In a new partnership, Zindi will use Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure to power their platform.
Social enterprise Zindi is on a mission to build the data science ecosystem of Africa. Building Africa’s first data science competition platform in the process. Microsoft is partnering with Zindi. Offering to power Zindi’s data science competition platform on their Azure cloud.
As part of the partnership Microsoft is sponsoring two Agritech competitions. Wazhihub soil humidity prediction challenge using sensor data from IoT and FarmPin a crop detection challenge using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.
Currently it hosts an entire data science ecosystem of scientists, engineers, academics, companies, NGOs, governments and institutions focused on solving Africa’s most pressing problems.
Microsoft names managing director for its new Africa Development Centre site in Kenya. Jack Ngare will head Microsoft’s Africa Windows engineering team based in Nairobi, Kenya.
In May Microsoft announced a new milestone on the African continent. Launching a hundred million dollar investment which Microsoft believes will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions. The Africa Development Centre Microsoft also shared will serve as a centre of engineering for the world class African talent.
To lead these world class talents create solutions for local and global impact is Jack Ngare. Jack recently served as the managing director of Equitel, Finserve Africa Limited of Equity Group Holdings Limited. He has held various positions with experiences in emerging technology, management, financial services and telecommunications.
“This is such an incredible opportunity, to join an organisation that is truly empowering people globally, and in Africa, to achieve more.
I can’t wait to start my new journey as managing director and proud to lead such a talented team in Nairobi.
I also look forward to welcoming many more talented engineers to the centre as we all embark on this wonderful digital transformation journey.”
Microsoft announces the availability of Office 365 on its datacenters located in South Africa. Customers in the region can now migrate their accounts starting today according to the announcement.
“We are proud to announce that Office 365 is now available on the local datacenters! Migrate your current Office 365 account today!“
In March this year Microsoft announced its cloud datacenters in Africa. To be located in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. With Azure being the first of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud services to be delivered from the new datacenters.
At the launch event Microsoft said its cloud based productivity solutions; Office 365 and Dynamics 365 intelligent business application services were expected to launch by quater three this year. However Microsoft now says customers should expect Dynamics 365 and Power Platform to be available in the fourth quarter, 2019.
What this means is that African customers can now have their data stored on datacenters in Africa. They can also expect better services with regards to latency, data residency and regulations.
Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for business are services Microsoft shares will be made available. As well as “many of the Microsoft Services that work in conjunction with this data, for example, but not limited to, Exchange Online Protection, Delve, Office Online, and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection.”
With the availability of Microsoft’s cloud services delivered from Africa, it will mean local companies can securely move their business to the cloud.
Yousef Khalidi Corporate Vice President of Azure Networking
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.
Some of the software developers hired by Microsoft speak out about their journey and the opportunity to be part of something amazing. Listen to them talk below. Want to join the Microsoft ADC check out opportunities.
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.
