Four hundred thousand people in South Africa have participated in the Microsoft Global Skills initiative. A Digital skills initiative that seeks to help participants gain in-demand skills to become employable. This shows an increase from the three hundred thousand shared in March this year.
Lillian Barnard, Managing Director, Microsoft South Africa details this at the launch event of the Nedbank DigiSkills online platform. Another strategic partnership with a private sector organization to extend the reach of digital skills to more South Africans.
Extending access to these learning paths, skills and tools come at a critical time for South Africa, says Lillian Barnard. Noting a declining economy and unemployment remain a mounting and widespread challenge in the country.
Even though the skills program has exceeded its initial goal of reaching 25 million learners, only over a million of those come from Africa. With South Africa having the most participants. Microsoft mentioned partnering with other organizations and governments as one of the many ways to change this. And offering additional funding and services where necessary.
These partnerships have been fundamental to scale programmes that help more people gain the critical future skills needed in the digital economy. We are committed to collaborating with partners such as Nedbank and Afrika Tikkun to provide the training, tools and platforms to boost employability and economic growth.
Lillian Barnard
Lillian believes digital skills are the most effective way to drive economic recovery in South Africa. Noting it is a priority for Microsoft to create opportunities that will enable and empower unemployed South Africans. Microsoft has provided $150000 in grants to the youth development NPO to extend the reach of the Microsoft Skills Initiative programme in South Africa.
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Nedbank is introducing the Nedbank DigiSkills online platform. A low bandwidth digital skills training program in partnership with Microsoft and Afrika Tikkun. To help South Africans acquire the in-demand skills needed in a more digital post-COVID-19 economy. It plans to upskill and create sustainable income opportunities for one thousand South Africans by the end of 2021. With plans to scale this number to five thousand in the longer term.
The platform offers five free online courses and learning tracks that lead to roles in software development, data analysis, IT administration, customer service specialist and project management. Participants will undergo an evaluation process after the completion of a learning path. Those who qualify proceed to complete a Microsoft Certification exam.
South Africans over the age of 18, who can read and write English are eligible to participate in the Nedbank DigiSkills training.
Participating in the skills program is easy and here are the steps. First, visit the platform https://www.digiskills.careers and sign up. Enter your mobile number to start the registration process. You will receive an SMS to verify and confirm your mobile number. Then enter your details to complete your profile. Finally, you’ll then have access to the course library. Choose a course and start learning.
Nedbank says exam writing is available at its facilities in major cities across South Africa.
Microsoft South Africa’s partnership with Nedbank is part of Microsoft’s global skills initiative to help people most affected by the pandemic gain in-demand skills to be employable. By offering free online courses across Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub learning platforms. So far over 30 million people across the globe have participated in the program and over a million across Africa. Microsoft is partnering with organizations and governments in Africa to bring this to more people. Offering additional funding and services to make this possible where this is necessary.
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Microsoft celebrates its excelling local partners in South Africa at its annual partner award event. The award event is set aside each year to recognize the contributions of the Microsoft partner community. The community that enables and empowers Microsoft customers and organizations in South Africa to do more. The event wasn’t short of the usual partner excitement even though it took place virtually this year.
Microsoft South Africa awarded partners in 18 categories. Among the many winners on the night, Gijima Holdings (Pty) Ltd took home the 2021 Managing Director Partner of the Year award. Mint Group won awards in three categories, the most by any Microsoft partner. Mint also got the most partner nominations in six categories. Followed by BUI with awards in two categories and four nominations.
Here below is a full list of award winners at 2021 Microsoft South Africa partner awards winner.
2021 Microsoft South Africa partner Award Winners list
Microsoft Modern Work Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Azure Infrastructure Partner of the Year – BUI
Data and Analytics Partner of the Year – Altron Karabina
Artificial Intelligence Partner of the Year – Praelexis
Security Partner of the Year – BUI
Business Applications Power Platform Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Dynamics Customer Engagement Partner of the Year – Enterprisecloud
Application Development Partner of the Year – Tangent IT Solutions
Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner of the Year – Just Dynamics Software Solutions (Pty) LTD
CSP Indirect Provider of the Year – Tarsus on Demand
Dynamics Finance & Operations Partner of the Year – Parity Software (Pty) Ltd
Commercial Channel Partner of the Year – NTT Dimension Data
Microsoft Consulting Services Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Industry Solution – Public Sector Partner of the Year – Boxfusion
Industry Solution – FSI Partner of the Year – InQuba
New or Emerging Services Partner of the Year – InfoVerge Solutions (Pty) Ltd
New or Emerging ISV Partner of the Year – iiDENTIFii
Managing Director’s Partner of The Year – Gijima Holdings (Pty) Ltd
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Microsoft is announcing its partner of the year award winners and here is a list of winning organizations in Africa. The announcement comes ahead of Microsoft Inspire 2021 where it will celebrate exemplary achievements from across its global partner ecosystem. Microsoft Inspire 2021 partner event, is set to take place July 14-15 as a free global digital event.
Microsoft uses the partner award to recognize outstanding accomplishments within its partner community. This year, the company received over four thousand entries from one hundred and thirty countries across fifty-six categories. Microsoft introduced a new category, the Social Impact Award which includes awards for Community Response, Inclusion Changemaker, and Sustainability Changemaker.
Ten partner organizations emerge as award winners in 2021. Cloud Productivity Solutions, Kenya is the only winner from last year to win this year as well. Ghana recorded an award winner for the second year in a row. Senegal for the third year in a row failed to register an award winner. Côte d’Ivoire is back with a winner after failing to register an award winner in 2020. Namibia failed to register a winner this year.
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.
Microsoft Partner Africa Award Winners country category
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Digital SA Nation (SAtion), is collaborating with Microsoft South Africa to create digitally skilled South Africans. By introducing a Digital Skills Hub that will promote digital literacy, skills transfer and upskilling, and close the digital divide. The partnership between the two organizations hopes to aid in the socio-economic transformation of South Africa.
For Microsoft, the partnership with Digital SA Nation will provide opportunities that enable citizens to effectively operate in the digital space. Letting the South African youth unlock their career with skills that will improve their chances of securing a job.
“The digital economy creates the ideal opportunity for job creation,” says Lillian Barnard, General Manager, Microsoft South Africa. It also spurs innovation, boosts economic growth and supports long-term competitiveness“, she adds.
The SAtion Digital Skills Hub will host three initiatives; the Global Skills Initiative, Mahala, and Microsoft Cloud Society. Each initiative will offer different opportunities for all South Africans to acquire digital skills. This includes the youth, unemployed, small, medium and micro enterprises, and government officials.
With the Mahala initiative, South Africans aged 8 to 24 can sign up for the full Microsoft Office 365 free of charge. Through this portal, you will be able to activate Microsoft licenses for the Microsoft Office 365 suite and 5TB OneDrive cloud-based storage.
If you are interested in cloud computing and looking to learn and grow, the Microsoft Cloud Society initiative helps you identify and engage with passionate and influential cloud computing focused experts from the industry. You also get free online training and free or subsidized vouchers to take certification exams.
Through the Global Skills Initiative unemployed or economically disadvantaged South Africans can acquire skills and certification for in-demand jobs. These include roles such as software engineer, data analyst, customer service specialist and more.
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Microsoft is offering Office 365 for free to anyone between the ages of 8 to 24 in South Africa. Through a Microsoft initiative called Mahala. The free offer allows you to use the full version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and 5 TB of Onedrive storage on your PC, MAC, mobile phone or tablet.
Microsoft says it has simplified the signup process to remove blockers such as lack of an academic email address. And has extended the benefits to include the installed version of Office instead of limiting it to only web access. More than about 20,000 South Africans are on the Microsoft Mahala platform so far. The main signup requirement is to have a South Africa ID number to verify you qualify for the offer. You can find this ID number on a birth certificate or ID book.
“Providing access to programs such as Word, PowerPoint or Excel, which are common in the modern workplace, ensures that young people are equipped with basic digital literacy skills that are essential to get them employed or self-employed,”
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