Update: New date for Nigeria event announced. Watch the full Kenya event below.
Join Microsoft Africa Development Center software engineer and program managers as they share their journey and experiences. Also, get to know the Microsoft product and services they are and have been working on. Finally, find out what it will take for you to join them in this virtual meetup.
There will be two virtual meetup sessions for each site location. The site in Lagos focuses on building Microsoft AI and Mixed reality services. Whilst the Nairobi team builds solutions and experiences for Windows and Microsoft 365. Click to register to participate in the event. There will be a Q&A session. so come with questions.
Introducing the Africa Development Center in Nigeria will now take place on the 4th of March 2021, 5:00 pm-6:00 pm (GMT+1). It was earlier scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 21 October at 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm West Africa Time (GMT +1). But due to the end SARS protests Microsoft has since postponed the Nigeria event and will be announcing a future date.
“Our team has been thoroughly assessing the recent situation (ENDSARS protest) in Nigeria, and based on the latest news, we decided to postpone our live event for a more suitable date in the future. We will come back with regular communications regarding the potential date of the event.“
Missed the Nairobi, Kenya event? Watch the it below.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella notes the Microsoft Africa Development Center will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions that benefit Africa and the entire world.
This year the Microsoft software engineers in Africa celebrated their first anniversary. The Lagos team also saw Azure Object Anchors mixed reality service for HoloLens become available in private preview as announced at Microsoft Ignite 2020.
Update February 22 2021, 6:40 PM GMT: Article updated with the new date and time for Nigeria event.
Update October 16 2020, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 16, 6:00 PM GMT: Article updated with additional details on the postponement of Nigeria event. Update October 27 2020, 2:30 PM GMT: Article updated with Youtube video of the Nairobi, Kenya event.
Microsoft Kenya announces that over two thousand three hundred Kenyan graduates and interns will receive Microsoft training and certification by the end of this month.
The initiative by the company is aimed at closing the skills gap. As well as prepare the students for the world of work after college.
The program which started in December 2019 has seen 800 Kenyan graduates and interns trained so far. It is expected to see 1500 more students trained on Soft skills and Microsoft technologies by September 2020.
Martin Ndlovu, Head of Skills Development at Microsoft 4Afrika, notes that ensuring workplace readiness for our young graduates is important in Africa.
“What’s even more important in Africa, given the youth bulge and widening skills gap, is ensuring workplace readiness for our young graduates who are finding that their degree doesn’t quite fit the requirements of 4IR and the digital economy.”
Maurice Oduor, a participant in the programme shares, “the initiative has prepared me to venture into the world of cloud. From here, I plan to invest in my career towards cloud computing and maybe be an evangelist in the future.”
A mobile-based medical application dubbed RemD (Remote Doctor) emerged as the winner of the Game of Learners (GOL) competition sponsored by Microsoft’s Africa Development Center (ADC). The mobile application was developed by five students drawn from Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Multimedia University of Kenya, Strathmore University and Mt. Kenya University.
The Game of Learners hackathon was to demonstrate the application of technology in developing e-health systems. That will enable patients to access normal medical services remotely.
Project RemD app was developed by five students namely Daniel Katungi (Mt. Kenya University), Sandra Makena (Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Joshua Melita (Strathmore University), Cyndrella Wafula of Multimedia University and led by Microsoft Student Ambassador Joshua Ndemenge (Dedan Kimathi University)
RemD uses technology to avail a set of tools and services that aim to bring health care services to a user or an organization. Through the app, a user requests for consultation services selecting whether they would like consultation with either a general physician, a psychiatrist, or a paediatrician. They then receive a message from the bot to begin triage where all the symptoms are recorded. After the triage, the bot sends all the information recorded to the doctor on the App. The doctor continues the conversation with a user via SMS. If the doctor deems it necessary, an in-person appointment can be set up.
“Any user seeking medical services can access our services through the mobile app or the USSD App. While the doctor on the other end can interact with these users using the windows app,” explains the RemD team leader, Joshua Ndemenge.
The African Development Center Managing Director Jack Ngare congratulated all the 25 participating students noting that some of the projects presented had big potential for commercialisation and Microsoft was willing to support them achieve that dream.
Apart from RemD, the other projects submitted include Tribore, MediChap, Mizizi and Motion, all showcasing various solutions to avail healthcare solutions via different technology platforms.
“While access to healthcare has been a key concern in Africa for ages, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the impetus to discover new technology solutions that will enable health providers handle an influx of people who get sick. It is encouraging to see the young generation and innovators harnessing the technology they have access to in developing solutions for the industry,” said Jack Ngare, the Africa Development Center Managing Director at the end of the competition.
He added, “We are keen at growing your skills and I will really be proud to see some of you that has participated in the Game of Learners joining one of the engineering teams at Microsoft.”
In addition, Microsoft Research is running a programme called HealthNext that seeks to discover some of the new sustainable methods of offering healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa and India and as such would be following up on some of the projects submitted to see how they can be scaled to the next level, Ngare said.
The Game of Learners hackathon, which kicked off in June, is aimed to empower the students to develop impactful solutions that can help address some of Africa’s and the world’s challenges. It is structured as a 5-week virtual hackathon comprised of weekly sprints where, at the end of the 5th week, all participating teams submit their final projects for judging. There were volunteers from ADC and Microsoft Global Sales and Marketing departments to train, coach the students throughout the 5-week engagement and judge each team’s final project submission.
To ensure that all participants had required tools to participate, every participant received:
Solar panel with battery and inverter
MiFi device loaded with data bundles
LinkedIn Learning vouchers
Azure Fundamentals exam vouchers
DevOps and agile practices training
1-year Azure credits
Digital certificate and digital badge for participation
Besides having the winning team featured on the ADC site along with announcements on social media, each standing member of the winning team will be rewarded with:
Additional 1-year Azure credits
Additional 1-year LinkedIn Learning vouchers
Digital certificate and digital badge for winning
1:1 mentorship from preferred Microsoft professionals
“We are so keen on enabling the next generation of great engineers from Africa and innovators that will not only benefit Microsoft, but the entire ecosystem as well,” Ngare said.
Some of these software engineers took to social media to share the one-year anniversary package they received from Microsoft. Check out some of the posts below. Thereafter we will look at how far the company has come on its journey with the continent.
Africa is a unique opportunity … we are opening these development centers … where you see people who are very qualified for the kind of work we do
Phil Spencer, executive sponsor of the Microsoft ADC
Microsoft in Africa
Microsoft has been operating in Africa for the past thirty years. Having local offices in Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. With South Africa hosting the oldest Microsoft offices in Africa.
However, this has mainly been on the sales side of the business. Providing consumers and organizations, mostly governmental ones with various services. The closest you could come to Microsoft workers in Africa were either through partner organizations or Microsoft employees acting as technical account managers who implement, onboard and deploy Microsoft services for customers and clients.
The launch event came off on the backdrop of a lot of backlash to self-professed Africa’s biggest online e-commerce site Jumia. The CEO had claimed a lack of local software engineering talent. Microsoft shared it believed in the growing local talent and that it was time to tap into that pool.
Our new Microsoft Africa Development Center will be at the forefront of building innovative solutions that benefit Africa − and the entire world. https://t.co/DlIrdkfMaF
Phil Spencer, Microsoft corporate vice president and executive sponsor of the Africa Development Center, and Michael Fortin, corporate vice president at Microsoft and the lead in establishing the first ADC engineering team in Nairobi, led the pomp and pageant opening ceremonies in Nairobi, Kenya and were joined by Microsoft Technical Fellow, Alex Kipman, for the Lagos launch event.
The Nairobi Microsoft Africa Development Center site software engineers contribute to building Windows and Office 365 products and services. Whilst the Lagos site software engineers contribute to building Microsoft Azure services that power new Augmented Reality experiences.
At the launch events, Microsoft executives shared the company was going to hire about five hundred software engineers by 2023, across both center sites. With plans to hire 100 software engineers by the end of 2019.
We reached out to Microsoft for the latest updates on the Microsoft Africa development centers and haven’t gotten any feedback as at publishing this. We will bring you updates when Microsoft responds.
Two students, Michael Mwaisakenyi and Kenneth Gichira, from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) are the regional winners of the 18th annual Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition.
The annual competition saw thousands of students across the world submitting innovations to impact their communities, both locally and globally. The competition advanced through hackathons, online semi-finals, and virtual regional final events, bringing together finalists via Microsoft Teams. Six teams, including a team of bright young minds from Kenya, were selected to move forward to the World Championship and present their projects to compete for the 2020 trophy on the biggest stage yet—the Microsoft Build 2020 digital event.
EMEA champions
The winning team, The Knights from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, created an automated robot using artificial intelligence to identify and remove weeds from rows of crops. Their solution uses cameras as sensors to gather input from the environment and eliminate farmers’ need to use environmentally harmful pesticides in their weeding. As part of winning the regional finals, the team won 8000 USD each. Prizes also included Azure credits and a spot in the Imagine Cup World Championship event.
“Microsoft Imagine Cup has always aimed to empower students to use their imagination and passion for technology. To develop innovative and inclusive solutions that tackle key societal issues. This aligns directly with Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to providing students with the necessary resources and platforms to hone in on and grow their skillset. With an increasing focus on bringing the world together digitally, we’re continually encouraged by the projects young developers create to make a difference. We are also extremely proud of The Knights.Who by making it to the championship event, have reaffirmed Kenya and Africa’s immense potential to create solutions that directly address socio-economic needs within industries such as the agricultural sector,” says Kendi Nderitu, Country Manager for Microsoft in Kenya.
Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship Competition
Held in virtual format this year in light of the health safety recommendations, World Finalists pitched their projects during Microsoft Build’s inaugural digital event.
This year’s event saw innovation experts spanning a variety of technology, diversity, and social change-centred experiences that align to the core of Imagine Cup’s mission as judges. These are; tech innovator and leader Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO of Reboot Representation. She has worked to empower underrepresented groups in technology. Young innovators and CyberCode Twins, America and Penelope Lopez. Who have participated in tech competitions across the world and hope to introduce other students to opportunities in the field. Finally, Microsoft president Brad Smith. He leads work on a wide range of issues involving the intersection of technology and society. Including ethics and AI, human rights, and environmental sustainability.
Kicking off the event with a short pitch of their projects in the lightning round, the judges selected Team Hollo from Hong Kong along with Team Syrinx from Japan and Team Tremor Vision from the United States to advance to the second and final round of the competition. Each of the top three teams then gave an in-depth presentation of their solutions. Assessed for their diversity, originality and innovative design.
Winners
Judges selected Team Hollo as the 2020 Microsoft Imagine Cup championship winners. The team, from the University of Hong Kong, won the grand prize. With a mental health companion web app leveraging Azure analytics and AI services to advance youth therapy practices. The grand prize included 100,000 USD, a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and 50,000 USD in Azure grants.
Also making it to the top-six position was Team RedWalls from Tunisia National Institute of Applied Science and Technology. With their I-Remember mobile application designed for the well-being of both the Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
Innovations from bright minds in Africa
“We are thrilled for Team Hollo and look forward to future updates surrounding their winning solution. At the same time, we are also encouraged by the sheer talent of all this year’s finalists. Who clearly put a lot of thought behind their unique tech innovations. As we continue to navigate through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly in such uncertain times, I am confident we will continue to see innovations from young bright minds not only in Africa but the world over,” concludes Nderitu.
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Andela is partnering with Microsoft to bring Azure cloud skills to technologists in Kenya and Nigeria. Through the Andela Learning Community with Microsoft Azure training program.
Today, we launch the #ALCwithMicrosoft Azure Training program! Microsoft and Andela are giving you the opportunity to advance your skills in Microsoft Azure.This is in a bid to drive a collective mission to empower current and future African technologists with for high-value employment skillset.
“The program is opened to anyone looking to grow their Azure software development skills. And is excited to learn with a community of technologists” Andela shares.
At the end of the training, shortlisted participants will receive Microsoft Azure certification exam vouchers.
Liquid Telecom introduces 21CSkills learning platform for the African tech enthusiast. With over 200 courses including Data Science, Blockchain, Game Development, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
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