Here is how Microsoft, IFC are digitising agribusinesses and supporting small-scale farmers in Africa

Here is how Microsoft, IFC are digitising agribusinesses and supporting small-scale farmers in Africa

Microsoft, through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO), has announced a partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to support digital transformation in Africa’s agricultural sector.

In a session during the Adaptation and Agriculture Day at COP27 in Egypt, the IFC and Microsoft highlighted the partnership that aims to deliver digital agriculture products that support African agribusinesses to strengthen food security and develop greater resilience against climate change.

Through the partnership, digital tools such as Microsoft’s AgBot and Community Training applications are integrated with IFC’s Agribusiness Leadership Program to provide better information, newer technologies, and management capacity training to agribusinesses, farmers, and cooperatives.

Digital technology can improve the operation of key supply chains in the food system by boosting production, improving business practices, promoting traceability, and increasing access to finance. However, the use of digital tools in Africa’s agriculture sector remains limited, often because of infrastructure, affordability, awareness, and regulatory issues,” said Henrik Elschner Pedersen, IFC’s Director for Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Services in Africa.

IFC and Microsoft are working together to change this so more agricultural players in Africa can leverage the power of the digital economy.”

Henrik Elschner Pedersen, IFC’s Director for Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Services in Africa.

In Africa, agriculture is estimated to contribute about 25 percent of Africa’s GDP and 70 percent of its employment. However, the supply chains of many agribusinesses in the continent are fragmented and suffer from poor information flows. Additionally, many farmers rely on traditional agronomic practices and technologies that are under increasing pressure from climate-related shocks.

four speakers from IFC, AGRA, Microsoft on a panel talk about how big data and AI is helping small -scale farmers improve produce

Current research estimates that smallholder farmers account for 80 percent of the farming community, with an estimated 33 million smallholder farmers. But they are often hard to reach, residing in remote areas, and lack access to skills, knowledge, and agricultural support services. Digital technology can improve the operation of key supply chains in the food system through greater agricultural efficiencies, improved business practices, traceability, food safety, and access to finance.

On his part, Kunle Awosika, Managing Director for Microsoft ATO said: “The changing climate presents new future opportunities for farmers in relation to emerging markets for carbon credits, regenerative agriculture, and the application of ‘nature-based services’.  However, these new opportunities need to be underpinned by robust management and reporting systems. These are precisely the systems that are supported by the new suite of digital tools,”

The package of digital tools provides users with the opportunity to upskill in areas such as more productive climate-smart farming practices and the application of ‘farming as a business. The digital tools delivered through the partnership are leveraging Microsoft’s agritech chatbot known as the AgBot, which provides extension and advisory services to smallholder farmers using either feature phones or smartphones, via SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram.

The AgBot provides a key platform that farmers can use to access information such as weather alerts, crop advisories, pest diagnosis, and market prices. Stakeholders in the agriculture ecosystem including governments, IFC, development partners, and private companies can also access the platform to deliver information to users. To date, over 500,000 farmers are actively using the AgBot to access information and improve productivity.

By using digital channels, agronomic and business sensitive information is delivered directly to smallholder farmers to help improve productivity as well as mitigate the risks associated with climate change and unexpected weather events. Combined, the digital tools encourage improved farming practices, more sustainable and resilient farming practices, and greater efficiencies in resource use,” says Awosika.

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Microsoft, Liquid Cloud to support African businesses with cloud services

Microsoft, Liquid Cloud to support African businesses with cloud services

Microsoft is announcing a partnership with Liquid Cloud through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO) to provide cloud services to businesses across the continent. Liquid Cloud and the Microsoft ATO will collaborate to deliver resilient cloud in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to meet regulatory and data residency requirements, address low latency workloads, strengthen resilience, and enable business continuity.

The hybrid cloud environment extends Azure capabilities enabling customers to create cloud-native applications faster with Azure platform and data services such as App Service, Functions, Logic Apps, Azure SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL database, and Azure machine learning. As a result, customers will be able to innovate anywhere and use the Azure platform to bring new solutions to life that solves today’s challenges, while creating the future.

Liquid Cloud Telecom

We witnessed an accelerated adoption of cloud technologies in Africa, and businesses are now reaping the benefits of their investment. Our customers are increasingly moving to hybrid work culture, meaning the demand for cloud-based services will only grow. Our partnership will enable us to build comprehensive and edge-based cloud capabilities that meet customer regulatory requirements and ensure that they deliver value to their customers,” said David Behr, CEO of Liquid Cloud and Cyber Security.

On his part, Wael El kabbany, General Manager, Africa Regional Cluster, Microsoft said: “Critical infrastructure enablers are needed to provide access to the cloud to accelerate digital transformation and the adoption of digital technologies. Working with Liquid Cloud, access to the local cloud will be available to more organizations and highly regulated industries across the continent. In addition, the hybrid cloud provides in-country resources that address data residency, latency, and storage requirements,

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Microsoft targets lack of investment, affordable access to finance in a new AfDB partnership

Microsoft targets lack of investment, affordable access to finance in a new AfDB partnership

Microsoft is announcing that it is expanding its partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to support Africa’s young entrepreneurs facing a lack of investment and affordable access to finance under the bank’s Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB) Initiative.

The expanded partnership seeks to support the establishment of national-level institutions through a public-private collaboration model to scale up technical and financial support for youth entrepreneurs and build their capacity. Through its African Transformation Office (ATO), Microsoft will work with the bank to develop youth entrepreneurship ecosystems, create jobs, and scale impact in Africa through digital inclusion.

Youth entrepreneurship, Microsoft notes will go a long way to solving the employment challenge. But admits a lack of investment, affordable access to finance, and quality business development services still present significant hurdles. The Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank is a unique value proposition set up by the African Development Bank that anchors and integrates efforts to develop entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa.

affordable access to finance Microsoft AfDB

We believe much can be done to help foster youth entrepreneurship by collaborating with the African Development Bank, driving greater economic inclusion for this key segment of the population, and ultimately building a more prosperous society,” says the General Manager of Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster Wael Elkabbany. “Already we’ve seen considerable success partnering on initiatives such as Coding for Employment, which aims to equip millions of African youth with employable skills, ultimately creating broadscale employment“, he adds.

Through this initiative, the AfDB will bring together all relevant financial and non-financial parties and partners to play their respective roles in supporting youth entrepreneurs through mentorship, coaching, knowledge and experience sharing, and more.

The African Development Bank Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure, and Industrialization Solomon Quaynor says: “The strengthening of our partnership with Microsoft on the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB) is an important development in our journey towards harnessing Africa’s demographic dividend and facilitating the creation of millions of jobs for young Africans by 2025. The initiative places much-needed focus on youth entrepreneurship, which is key to achieving our ambitious employment targets.”

Collaborating with both private sectors and partners, the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank will establish a funding scheme, credit guarantee scheme, and technical assistance programs to strengthen providers of services to entrepreneurs. In terms of policy support, it will advocate to governments for the business-enabling environment reforms needed to catalyse youth entrepreneurship.

Microsoft says it will also leverage its partner ecosystem, which covers 54 countries across the continent, to act on crucial technology solutions across four key areas. These include skilling, connectivity, small-to-medium enterprise (SME) digitization, and hardware:

Skilling
To connect youth to economic opportunity and employability skills, the partnership will provide them with career pathways and learning content. This includes the use of existing e-learning platforms such as Coding for Employment. The initiative also aims to build the capacity of Enterprise Services Organizations, benefitting youth through training trainers.

Connectivity
By leveraging successful connectivity solutions such as Microsoft Airband, the partnership will develop effective infrastructure models to help bridge the digital divide. At the same time, it will support other innovative solutions on the market either through direct or indirect investment.

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) digitization
The partnership also aims to improve SME digital literacy and business skills by creating access to curated learning content, certifications, business solutions, business skills, and specialized digital skills. This will be driven in partnership with LinkedIn and through skilling programs such as MS Learn and the Cloud Academy. Access to finance for digitally enabled SMEs will also be facilitated through Microsoft partnerships.

Hardware
SME access to bundled hardware solutions will be created by Microsoft and its partners. SMEs will also be able to purchase Microsoft technology at discounted prices.
The partnership also forms an important part of Microsoft ATO’s mission to empower 10 million SMEs through access to skilling initiatives and investments, and to generate the capacity needed to scale and provide digital skills to 30 million Africans.

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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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PayAngel to innovate faster with the Microsoft Founders Hub opportunity

PayAngel to innovate faster with the Microsoft Founders Hub opportunity

PayInc Group Limited, trading as PayAngel is announcing its selection into the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub program. A Microsoft program that seeks to remove traditional barriers that startups face when building a company. PayAngel believes the program will help them innovate faster and accelerate their growth. The company offers remittance and payment solutions to the African Diaspora.

PayAngel Microsoft Founders hub

Microsoft Africa Transformation Office in March this year launched the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub in new initiatives to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups and fast-track investment in Africa’s start-up ecosystem. It is a new digital and all-inclusive platform that gives startups free access to Microsoft technology, tools, coaching, and support to build and scale their business. It also includes opportunities for the startups to sell to Microsoft’s corporate and enterprise customers.

Jones Amegbor, CEO of PayAngel, notes that the exclusive technology packages in the Hub will allow the company to innovate faster and accelerate its growth.

What this means to our existing and new customers is a more robust, secured and enhanced system, expansion to other territories and straight-through service delivery”.

Beyond access to technology, the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub program empowers young entrepreneurs to innovate and grow by connecting through their mentoring program. Which provides them with industry, business, and technical support to guide them through their next business milestones.

Founders also get access to Microsoft Learn and a variety of programs to help them build connections with customers and accelerate their growth.

The Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub centres around these three key areas:

Unlocking innovations for all: The platform eliminates traditional barriers founders face when starting, such as venture capital requirements or third-party validation to help any founder, regardless of background, location, or access, to be successful.

Technology benefits that grow: Keeping pace with a startup’s lifecycle, the platform helps founders speed development with free access to GitHub and the Microsoft Cloud with the ability to unlock additional benefits over time

Access to mentorship and guidance: Through the platform, startups can connect with industry veterans, access tailored startup-centric training and innovate quickly with expert technical guidance.

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Microsoft pledges agritech support in Africa to increase food security

Microsoft pledges agritech support in Africa to increase food security

Microsoft is promising its commitment to working with both the private and public sectors to accelerate digital transformation in African agriculture in order to increase food security for the continent.

Speaking during a virtual roundtable panel discussion on the topic, Microsoft Kenya Acting Country Manager Kunle Awosika said the organisation is committed to continuing investing in agritech on the continent, with the goal of developing agritech that enables data-driven, precise and connected farming that optimises yields, boosts farm productivity and increases profitability.

We understand that these important issues will not be solved by one company, but through partnerships with the private sector and our partners in government for maximum impact and benefit to the farmers of Africa,” he said.

food security africa microsoft agritech

Speaking at the same forum, ATO Coordinator, Agriculture Transformation Office, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives Thule Lenneiye, said: “Through partnerships such as the one with Microsoft, we can offer our smallholder farmers valuable services that help them modernize and digitize age-old farming practices, increasing productivity and boosting food security for our communities and country.”

One way in which agritech changes the face of agriculture is through democratising information. In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Microsoft is investing in the Kenyan National Agriculture Platform as a key initiative to drive digitalization in agriculture. As part of this investment, a developer team based in Kenya has developed an Agri chatbot, which provides extension and advisory services to smallholder farmers using either feature phones or smartphones, via SMS, WhatsApp and Telegram.

The AgriBot provides a key platform that farmers can use to access all the relevant information from the Ministry of Agriculture and other government institutions, as well as services from the private sector. These services are invaluable to the over 400,000 farmers already on the platform who would otherwise not have access to such a resource.

Olatomiwa Williams, Microsoft Country Manager Nigeria and Ghana speaking at the forum said the organization is working with stakeholders to identify and develop sustainable and inclusive digital solutions for agro-products and services that seamlessly connect farmers, customers and other stakeholders in the ecosystem. Importantly to improve the economic situation of farmers in Nigeria.

Microsoft also recently announced that it is extending its partnership with the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The initial collaboration between the two organizations started in 2019 when Microsoft and AGRA co-created the AgriBot as a digital solution for localized extension and advisory services for smallholder farmers.

The new phase of the relationship will promote digital innovation and technology as an enabler to connect the agriculture ecosystems, sustainably integrating stakeholders in the service of strategic value chains.

Our partnership with AGRA forms part of Microsoft’s ongoing investment in agritech across the continent as we support digital transformation in the sector. We’re excited to continue building locally relevant technology solutions that address the local farmers’ needs and deliver meaningful impact,” added Kunle.

On his part, John Macharia, AGRA Kenya Country Manager, said: “At AGRA, we realized early on that digital innovation is critical in advancing food security and poverty eradication in Africa. Our partnership with Microsoft will directly support governments, SMEs and farmers, by bringing the digital tools needed to build resilient food systems.”

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