Mahala initiative offering South African students free Microsoft Office 365 and 1TB of OneDrive

Mahala is a Microsoft education initiative that provides students with access to free Microsoft Office 365 and 1TB of OneDrive  

Speaking at LEADEREX 2017 event, Microsoft South Africa MD spoke about many initiatives including Mahala. 
Mahala is an education partnership between Microsoft South Africa and 2enable. The initiative seeks to offer all South African school learners from the ages of 8 and above free access to Microsoft Office across all their devices as well as 1TB of OneDrive storage. 

Microsoft South Africa says;  with the platform, we have simplified the process for signing up for Office 365 for Education. We have extended the benefits that we supply. By using the Mahala.MS platform to register you will receive the following; 

1. Install of Office 365 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote & Outlook) across multiple different devices across all platforms (iOS, Android & Windows) 
2. 1TB of OneDrive storage 
3. Office Online applications that work across all browsers (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote & Sway) 

So what’s the difference between signing up via Microsoft Education and Mahala.ms? Microsoft SA says; 

We’ve simplified the signup process to remove blockers such as lack of Academic email address. We have extended the benefits to include the installed version of Office instead of limiting to web access only. 

How and what do you need to get started? 

You must be a full or part-time student at an academic institution in South Africa, between the ages of 8 and 22. You will need the following information while signing up on the platform.

• South African ID number (can be found on the birth certificate or ID book)
• Internet access
• Private email address, used for correspondence of Mahala.MS log in details. 

What will happen when the access expires? If you are still eligible, you can re-apply. But if it’s not your documents will still be available to view but not editable.   

Visit the Mahala page and register for the offer. Are you in South Africa and excited about this? Tell us what you think in the comments. 

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