Microsoft is inviting developers and software architects to a one day training event in Lagos.
Microsoft is hosting a free one day Microsoft Azure Training Day event for developers and software architects. The training will be on migrating applications to the cloud.
The training is scheduled to take place 13th September 2019, 8am at the Microsoft Office in Nigeria. (6th Floor, Civic Towers Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island).
The invitation reads;
Join us at Microsoft Azure Training Day: Migrating Applications to the Cloud. A free, one-day event for developers and architects to learn the steps and decision-making process of a migration. Assume the role of a member of the fictional Tailwind Traders’ cloud-migration team as it transitions a recent acquisition, Northwind, to the Azure cloud platform. Please make sure to bring your laptops to the training
Topics will include migrating web applications and moving your database to Azure, deploying your application faster and safer and more.
Microsoft announces thirty one new Azure edge sites.
Bringing its cloud customers a faster network and their consumers increased satisfaction. The announced sites will include new edge sites in Kenya and Nigeria. With upcoming sites in Egypt, Turkey and Israel later. The sites will be located in Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo and Tel Aviv.
Providing users fast and reliable access to their cloud services, apps and content is pivotal to a business’ success.
Yousef Khalid
Microsoft CVP Azure networking, Yousef Khalid talks about the latest development. He says the Azure Edge sites will provide application development teams increased visibility and higher availability. To access services that improve how they deliver global applications.
Through deployment and operation of globally and strategically placed edge sites, Microsoft dramatically accelerates the performance and experience when you are accessing apps, content, or services such as Azure and Office 365 on the Microsoft global network. – Yousef Khalid
What does this mean?
Infrastructure and development teams will now have; Improved optimization for application delivery. An enhanced customer experience and Private connectivity and dedicated performance through Azure ExpressRoute.
This will significantly improve user experience. Providing fast and reliable access to cloud services for our customers in the region. Local ISVs and startups can provide services to customers competitively and with confidence. – Wale Olokodana [Intelligent Cloud (Azure) Business Group Lead at Microsoft]
Microsoft announced datacenters in Middle East and Africa this year.
We share with you where .NET Conf 2019 events are taking place across Middle East and Africa.
.NET Conf 2019 is here and live broadcast is set to take place, September 23rd to the 25th 2019. This is a free virtual 3 day developer event showcasing new developments across the .NET platform, open source and dev tools. Local community meet-ups are scheduled to take place September 23rd through to October 31st across the globe. This year .net core 3.0 will launch at the event.
The virtual livestream event will discuss what’s new in .NET by the builders. Other speakers will talk about some of the tools including .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, Xamarin, C#, Azure, AI/ML, etc.. Join and find out what the future holds for .NET.
We’ve put together local events taking place in Africa and the Middle East. Check the list to see if there’s an event taking place in your country.
Click for details and register to participate in a .NET Conf 2019 event near you.
SOUTH AFRICA
Durban, Kwazulu Natal – September 23rd (registration link TBA)
We will have the live stream of the virtual event, come back and check. Know of or organizing an event we haven’t entered. Kindly ask us to include it in the list. Thank you.
Follow the hashtag #dotNETConf to be part of the conversation.
Microsoft hosts 32 women in technology in a hackathon event in Nairobi.
9th July 2019, Nairobi: Kenya
Furthering its commitment to diversity and inclusivity in the engineering and technology space, Microsoft hosted the LEAP Hackathon. The event, which strives to increase technology skills, facilitate learning through challenges as well as strengthen the place of women in the technology sector, focused on solutions in the agricultural and health sectors.
“Research shows that the average productivity of major crops in Kenya has only increased by 17% over the last 10 years.
The lack of digitally enabled agripreneurs, inputs and quality data are sited as the reasons for this slow growth.
Microsoft endeavors to close the gap that exists in this sector by training ‘women hackers’ from non-traditional ICT backgrounds in the LEAP Hackathon programme who competed for the top spot in the hackathon”
Amrote Abdella, Regional Director for Microsoft 4Afrika.
The LEAP Engineering Acceleration Program is a 16-week program – launched to increase diversity within Microsoft. The program provides real world experience through development and project management apprenticeships and combines traditional classroom learning with hands-on projects.
32 Female hackers were identified to participate in the hackathon using a strict recruitment process which helped gauge the abilities of the applicants through 2 rounds of evaluation of the applications.
Participants of the hackathon received Azure credits while the overall winning group was awarded prizes.
The hackathon was a success, many novel solutions
were brought forth by the participants, but the group called The BugSlayers took
centre stage with their innovative AgRight presentation. AgRight is a
web application that uses Microsoft AI (Azure Custom Vision) for pest and
disease prediction. The app can also predict harvest time, connects farmers to
buyers and monitors farm activities. The bright minds behind this invention are
Clara Nashipai, Sylvia Achach, Rosianah Musyoka and Bethany Jepchumba.
Post hackathon, Microsoft will work with the
winning group on an ongoing internship program where they will be mentored and
helped to further build and develop their solution and skills.
“We are thrilled at the outcome of this year’s LEAP hackathon! As we continue to work to upskill and educate women across the continent – the endless opportunities and unprecedented innovations this brings is something we are excited to be a part of” Amrote Abdella.
Microsoft Ignite The Tour will take place in Johannesburg, Tel Aviv and Dubai in 2020.
Microsoft’s annual technical training for developers and IT professionals conference, Ignite, will be hitting the roads again. Microsoft Ignite is going global and will be in a city near you next year. This will be after the main Ignite conference takes place November 4th to 8th 2019 in Orlando, Florida.
Like last year Microsoft promises to bring the same vibe to you during a two day event on this tour. Get to learn ways to build solutions as well as migrate and manage your infrastructure. Meet people in software development, security, architecture and IT. Get hands-on and deep dive experiences in areas such as security, cloud and hybrid infrastructure and development.
In the Microsoft Middle East and Africa region the events will take place in Johannesburg, Dubai and Tel Aviv. The Johannesburg, South Africa event is scheduled to take place January 30-31, 2020. Dubai, United Arab Emirates, February 10-11, 2020 and April 22-23, 2020 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Promising over 100 sessions the event will help you grow your skills, explore new technology and connect with Microsoft engineers. If you are planning to attend there will be so many topics and sessions you’ll need to tailor the experience to what you want to leave with.
Again I echo, dear Microsoft can we have some of these events across West, North and East Africa? Thank You. I think I have spoken the mind of a lot of developers and IT Pros in the region. Also with the launch of the Africa Development Center this should be a thing.
Head over to the Microsoft Ignite The Tour event pages of each city.
Registration links aren’t live yet for Dubai and Tel Aviv. We will update this post once this happens. Update: Links for Johannesburg and Dubai are live, click to register.
Have you had an experience at any Microsoft developer or IT Pro event? Share your experience with us. Looking forward to attending? Share your thoughts with us.
All-Female Microsoft LEAP Hackathon event in Nairobi.
I thought it was going to be just an ordinary hackathon, when I first heard about the Microsoft LEAP hackathon. Where you just go and compete for prizes and that is it. Says Rosianah Musyoka, selected participant at Microsoft LEAP hackathon in Nairobi, Kenya.
“I was very excited when I got the acceptance email to participate in the program. My expectations were surpassed, interacting with some of the Microsoft engineers and learnt quite a lot from them. I gained a lot of knowledge around Microsoft Azure and made new friends.” she shares.
Microsoft selected twenty-six female developers to participate in its maiden LEAP hackathon event in Nairobi, Kenya. With a similar event underway for female developers in Lagos, Nigeria. An initiative of the recently launched Microsoft Africa Development Center in both cities. The all-female hackathon event “is to strengthen the place of women in the tech ecosystem” Microsoft says.
Learning
Participants were taken through four days of learning: Microsoft Azure, Azure DevOps, Azure AI, Machine Learning, etc. technologies. As well as hacking ideas using learnt technologies.
For Rosianah Musyoka the Microsoft LEAP
program was amazing. She hopes there we will be more of such in Kenya. Sharing that some of the things she learnt
during the event aren’t taught in school. Rosianah is a computer science final
year student at the University of Nairobi.
“Through the program, we have gained lots of skills which have equipped us to become better developers. The trainers who were all Microsoft employees were great, friendly and always ready to help.
Most of the things learned within the one week of the LEAP hackathon are not taught in school. It started with learning how to write maintainable and testable code, learning about dockers and containers, Azure Dev Ops, Azure custom vision, Azure machine learning studio among others.
In addition, we were exposed to other key nontechnical skills which are important when creating systems. These include creating a system that is inclusive of everyone, trustworthy, transparent, etc.”
The female developers were put in teams and tasked with solving societal problems in Agriculture and financial services industry (FSI). Requiring them to develop creative solutions using the technologies they’ve learnt. Rosianah and her teammates emerged winners of the hackathon event. Designing a web application powered by Microsoft Artificial Intelligence. The app helps Maize farmers predict and manage pests and diseases, predict harvest time and the yield amount as well as connect buyers to the farmers.
Hacking Ideas
“During the hackathon my team came up with a project which focuses on two main users, maize farmers and maize vendors. The problems we are solving for the farmer include: Lack of information about pests and disease and how to manage them. Lack of ready market access. Unpredictability of yield and harvest time. Due to this, the farmer is unable to plan for his business well.
The problems we are solving for the vendor include: Unpredictability of supply, hence the vendor is unable to plan for business. Lack of a reliable supply.
We solved the above problems using a web application powered by Azure AI services to: Help farmers predict and manage pests and diseases. Predict harvest time and the yield amount. Connecting Buyers and Farmers.
It was great to work on solutions that positively impact our society. Our solution was motivated by the problem, not any technology.
We had to think about the business model for our project, any similar projects that have launched and even competition market. We also brought in some knowledge acquired in school such as design thinking (developing for the user), business management and entrepreneurship among others to ensure that we do our project well and to completion.”
#MSLEAPHACKATHON#Microsoft I am really excited. My team and I won the competition. We hot ourselves some interesting prizes including ???
The winning team will continue to receive mentorship and assistance from Microsoft in building their project into a realization. Rosianah hopes their idea when actualized, will be used by farmers and maize vendors soon.
