Microsoft is on the look out for engineering talent from across Africa to staff the Africa Development Centre(ADC). The centre will be officially launched in an event tonight. Which we will bring you more details on, so bookmark this site and stay with us. Microsoft executives of the project like Phil Spencer, CVP Gaming visited the President of Kenya ahead of the launch.
The company says it is “seeking engineering talent from across the continent to fuel AI, machine learning and mixed reality innovation.”
Hiring Local Software Engineers
Microsoft has started hiring for various roles and positions in the African Development Center. It plans to recruit about 100 full-time software engineers by the end of 2019 across the two sites in Nigeria and Kenya. Expanding this number to 500 recruits across the two sites by the year 2023. The sites include the Cognition team to be based in Lagos and the Windows team in Nairobi.
Michael Fortin, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft shares what the ADC will mean to the software engineers. He said;
“Our desire is to recruit exceptional engineering talent across the continent that will build innovative solutions for global impact. This also creates opportunities for engineers to do meaningful work from their home countries. And be plugged into a global engineering and development organisation.”
Microsoft to work with Local Universities
Microsoft will partner with some of the local universities in Africa to build its talent pipeline. By creating what it calls “a modern intelligent edge and cloud curriculum“, it says this will be “totally unique to Africa”.
Microsoft also says Graduates will have access to the ADC. Building a relevant and meaningful career in data science, AI, mixed reality, application development and many more.
UPDATE: Microsoft launches Africa Development sites in Lagos and Nairobi.
Microsoft corporation marks yet another milestone of investments and operations in Africa. In an event later today the global technology company will announce its first Development Centre in Africa. Its seventh globally. The Africa Development Centre will have two initial sites set to be located in Nigeria and Kenya. The global technology giant says it will be a long term investment in the region.
Yesterday, top Microsoft executives paid a courtesy call on the President of Kenya. Where they shared details of the project with the president. The executives shared that Microsoft plans to invest a combined expected investment of US $100 million over the first five years of operation.
Microsoft says through the Africa Development Centre it intends to invest in more cutting-edge solutions suitable for the region and the rest of the world.
Stay with us as we bring you more details about the Africa Development Centre launch event in Nairobi. What are you thoughts on this, share them with us.
Have you tried having a normal conversation with your virtual assistant? You know it isn’t really fun when you want more, except the usual commands it can respond to. Satya mentioned three setbacks with the current virtual agents. Conversations with current virtual agents he said are very brittle, don’t have natural language capabilities and aren’t multi-agents.
The new breakthrough Satya says, brings a conversational experience away from the previous manually curated set of skills. The Conversational AI Technology will use a multi-turn, multi-domain and multi-agent experience, keeping the conversation in context.
This is an excerpt of what he said;
“Now, in spite of all the progress, you’ve got to remember, today, most of the conversations that we have are still very brittle. They’re truly not multi-turn. The context from turn to turn gets lost — especially human language is complex, where the context sometimes is subtle. So, therefore, how do you make sure that the natural language capabilities inside of these personal assistants is capable of having that shared context across a long dialogue versus just a few turns?”
Satya Nadella
Conversational AI Technology demo
From the video we can see how the conversation takes a total of 34 dialog turns. With the virtual assistant keeping the conversation in relation and context to who, where, what and when it applies to.
Microsoft says the new conversational engine will be integrated into Cortana and made available to developers through the Bot Framework, other Azure surfaces and beyond. Microsoft will also make it available to its customer ecosystem, who will be able to customise it for their use.
An area of focus in Microsoft’s research is Agriculture. Microsoft research scientists are focusing on unleashing the future of agriculture using data driven techniques called precision farming. The process involves using broadband connectivity through TV whitespaces, connected to IoT sensors that enable data driven farming. These data when collected over time will help farmers improve their yields and lower costs. This initiative from Microsoft is called FarmBeats.
Piloting FarmBeats in Africa
Microsoft is expanding the pilot program of FarmBeats to Africa, starting in Kenya. The program in Nairobi will be focused on addressing the specific challenges of farming in Africa with the intent of expanding to other African countries.
Data-driven digital agriculture
FarmBeats
“AI doesn’t replace human knowledge; it augments it“
Satya Nadella
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO says “AI doesn’t replace human knowledge, it augments it. Talking about Microsoft FarmBeats initiative he shares that “Data from low-cost sensors in soil and drones with machine learning algorithms work with farmers’ knowledge and intuition to help them gather and parse data about their farms. Informing what, when, and where to plant in order to drive the highest-possible yields and reduce costs”.
Microsoft FarmBeats will help farmers benefit from technology innovation at the edge. Microsoft says although technology could help the farmer, its adoption is limited. This is majorly due to farms not having power, Internet connectivity on the farms and farmers not technology savvy.
To address this Microsoft says “We are working towards an end-to-end approach. From sensors to the cloud, to solve the problem. As part of the FarmBeats project, we are building several unique solutions to solve these problems using low-cost sensors, drones and vision and machine learning algorithms“.
Bill Gates visited a pilot site and shares his experience in the video below.
If you are a student, there is a Student Kit that will help you learn about precision agriculture.
Now on Azure Marketplace
Microsoft releases FarmBeats on the Azure Marketplace to help farmers with low-cost agtech solutions. Azure FarmBeats in the Azure marketplace will be a business-to-business offering. Offered at no additional charge and users will only pay for the Azure resources used. It will include a Datahub. (An API layer that enables aggregation, normalization, and contextualization of various agriculture datasets across providers). As well as an Accelerator. (A sample solution, built on top of Datahub, that jumpstarts your UI and model development).
Microsoft’s premier developer conference Build 2019 is here with us. Get to hear about the latest in Microsoft technologies.
Watch Livestream
Join us follow the online viewing of Build 2019 conference. Event starts at these times world wide 8:30AM PT, 3:30PM GMT (4:30PM UK), 6:30PM EAT and 5:30PM SAT. Right after the Imagine Cup world finals. Get to hear what’s new and evolving in Microsoft world of technology. Microsoft says this year the developer event is focused on empowering developers of all kinds. The event is taking place from the 6th to 8th of May 2019 in Seattle.
This year’s event is focused on empowering developers of all kinds, from experienced computer scientists to tech beginners with big ideas. Join us here at 8 a.m. PT on Monday, May 6, to watch the World Championship of Imagine Cup, our global student technology competition. The Build keynote presentations will begin at 8:30 a.m. PT, when we’ll share the latest about Microsoft’s platforms and tools aimed at helping people build great things.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will lead the Build 2019 vision keynote followed by other technical keynotes. Satya Nadella will share with the developer community what Microsoft is doing to help them build great platforms and leverage its tools.
We will have all the announcements coming out of Build on this site. Do stay tuned and don’t forget to share what you are most excited about with us in the comments.
Windows Insider? Participate in the Windows Insiders Insiders2Campus contest and win a trip to participate in Microsoft 2019 Hackathon.
Like last year Microsoft is inviting 10 Windows Insiders to its Redmond campus. This year will be different. Apart from the campus tour, winners will get to participate in the Microsoft 2019 Hackathon.
The invitation reads;
For the first time ever, we’re inviting a select group of fans to join us at Microsoft headquarters for our global Hackathon, where full-time employees and interns gather to celebrate products and hear from Microsoft leaders—including CEO Satya Nadella
Tell us about your passion for solving challenges with your personal superpowers, whether you harness the power of design, project management, coding, or another area of expertise. You could win a trip to campus this July 22-25 to participate in Hackathon 2019, enjoy exclusive tours, and meet Microsoft leaders. You’ll hack alongside Microsoft employees for an amazing four days of collaboration, creativity, and problem solving.
Here’s How to participate in the contest
To qualify for the contest and be eligible;
You must be a registered Windows Insiders. (register here)
Submit a link to a video in which you describe why you should be selected to participate in the Microsoft Insiders2Campus 2019 Hackathon. (Only one entry)
