Register to showcase your innovation at the 2020 Imagine Cup EMEA Online Regional Semifinals.
Do you have an idea that solves a problem? Can your idea use Microsoft’s Azure technology in solving the problem? Register to participate in Microsoft’s 2020 Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Imagine Cup online regional semifinals. For a chance to qualify to the EMEA Regional finals in Amsterdam. Where you can win USD 8,000 cash, Azure credits and travel to the world finals in Seattle.
Students at any qualified academic institution aged 16 and above can participate in the cup competition. Teams can be of one to three members.
Imagine Cup is about innovations changing the way we live. It is about solutions and applications that save lives.
The competition provides a platform for student teams across the globe to showcase the technology ideas they create. How those technologies can not only shape their futures, but directly improve the lives of users.
EMEA Online Regional Semifinals
The competition begins with a call to submit unique ideas to the online regional semi-final competition. Submit your EMEA online regional semi-final projects by December 15, 2019. Announcement of finalists will take place on 15th January 2020. They will advance to present their projects 10th March 2020 at the in-person Regional Finals in Amsterdam.
Local country competitions will he held in some countries. Winners from these countries will join the online winners at the 2020 Imagine Cup EMEA regional finals in Amsterdam. For a chance to qualify to the world finals. Last year team iCropal from Kabarak University, Kenya was one of such teams.
Team iCropal Left, present at EMEA regional finals in Amsterdam
2020 World Finals
Winners and runner up teams from EMEA, Asia and Americas Regional Final will meet in Seattle to compete in the Imagine Cup World Championship. For a chance to win USD 100,000 cash. As well as USD 50,000 in Azure grants and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Do you need help to get started? There are lots of resources to get you learning and going.
Liquid Telecom hosted an Azure Accelerator conference in Mauritius in partnership with Microsoft. The event saw attendees learning how to benefit from Microsoft’s Azure and cloud services.
This year Microsoft announced Africa cloud datacenters for customers and organizations in the region. Microsoft cloud partner Liquid Telecom, together with Microsoft invited organizations to the event to learn and explore what the African Azure Cloud meant for African businesses.
Event speakers expounded on digital transformation, cloud trends, cyber security, their impact in the cloud and more. The Azure Accelerator Conference in Mauritius also showcased how some local businesses are already using the services. Participants were able to meet and network with Liquid Telecom and Microsoft experts.
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’s Middle East and Africa(MEA) Multi-Country Cluster(MCC) was declared Top subsidiary Award winner for Small and Multi Countries Subsidiary Category for FY19. Announced at Microsoft Inspire and Microsoft Ready 2019 partner conference in Las Vegas.
Formed a year ago, the MEA MCC includes countries in Africa(minus South Africa and Egypt), Indian Ocean Islands, Levant and Pakistan. I remember when Ibrahim Youssry Microsoft General Manager MEA MCC visited Ghana to talk to Partners. The forum was to introduce the MCC and share Microsoft’s one core vision with partners.
Ibrahim Youssry joined top Microsoft executives including CEO Satya Nadella on stage for the recognition. Watch this in the video below.
I am incredibly honored and proud to announce that Microsoft MEA Multi-Country Cluster (MCC) has been selected as the top Microsoft subsidiary. This is an amazing recognition of our collective collaboration and commitment to serve our customers in the region which spans across Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, as well as Levant and Pakistan. The award comes as we celebrate one year of the MCC subsidiary, and as I take a moment to reflect on this achievement, I feel utmost pride and appreciation. To all our staff located across the 67 markets of our subsidiary, and for our valued partners, thank you all for making it all possible!
In Rwanda Microsoft is supporting African Renewable Energy Distributor (ARED), a technology for social good company. That provides a one stop shop – mobile digital kiosk – platform offering digital services and connectivity to customers in Rwanda. ARED CEO, Henri Nyakarundi says “our solar kiosk platform revolutionizes the way distribution network is built”.
Microsoft’s partnership came in different areas. We won’t be able to do this business without cloud technology. Microsoft is helping us also find investors.
Henri Nyakarundi, CEO ARED
ARED recruits and trains women and people with disability to operate these kiosks to generate revenue by earning commissions. These vendors offer services like selling wifi, airtime, electricity prepaid, government services like Irembo and Rwanda Revenue Tax, etc.. The company understands that when low income people start business they don’t have the capital to do business. So they offer the vendors credit to sell these services and payback.
ARED has about 200 solar mobile digital kiosk and plans to have about 300 mobile digital kiosk around Rwanda soon.
Oman Data Park (ODP) announces the deployment of Microsoft Azure Stack solutions in its facilities. The new partnership with Microsoft and Cisco will see the company offering Azure services on their data centers. Bringing customers cloud computing to build and deploy hybrid applications. Oman Data park plans to launch Azure Stack by September 2019.
CEO of ODP describes storing data locally as one key challenge the IT managed services provider company faced. The platform was jointly developed by engineering teams of Microsoft and Cisco to launch hybrid cloud offerings.
Sheikh Saif Hilal Al Hisni, Microsoft Country Manager Bahrain and Oman says this will propel the country forward on its Vision 2040 journey.
“As Oman Data Park works to move digital transformation forward across the sultanate, Microsoft will continue its commitment to the government, people and business community of Oman. The ability to engage customers, empower employees, optimise operations and transform products and services will undoubtedly propel the country forward on its Vision 2040 journey.” – Sheikh Saif Hilal Al Hosni, Country Manager, Microsoft Bahrain & Oman
Cisco
“The ability to dynamically deliver business critical applications is a key requirement for all organisations in the age of digitization. Cloud computing is one of the main technologies driving this change. By deploying the Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack for the first time in Oman, ODP now has a comprehensive and pre-integrated cloud platform to accelerate service delivery and thus contribute to the development of the country’s digital economy.
This platform was jointly developed by the engineering teams of both Cisco and Microsoft and brings the agility and fast-paced innovation of cloud computing to on-premises environments. Cisco has the breadth and depth of product and service offerings which have already been tested and consistently used for public, private and hybrid cloud solutions. We are pleased that together we are able to put this cutting-edge platform at the disposal of ODP and its customers.” – Ali Al Lawati, General Manager Cisco Oman
