Microsoft announces its 2019 Partner of the Year Award Winners and finalists from about 3000 nominations from 115 countries. We bring you winning African partner organization building new and innovative solutions for customers using Microsoft technologies. These winners will be recognized in July at Microsoft Inspire 2019, set to take place July 14-18 in Las Vegas.
There are fewer African country winners compared to 2018. This year saw eight Microsoft partner organizations in Africa winning compared to nine the previous year. It also had the same companies retaining winning country partner positions. Senegal didn’t record any partner winner this year.
Kenya Partner, winner in Global award category
Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited, Kenya are the only winners in any of the global award categories. They won the global category for Teamwork. Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited are also winners in the country partner of the year category. Microsoft says they focused on helping customers realize the broad power of communication and collaboration. Delivering Office 365 services that let customers take advantage of Microsoft Teams to manage employee collaboration across files, chat and meetings, automated business processes, etc.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate the finalists and winners of the Microsoft 2019 Partner of the Year Awards. These companies are industry leaders helping businesses around the world connect and achieve more. I’m truly amazed by each winner and finalist, and I am honored to highlight the incredible work they are doing.”
– Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner
Meet the 2019 Microsoft Partner of the Year Africa Award Winners country category
Côte d’Ivoire Partner of the Year INOVA Consulting Services
Egypt Partner of the Year HITS Technologies
Kenya Partner of the Year Cloud Productivity Solutions Limited
Morocco Partner of the Year CASANET
Namibia Partner of the Year Salt Essential IT
South Africa Partner of the Year Mint Management Technologies
Tunisia Partner of the Year Neoledge
Uganda Partner of the Year Britehouse / Dimension Data
Nigeria Partner of the Year Wragby Business Solutions and Technologies Ltd
Nat Friedman is visiting top GitHub contribution country Nigeria to interact with developers.
Nat friedman, GitHub CEO and Microsoft Corporate Vice President in March announced he was heading to Nigeria and Ghana in a tweet. He shared “I’m going to Nigeria and Ghana for the first time later this year, and I’m interested in meeting local developers and entrepreneurs and learning about how GitHub can be of service.”
This week Nat has been spending time with the open source developer community in Nigeria. Meeting with developers of different ecosystems. Listening to the work they do and how they use developer tools and the GitHub platform. He met GitHub campus experts and developers at an open source Mixer at the Microsoft Nigeria office. He’s also visited and spent time with developers of tech companies and co-creation hubs such as Andela, Paystack, CC hub, etc.
Nat had shared that Microsoft is broadening its horizons as a developer-centric company. That’s by rallying behind technologies like Linux, Git, node and Kubernetes. Microsoft, he says is remodeling its engineering culture after the example of open source projects. For the GitHub CEO and his visiting team, listening and learning from developers in the African tech space will allow them serve better.
GitHub will be looking to hire remote developers from Africa soon says the CEO.
GitHub CEO, Interacts with Nigerian developer community
— Git’sbane, the Sage of the North (@Sage_Godspeed) June 4, 2019
I just met @natfriedman (GitHub CEO) ??. We talked about the open source developer community in Lagos and made him play my open source Android game! pic.twitter.com/YSB9eB8qz4
— Nenne ‘Adora’ Nwodo (@theadoranwodo) June 3, 2019
We loved meeting with @github CEO @natfriedman and the rest of the GitHub team at a fireside chat at the Paystack office yesterday! Stoked for the future of developer relations in Africa! pic.twitter.com/GAzRoBmXTz
@natfriedman graced us with his presence yesterday. We had a great time discussing about how GitHub could work better for us, how to drive engagement in the community and all. It was pretty awesome! He’s a great listener. Thanks a lot, Nat ??? pic.twitter.com/PpfqmpH4Bz
Earlier in the week, we welcomed @github‘s CEO @natfriedman and his team to the office. We gave him a tour of the building, and he also got the chance to interact with some of our team members to learn more about our work at #CcHUB. pic.twitter.com/jK9QUSyaoS
Had a close door meeting with the CEO of Github, @natfriedman yesterday. He is amazing and really interested in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem. He explained how we can leverage the amazing power of the tools GitHub has. It was awesome?.
Amrote Abdella Microsoft Regional Director shares on Microsoft investing in Africa’s technology space.
Amrote Abdella speaks at Africa Investment Forum
Microsoft’s Africa Development Center [ADC] is an opportunity to hire and give exposure to young engineers coming out of universities. An opportunity to work side by side with Microsoft engineers building latest technologies. Amrote Abdella Microsoft Regional Director 4Afrika shares with hosts of The Morning Show, Arise News, Nigeria.
Africa has a huge role to play in the technology space.
In the interview she says the announcement of the datacenters and ADC is with the premise of how we [Microsoft] build skills and allow Africa be part of tech space in terms of Microsoft products. We believe Africa has a huge role to play in the tech space she says. Given how long we’ve been on the continent, we really believe it is Africa’s time to be part of the core development of technology not just consumption.
On skills development she says the IFC report on digital skills shows that by 2030, 230 million digital skills and jobs will have to be created. Microsoft is working with universities, creating the opportunity for right training through curriculum contributions.
Microsoft is also working on a bridge to the work force through its internship program. Amrote shares that the Interns4Afrika program discovers, trains, identifies and places graduates with Microsoft’s 12,000 plus partner ecosystem. This she remarks allows for a small medium enterprise to grow their business because they don’t have the resources. Giving the young graduate the opportunity to grow.
Through innovations enablement and access, we can unlock the opportunities in Africa.
Microsoft demos new iOS specific Minecraft Earth features at WWDC.
Microsoft demoed its latest creation in Minecraft; Minecraft Earth at Apple’s 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference(WWDC). The augmented reality (AR) game was announced last month and will be released on iOS and Android. Saxs Persson and Lydia Winters, Minecraft Creative Director and Mojang Brand Director were on stage for the hologram demonstrations.
The directors showed off the game on a tabletop before moving it out to cover the whole stage. Then showed off some cool things like immersing themselves in the game. A fully interactive world they called it.
What is Minecraft
Minecraft is a randomly generated
world filled with secrets, wonders and peril where players place blocks and go
on adventures. Players can build whatever they can imagine with limitless
resources in the creative mode. Or explore the world and mine its resources to
feed, house and defend themselves in the survival mode.
Minecraft Earth and AR
Minecraft Earth brings augmented reality to Minecraft letting users experience the mobile game in our world. It gives you the same immersive feel as Pokémon Go. Allowing players to interact with builds in real life. Taking advantage of new iOS-only features, it was demoed that players can even step into builds.
Microsoft says you can build in tabletop mode with 3D holograms
and then bring those creations to life with full-size augmented reality. Thanks
to some new iOS-only features, you can even step into your builds
yourself.
Two new technologies introduced to make the AR game immersive is People Occlusion and Motion capture. People Occlusion will let players show up in their build. Players will be able to walk through their builds as if they existed in real life. More so other players will be able to see players mess around inside their own build. Motion Capture, on the other hand allows players to trigger pre-set animations for their in-game character. Mirroring the actions of the player.
We are listing Microsoft Interns4Afrika initiative open positions in Mozambique.
Microsoft 4Afrika‘s internship initiative provides real employment opportunities to talented young professionals in Sales, Marketing and IT Technical Support tracks. A response to demand from its software distribution and development partners across Africa and the Middle East.
Do you live in Maputo, Mozambique? Get to be a Technical Support, Sales or Marketing intern. Microsoft’s Interns4Afrika initiative is offering a unique experience with a dynamic and agile technology organization.
All the best to you as you apply. If you do get in, come back and share the experience with us? Also kindly report any broken links so we can fix them. We will be updating this list when new positions are available. So bookmark it and check back. Subscribe to recieve latest opportunities as well. Thank you.
