Kunle Awosika heads Microsoft Africa Transformation Office in new company reorg

Kunle Awosika heads Microsoft Africa Transformation Office in new company reorg

Microsoft names Kunle Awosika as the new Managing Director of the Africa Transformation Office (ATO) in a new reorganization to optimize its operations in Africa to scale impact. He succeeds Wael Elkabbany, who now heads Microsoft’s new Africa Regional Cluster (ARC) subsidiary. Kunle will lead the ATO subsidiary with a focus on driving digital transformation initiatives across the continent.

I am passionate about the incredible potential Africa has to become a truly connected continent that exports digital goods and services to the rest of the world. I am delighted to have the opportunity to meaningfully impact this growth and help unlock the continent’s full digital potential,” said Kunle.

Microsoft Africa Transformation Office kunle awosika

Kunle has over 22 years of experience working in multiple countries across the continent. He also has a deep understanding and passion for Africa’s growth. He has held several positions at Microsoft, including director of Enterprise Business, Country Manager Microsoft Kenya, as well as director of Small and Medium Corporates, Emerging Markets. Kunle Awosika was also one of three pioneer team members when Microsoft opened its Nigeria office.

He is credited with the introduction of different transformational technology opportunities to a wide range of organizations in both the public and private sectors, enabling them to unlock significant value. Kunle will bring this deep experience in multiple African markets to the new role.

While welcoming him to the new role, Elkabbany said: “With his multifaceted experience of the continent and deep understanding of transformative technology, Kunle Awosika is ideally placed to lead the strategy, investments, and initiatives of Microsoft’s transformation plans for the African continent.” 

“I look forward to playing a role in unlocking Africa’s potential as the ATO develops and steers strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, and partners to accelerate digital transformation agendas and fuel a knowledge-based economy,” Kunle added.

Microsoft Africa Transformation Office

Microsoft Africa Transformation Office

Launched in 2021, the ATO supersedes the continent-wide multi-million dollar Microsoft 4Afrika investment project launched in 2012. In simple terms, the Microsoft ATO is Microsoft’s move to scale out what it did with 4Afrika across the continent. It focuses on enabling growth and fuelling investment in four essential development areas. – Digital infrastructure, skilling, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and start-ups. –

Now, we have a responsibility to play a different role that drives impact at scale, says Wanja Gitonga, Microsoft ATO Communications lead. Reaching millions of Africans and accelerating Africa’s digital transformation to help deliver long-lasting African economic prosperity through digital technologies. The ATO will play an enabling role to accelerate and scale up existing programs within Microsoft, she adds.

Wanja notes that Microsoft is committed to rethinking how and why it develops digital solutions and strategies to better serve the needs of Africa. Through large-scale digital partnerships and initiatives across infrastructure, skilling, SMEs, and startups, we hope to impact the lives of millions of Africans and foster economic prosperity through digital technologies.

Microsoft understands that it cannot achieve these ambitious goals alone. Saying, strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, multinationals, and African enterprises will accelerate investments in Africa and increase the continent’s export of digital services.

Since its inception, Microsoft Africa Transformation Office has spearheaded a number of initiatives and strategic partnerships across Africa. It announced the launch of Microsoft Startups Founders Hub in Africa and new partnerships with accelerators and incubators to provide startups with access to markets, technical skills, and funding to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups over the next five years.

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Microsoft to celebrate 15th OneDrive birthday with major update

Microsoft to celebrate 15th OneDrive birthday with major update

Microsoft has been at the vanguard of the technical revolution for a long time. And to celebrate the 15th anniversary of OneDrive, the cloud-based system will be given a massive revamp.

Over the coming months, there will be a new landing page – OneDrive Home – which will be the focal point of the app. It will contain a whole host of innovative features to simplify the file-sharing experience.

In many ways, OneDrive Home mimics the Office web app, where you can organize all the files you recently accessed, and this will be split into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF file types.

OneDrive Home Microsoft new feature update

The OneDrive home experience will be more efficient, so you will be able to catch up on any work or tasks you have missed while you have been away on holiday.

There will also be an array of updated collaboration tools so that colleagues can work on active tasks remotely. This will include threaded comments, @mentions, real-time co-authoring, and highlighted changes. These features will all be available in the Activity tab, so you can see any updates in real-time.

To a certain extent, there are elements of OneDrive Home that will mirror Google Docs as you will be able to view any edits made and any issues can be resolved.

The new home page will act as the central hub, and the OneDrive home landing page will be rolled out to schools and offices.

But it’s not just the OneDrive home page that will be given a makeover. No, Microsoft is also expected to roll out a special photo story feature for the OneDrive mobile app, which will essentially replicate the stories section of Instagram. While this will be available to Australian users soon, US users won’t benefit from this service until later in the year.

onedrive photo story

Companies are always finding new and intuitive ways to make tweaks so that they can remain relevant and connect with their target audiences. This is prevalent with technology businesses, as software updates need to be carried out to ensure computers can run to optimal performance. The same could be said of the retail industry where shops want to tailor the experience for clients especially when buying products online.

However, the same can be said of digital casinos. Gamblers will want to play at the best sites that are user-friendly, have a good collection of titles, and rewards them for the time spent there. Many of the top operators will be well stocked with an array of casino promotions to tap into, such as no deposit bonuses as well as free spins to entice new players and retain the loyalty of existing players. 

Microsoft’s plans for the OneDrive home are bold but exciting. If anything, it will enhance the user experience and make collaborating with colleagues easier.

If you have enjoyed what you have read, you should check out the OneDrive home page when it is finally released. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled on Microsoft for any further updates about the remodelled product.

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Phyllis Migwi joins Microsoft as the new Kenya Country Manager

Phyllis Migwi joins Microsoft as the new Kenya Country Manager

Microsoft is announcing the appointment of Phyllis Migwi as the new Kenya Country Manager. She will head the company’s operations in Kenya and develop and maintain relationships across Microsoft’s subsidiaries. She takes over from Kendi Ntwiga-Nderitu who took up a new role as the Global Head of Misrepresentation for Meta.

I am thrilled at the opportunity to play my part in Africa’s economic growth story, Phyllis shares. To position Microsoft as the premier partner for that growth, while developing the leaders who will overcome present challenges and build memorials for the future, she adds.

Phyllis Migwi  microsoft kenya country manager

Phyllis holds an MBA from Hult International Business School and a Bachelor of Commerce from the Catholic University of East Africa. Before this role, she spent more than 12 years in various positions at IBM across Kenya, Ireland and the USA. In her last role at IBM, she served as the Regional head for Hybrid Cloud & AI – Africa Growth Market. She also previously held leadership roles in Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Information Communication Technology sectors in India, Europe, Africa and North America. Phyllis is also the recipient of the 2015 CfC Stanbic Bank Rising Star award for the ICT sector.

I am delighted to welcome Phyllis Migwi to the Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster team as the new Kenya Country Manager, notes Wael Elkabbany, Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster General Manager speaking about her appointment.

I am confident that her extensive experience in Technology in Africa will help us scale partner and customer business impact through the value of Microsoft Cloud. As a strong advocate of Africa’s potential, I believe that Phyllis is a critical addition in unlocking the unique opportunities on the continent.

Wael Elkabbany, Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster General Manager

She’s passionate about delivering efficient business models, growth strategies and ecosystem value creation.

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Microsoft is hiring software engineers from African universities to USA and Canada

Microsoft is hiring software engineers from African universities to USA and Canada

As part of plans to showcase the talent pool in Africa, Microsoft through its University Recruiting program and Africans at Microsoft is hiring final-year students and recent university graduates from across Africa into full-time engineering roles at Microsoft. The Microsoft African University Recruitment Program for recent graduate engineers will provide successful candidates with relocation to the USA and Canada.

Interested persons who will like to apply should have recently graduated from the university or will be graduating by 2023. Here are the qualifications you will need to meet.

  • Open to relocating to USA or Canada
  • Pursuing or recently completed a bachelor’s or master’s degree in engineering, computer science, or related field.  
  • One year of programming experience in an object-oriented language (C, C#, C++, Java, Python).  
  • Ability to demonstrate an understanding of computer science fundamentals, including data structures and algorithms. 

Activities that will give you an edge include experience building software outside of the classroom environment like an internship, hackathon, or research project. As well as showing the ability to work in a team and effective time management.

USA and Canada Microsoft

Microsoft started the program in 2017 dubbed Africa to Redmond; Hack for Africa. For its first iteration, Microsoft University Recruiting and Africans at Microsoft selected five universities on the continent to recruit from. University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Lagos (Nigeria), Ashesi University (Ghana), Makerere University (Uganda), and University of Cape Town (South Africa).

The Microsoft Team is organizing free virtual resume workshops to help interested persons prepare for the application process. Where they will provide information on Microsoft’s recruitment program, share tips on how to make your application stand out, and answer your questions. The free resume workshop will take place at different times depending on your country. Here are a few below:

Ghana – from 6 – 7:30 pm GMT on Saturday 20th August 2022. The link to join the session will be provided after you register, link: http://aka.ms/ghtomicrosoft.

Nigeria – from 7 pm WAT on Thursday 18th August 2022 via https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OdKrBDoOAeKX.

Kenya – from 6 – 7 pm EAT on 24th August 2022 via https://www.meetup.com/ms-ambassadors-ke/events/287900428/

During the workshop, Microsoft recruiters will share more on the recruitment process. But it usually takes place in three phases and will look something like this. It starts with an online coding challenge. A panel will then review the entries and select applicants for the next stage. The selected candidates will have an in-person or virtual interview. Finally, a successful candidate from the three steps will join Microsoft for a full-time position. The candidate will be assigned to an engineering team once they accept the offer.

Don’t forget to kindly share this opportunity with your friends or anyone this might help so they don’t miss out.

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