madinga, General Manager of the center, Sharing on the state of the center.

Microsoft’s contribution to the Afrika Tikkun computer Lab is a result of our intentions to accelerate the pace of inclusive digital transformation. Notes Anthony Putorek, Senior Lead Workforce Development Program Manager at Microsoft.

We are living in a world that is underpinned by tech intensity. Whereby companies, communities and countries are leveraging digital tools and platforms to build solutions and services to better service the needs of the citizens and customer.
But they can only do this if they have a skilled workforce to do so. As such, fostering in the development of computer skills in education remains an important aspect of what we believe in
.”

Lizo Madinga expresses gratitude to Microsoft South Africa for the amazing gift of upgrading the computer lab. She added, “the centre is now able to accommodate 60 learners per class in a much larger and visually appealing space. Giving meaning to the principle of leaving no-one behind.”

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Microsoft Cloud Society Future Summit Cape Town, South Africa

Microsoft Cloud Society Future Summit Cape Town, South Africa

Microsoft invites you to the Future Summit Cape Town to delve into AI.

Future Summit Cape Town

The Future Summit is Microsoft’s flagship event that talks about the hottest technology topic, artificial intelligence(AI). The summit brings together people, businesses and industries to discus and delve into the future of AI with real life examples. Microsoft also takes the opportunity to showcase it’s AI platform and services at the event.

Microsoft says “AI combined with human ingenuity is already helping people do amazing things. At Microsoft, we believe that AI, with people as its center, can extend our capabilities beyond our imagination”. “Thanks to AI advances, we are changing the transportation landscape, discovering new ways of protecting the planet, reinventing healthcare to connect with customers and so much more“.

Future Summit is scheduled to take place at the Nu Metro Extreme(Theatre 12) Canal Walk, Cape Town, South Africa on the 13th of September 2018.

The invitation to the Future Summit Cape Town event reads out;

Join us in the Mother City of Cape Town on August 30th to discuss how AI can help us reconcile with nature. reinvent healthcare, and change the transportation landscape. Our agenda promises to ignite heated discussions on the hottest topic in technology today.”

On the Agenda will be sessions about digital transformation with AI and transforming Data into Intelligent action. Blockchain and AI, Bringing Internet of things to life and a panel session on Future of human.

Interested in attending the days event? Kindly visit the registration page to register.

#AfricaCom – Microsoft says Digital Transformation is critical to the success of African businesses at AfricaCom 2017

#AfricaCom – Microsoft says Digital Transformation is critical to the success of African businesses at AfricaCom 2017

At AfricaCom 2017, Microsoft shared on Digital Transformation and how it can accelerate the growth of African Businesses. 

AfricaCom

Lillian Barnard, Director for Public-Sector at Microsoft South Africa. shares on the ‘Digital Difference’ during the Vision for Africa keynote session.

AfricaCom is one of the continents focused telecommunication, technology and media event. With this year’s being the 20th and themed around the 4th Industrial Revolution. 

Participating strongly in this years event, Microsoft sponsored the new Technology Arena. The new Technology Arena showcased innovations and technology solutions from start-ups from across the continent. It also housed the Africa 20/20, AHUB sessions and Innovation stage. 

Microsoft says Digital transformation is critically important to the success of businesses across Africa and we are focused on helping our customers successfully achieve their digital business transformation.  Powered by our people and our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, we have been driving cloud innovation and growth across Africa for a number years. 

We also recently announced a significant investment into data centers in the African region, which expands on our existing investments aimed at: unleashing innovation to solve some of the biggest problems facing humanity; building and developing small businesses; and alleviating unemployment and poverty on our continent.

AfricaCom 20/20 Digital Transformation, IoT, AI keynote session 

AfricaCom

From One Day to One Day, AfricaCom 20/20 Keynote session by Clifford De Wit, CSE Lead Africa, Microsoft

We run the most open cloud of all big cloud providers and we run most solutions on top of our cloud, with high security. – Clifford De Wit 

Hitting it off on the first day with the 20/20 Digital Transformation, IoT, AI keynote session, presented by Clifford De Wit.
Clifford also Chief Innovation Officer at Microsoft South Africa spoke on Microsoft’s Cloud offering. An intelligent cloud with an intelligent edge and shared on what is being achieved with the cloud.

“We are excited to have these data center capabilities in Africa because it connects the world to Africa and Africa to the world. We will be able to export solutions from the continent to the world”. He talked about express routes and partnerships with companies like Liquid Telecom. “express routes allows us and our customers to connect between our data centers with very low latency and very high speed”.

AfricaCom Enterprise ICT session 

AfricaCom

 The executive think tank round table event focused on infrastructure in Africa. Led by Microsoft SA’s Cloud and Enterprise Business Group lead Ravi Bhat. 
Conversations centered around infrastructure limitations in Africa, challenges presented by lack of fibre and low grade connectivity in many areas and how Microsoft’s wide scale data centre roll out will impact the enterprise market in Africa. 

AfricaCom Vision for Africa keynote session  

AfricaCom

Finally on day 3, Lillian Barnard, Director for Public-Sector at Microsoft South Africa shared on the Digital Difference and the Transformation driven by the cloud during the Vision for Africa keynote session.

When businesses and governments fully capitalize the power of technology they can run more effective and efficient businesses as well as transparent and productive businesses. – Lillian Barnard, DPS, Microsoft South Africa 

“Wherever we go and whatever we do, we touch technology and it is fundamentally shaping the way businesses think about innovation and growth. Sharing on three things that change how businesses work today. She said; 

  1. Getting intelligent and actionable insights on data
  2. Cloud computing – limitless storage
  3. Ubiquity of mobile computing 

Read the full scope on what she shared on Digital transformation is real and it’s urgent  

 

What AfricaCom also did was to provide a platform for people in diverse sectors and ecosystems to come together, share ideas, network, sign deals, and forge healthy relationships.