Microsoft 4Afrika, Microsoft’s business and market development engine in Africa is rebranding its employability and capacity building programme, AppFactory to SkillsLab.
The SkillsLab programme will as before, develop digital skills, coding capabilities and workplace readiness of young university graduates. As well as give them priority access to jobs through the Microsoft Partner Network at the end of their training.
Seven years on, Microsoft notes the initiative has about 2073 graduates from 19 SkillsLabs across the Middle East Africa region. It also boasts of 85% employment rate achieved within three months of graduating.
Africa has a unique opportunity to be a skills hub for the world.
Amrote ABDELLA
“Outpacing the rate of change driven by emerging technologies, there is a need for nimble and continued learning opportunities that can derive tangible benefits” says Amrote Abdella, Regional Director, Microsoft 4Afrika.
“Through its skilling initiatives Microsoft aims to address these challenges by skilling and upskilling individuals to adequately seize these opportunities,” she continues.
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UNICEF is bringing its Learning Passport platform powered by Microsoft to the youth of Jordan. To help them continue their learning and skills development at home amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The platform offers courses in advanced coding and software development, Microsoft Arabic digital literacy courses, life skills, social entrepreneurship and English language.
UNICEF Learning Passport is free and provides content in both online and offline formats. The launch in Jordan means it is the first version to be launched in Arabic and in the Middle East Region.
Through our partnership with UNICEF and The University of Cambridge on the Learning Passport, we are able to rapidly provide a locally-relevant remote learning solution. That ensures continuous access to education for millions of youth in Jordan says Roula Chehab, Microsoft Jordan Country Manager.
“At Microsoft, our priority has been to find ways for technology to improve people’s lives and bring the promise of technology to those who are most at risk of being left behind in this era of digital transformation. Our focus includes closing the skills gap and ensuring that our solutions benefit all youth to become tomorrow’s leaders. Unlocking this potential for all students to learn through immersive and inclusive learning experiences.”
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Online learning platform, Udacity and Microsoft are introducing a new training program collaboration. The collaboration will see Udacity host various courses on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. The partnership will start with a Machine Learning Scholarship Program for Microsoft Azure.
The Machine Learning scholarship program will start with a two-month-long low-code experience introduction to machine learning on Azure course. Followed by a four-month full Udacity Nanodegree program. The first phase will see 10,000 scholarships spots awarded. However, only 300 spots will be available in the Nanodegree program. Top performers from the foundation level who meet the selection criteria will make it.
“AI is driving transformation across organizations and there is increased demand for data science skills,” says Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Azure Marketing, Microsoft. “Through our collaboration with Udacity to offer low-code and advanced courses on Azure Machine Learning, we hope to expand data science expertise as experienced professionals will truly be invaluable resources to solving business problems,” she continues.
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Facebook launches video and messaging chat app called Messenger Kids across Africa. The app allows children to connect with their friends and family in a supervised environment.
Parents can monitor and control children’s activities through a dashboard. From the dashboard, parents can monitor recent contacts, chat history and reported and blocked contacts. They can also see a log of sent and received images and videos in chats. As well as enable supervised friending and remote device log out through the dashboard.
The app is suitable for children between the ages of six to twelve years. Messenger Kids app is free and you can be download it from the Apple, Google Play and Amazon app stores.
Facebook shares it worked closely with experts in online safety, child development and media, and consulted with child safety advocates and educators across Africa ahead of the app launch. To ensure the app provides a service that balances parental control with features that help kids learn how to connect responsibly online.
“We know that parents are turning to technology more than ever to help their kids connect with friends and family online“ says Kojo Boakye, Facebook Public Policy Director, Africa. With privacy, security and parental control at the heart of the app, Messenger Kids provides a safe, fun space, controlled by parents to do exactly that, he continues.
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Here are the available Microsoft 4Afrika internship positions across Africa. Find internship roles in, Angola, Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal and Mauritius.
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 any of the mentioned countries? Get to be a Technical Support, Sales or Marketing intern. Microsoft’s Intern4Afrika initiative will offer you a unique experience with a dynamic and agile technology organization. Learn and work at the same time.
You will get the opportunity to work for 6 months with a Microsoft partner organization on real projects. Get to collaborate and learn from your colleagues.
“You can also get to be hired by the firm depending on your performance and if you are interested in being hired after the internship program” a participant shared.
Kindly click on links below to apply on the Microsoft 4Afrika Interns4Afrika FUZU page. Read the position requirements and sign up and fill away. All the best.
We will appreciate if you will share this with your network of friends or anyone who might need this. Thank you.
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 the page and check back. Subscribe to recieve latest opportunities as well. Thank you.
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BeMyApp and Microsoft present an online hackathon centered around remote work. Dubbed the Remote Resilience Online Hackathon. The competition let’s you showcase your remote work idea using Microsoft technology.
The competition invites startups, individuals and teams with ideas around and not limited to Remote Collaboration & Productivity, Remote Secure Access Management, Remote Rapid Business Process & Customer Relationship Management and Remote Distributed Team Programming to apply.
Registration and submission of ideas starts from 14th May to 23rd June. On the 29th of June 2020, five winners will then be announced. There is no limit in the number of ideas you can submit. But you can only have one registration per innovation, project or idea.
Additionally, Microsoft will also host a webinar on May 28th. To announce resources and give insights on technologies that can help you build your prototypes.
The hackathon event is organized by BeMyApp and sponsored by Microsoft.
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