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 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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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.
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:
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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GitHub announces the availability of GitHub Sponsors in 30 new regions including six located in Africa. The GitHub initiative is now available to open source developers and organizations in Kenya, Gambia, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia and Morocco. Developers and creators located in these countries can start receiving financial support for their work.
GitHub says there is no waitlist and anyone in these countries with a bank account can sign up right away. All you have to do is to create a GitHub Sponsors profile. Check this post out on how to create a profile. Alternatively, if you were on the waitlist you are now automatically in the program. You should see an email in your inbox welcoming you to the program. Anyone can sponsor, but you must reside in a supported region to receive funds.
we are here to support the humans behind human progress
GitHub Sponsors is an initiative by GitHub that allows anyone who contributes to open source to receive financial support. It is built for funding all types of work that advance open source software. Providing opportunities to participate in and build on open source, either through code, documentation, design, technical writing, mentorship, etc. It also provides a platform for the developer community to financially support the people and organizations who design, build, and maintain the open source projects they depend on, directly on GitHub.
GitHub says financially supporting the people who build and maintain open source is key to ensuring a healthy and sustainable open source ecosystem. The announcement makes the initiative now available in 68 countries or regions.
Through the GitHub Sponsors explore tool, GitHub has made it easy for anyone across the world to discover projects and maintainers and support them.
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Safaricom is partnering with technology sector partners such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon(AWS) to launch the Digital Talent Program to address talent supply shortage and mismatch and create a sustainable talent pipeline to position Kenya as the leading hub for tech talent in Africa. The program plans to upskill 1,000 participants based on the digital skills currently in high demand in its first year.
The Safaricom Digital Talent program seeks to develop digital skills in the market by taking a sustainable approach to creating a healthy digital talent pipeline. It will focus on nine priority skill areas; UI/UX design; Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; IoT; Big Data and Analytics; Cyber Security; Cloud Computing; Fintech; Robotics Process Automation; and Software Engineering.
The program will be delivered through a hybrid approach including classroom learning, mentorship, and internships for the experiential part of the learning. It will also involve hackathons, fireside chats, guest lecture sessions, incubation, career fairs, annual awards, curriculum reviews, placements, and certifications.
We believe that Africa should not only be a consumer of technology but also a hub for local talent, says Catherine Muraga Microsoft Africa Development Center Managing Director. “We can make a contribution to shaping and innovating the world. Kenya has a huge talent pool of competent and capable developers. That is why Microsoft and other tech companies are setting up their Africa operations here“, she adds.
The Safaricom Digital Talent Program has 30 partners including Microsoft, Google, IBM, Huawei, Oracle and Dell. It also includes 6 Universities, 14 Training Partners, 5 Tech-Hubs and community organizations, 7 Government agencies and 14 industry players.
Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO, notes the program is to position Kenya as the leading hub for tech talent in Africa.
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Microsoft announces Team Green Wavers as the winner of this year’s Game of Learners (GoL) university students hackathon competition. They won the climate change and sustainability-themed hackathon competition with a solution that encourages the public to plant trees. Team Wavers will have the privilege of working with the Green Belt Movement to develop their winning solution further.
Purity Jangaya (University of Nairobi), Ian Kariuki (Kenyatta University), Humphrey Kimathi (Kirinyaga University), Jessie Umuhire (African Leadership University) and Françoise Mukantwari (African Leadership University) make up the winning team, Green Wavers. The team got coaching support from Microsoft Africa Development Center’s Claire Limo (Software Engineer) and Loki Mutua (Product Manager).
The 5-week virtual hackathon’s objective was to propose solutions that reduce or reverse gas emissions and footprints, based on the theme Climate Change & Sustainability. Season 3 saw 40 students from universities in Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Uganda participating. It also had 21 judges from the Green Belt Movement, Kenya Climate Innovation Centre, UNICEF, the USIU, and the Microsoft ADC. In addition, there were 17 coaches and 16 trainers.
Green Wavers – Climate change solution
Based on the critical theme of Climate Change & Sustainability, the team created a tree planting competition website to encourage tree planting in line with the season’s challenge, which sought to propose a solution that reduces or reverses gas emissions and footprints.
The solution works in such a way that once a user has planted a tree and photographs it, the website allows the user to register and upload the image. Azure Computer Vision recognizes the uploaded image and confirms that the object in the image is a tree. If validation is successful, the database is updated with the user’s name, location, and tree image URL. If the user uploads another image and it is validated, the user’s tree count in the database grows.
If the validation fails, the user is prompted to upload a new image. After a month, the user with the most trees planted receives an award. The website also includes an education page where users can learn about the importance of planting trees, the consequences of cutting down trees, and how to plant a tree.
Carbon dioxide is thought to be responsible for 80% of global warming. Furthermore, it is estimated that the world emits approximately 43 billion tonnes of CO2 per year.
“Trees naturally absorb carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis and release pure oxygen into the environment. Therefore, planting trees equates to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. However, the number of trees being planted is far less than the number of trees being cut down. For one tree that is planted, three trees are cut down,” said Jangaya, the Green Wavers team captain.
“This is the problem that we identified, and the challenge is how we can make people plant more trees than those which are being destroyed. As team Wavers, we have found a solution and have developed a website that makes people plant trees.”
Microsoft Game of Learners
Speaking about the competition, the Game of Learners founder, Ruth Ferland said: “The focus of GOL is in fostering and encouraging continuous learning. It’s not about winning a prize but rather learning hands-on as much as possible in 5 weeks. Prizes and incentives are based on items that promote and assist learning including smartphones, Azure Credits, LinkedIn Learning Vouchers and MS Certification Vouchers.”
The participants’ journey is documented and released online as a weekly episode on the GOL Show with the finale having aired this week and can be found on the Game of Learners website. Volunteers support all GOL activities from Microsoft and partners as coaches, mentors, judges, speakers, and trainers.
Taking part in the Game of Learners competition is a winning experience for all participants considering the amount of learning that each participant is exposed to. The winning team gets an opportunity to have their winning solution adopted by an organization to develop it further.
“Another winning experience for Game of Learners participants is having the experience elevate them to become suitable candidates for various tech roles in the industry. From the previous Game of Learners seasons, we have seen a conversion rate of about 40% of our participants gaining meaningful employment with reputable companies, including Microsoft” Catherine Muraga, the ADC Managing Director emphasized.
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We bring you a list of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the year country award winners from across Africa. The announcement comes ahead of Microsoft Inspire 2022 where Microsoft will celebrate exemplary achievements from across its global partner ecosystem. The 2022 Microsoft Inspire partner event is set to take place July 19-20 as a free global digital event.
Microsoft uses the partner award to recognize outstanding partner accomplishments within its community. Highlighting organizations building new and innovative solutions for their customers using Microsoft technologies. This year, the company received over three thousand nine hundred entries from one hundred and twenty-six countries. Across categories including, partner competencies, cloud-to-edge technologies, entrepreneurial spirit and social impact.
Below are Microsoft Partner Africa winners from the country and region category.
At Microsoft, we believe our partners make more possible. That’s why we recognize exceptional partner contributions.
2022 Microsoft Partner Africa award winners – country category
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