SheHacks, Microsoft collaborate to empower women in Kenya with Cybersecurity Engineering skills

SheHacks, Microsoft collaborate to empower women in Kenya with Cybersecurity Engineering skills

Microsoft at Shehacks HackFest 2019

Microsoft is partnering with SheHacks Kenya to co-host this years HackFest event. A move that showcases Microsoft’s commitment to supporting and advocating for Kenyan women and minorities with interest in cybersecurity engineering. The two day festival is taking place at the Strathmore University Business school in Nairobi.

shehacks
Day 1 at HackFest 2019 ?: SheHacks

Microsoft General Manager Cybersecurity Engineering, Hayden Hainsworth was the keynote speaker at the event. She expressed the company’s delight to partner with SheHacks for this year’s Hackathon.

We want to inspire the next generation of cybersecurity engineers. With a focus to prepare women to thrive in the technology industry.

We also want to make it easy for anyone to take their next step forward in technology, Hayden says. Highlighting the importance of the partnership and event in developing competency in tackling cyber threats in a rapidly evolving tech ecosystem.

Pratik Roy, Microsoft Modern Workplace and Security Business Group Lead
speaks on the principles of kill-chain at HackFest 2019

We have seen tremendous growth in the number of young women who want to participate since we founded this initiative. SheHacks founders Evelyn Kilel and Laura Tich shares. Emphasizing the need for increased support towards the youth in Kenya. To support this, they share that this years Hackfest will host close to 300 young ladies from across Kenya.

Hackfest 2019 will firstly bring together learners and experts to share knowledge and experience. Secondly it will try to inspire and nurture others to join the cybersecurity industry. Thirdly it will equip and empower them with the required technical know-how to combat cyber-crime.

Microsoft supports Women In Tech

Microsoft continues to show increased support to encourage women in technology in the region. The company introduced the LEAP engineering accelerated apprenticeship program for women in Lagos and Nairobi. Microsoft 4Afrika also collaborated with Strathmore University to extend Microsoft’s Women In Software Engineering Mentoring (WISE) Program into Africa.

Microsoft hosts Artificial Intelligence Hackfest to solve real world problems

At Artificial Intelligence Hackfest, Microsoft is engaging government agencies and enterprise companies to leverage its AI Platform to solve problems

Artificial Intelligence Hackfest

Microsoft has hosted its first Artificial Intelligence Hackfest in the Gulf region. The event brings together private enterprises and public agencies providing services. It showcased and inspired how Microsoft’s AI and cloud capabilities could be used to solve some of the worlds pressing problems.

The intelligent cloud
is full of possibilities 

because of advancements in
artificial intelligence

Sayed Hashish – GM Microsoft Gulf 

Bring Microsoft engineers and data scientists to assist and work with participants in two categories. Organizations with problems that can be solved by AI and Machine Learning. And organizations that cognitive applications can tackle their issues. Coding and demoing using Microsoft Azure cloud platform capabilities like advanced analytics, machine-learning and natural-language processing. 

Artificial Intelligence Hackfest

AI will help society to be more productive, achieve more and be a better place.
It’s really interesting 4 days coding together.
Developers talking to developers and data scientist talking to data scientist.
As a result of that we will see real AI projects coming together.
AI is about helping organizations to manage their data. If you have the right data and analyze it in the right way,
you can use it to make better decisions and deliver more accurate AI algorithms.

Mik Chernomordikov, Microsoft Middle East and Africa engineering & innovations lead  

Want to learn how to start building intelligence into solutions with the Microsoft AI platform? The Microsoft AI school provides you with resources to get you going. Get pre-trained AI services like Cognitive Services and Bot Framework, deep learning tools like Azure Machine Learning, Visual Studio Code Tools for AI, and Cognitive Toolkit.