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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Ten teams from across the globe are winners of the first Imagine Cup Junior AI for Good Challenge. The competition is an extension of the Microsoft Imagine Cup and targets secondary school students. Thousands of students, aged 13 through 18, participated in this year’s competition to come up with ideas to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges using the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
What I love most about Imagine Cup Junior is seeing educators embrace new technologies like AI and machine learning and then provide these experiences to their students, says Anthony Salcito, VP, of Education. Not only do students get the opportunity to learn about Microsoft’s AI for Good initiatives. But they also further develop and practise 21st-century skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, he adds.
Despite the uncertainty during a global pandemic and adjusting to remote and hybrid learning, students found creative ways to bring their teams together, innovate, and learn about AI along the way. From hardships experienced by friends or family to issues, they have read about in the news, or their determination to preserve the earth and create a better world for future generations. The standard of the student submissions was truly awe-inspiring. Every student who took part brought their heart to their projects, which really came through to all the judges.
Imagine Cup Junior AI for Good Challenge winners
The top 10 global winners recognized this year and their concepts are:
“Here to Hear” from Western Canada High School in Canada: A language-learning tool that supports children with hearing impairments, helping to support inclusiveness in education for the DHH community.
“Sense and Save” from Daffodils Foundation for Learning in India: An AI-powered, bio-resistive graphene sensor for real-time amniotic fluid monitoring in pregnant women, supporting those who do not have regular or easy access to healthcare.
“Gaia Eye 80 degrees” from Beijing No. 80 High School in China: A global environmental diversity and anomaly discovery sharing platform, empowering people to report environmental concerns and observations and get feedback powered by AI.
“CORRA” from St Aloysius College in Australia: The “Companion Obedient Response Robot,” designed to interact with and support children with autism in the form of a robot doll that can be with them at all times.
“Titans” from Maharaja Agrasen Model School in India: A scan and check app for consumers to detect counterfeit medicine packaging, to help reduce the growing issues with counterfeit medicines being sold in India.
“HygieneNET” from Jesuit High School in Oregon, US: A deep learning and sensor-based system for enforcing hand hygiene compliance in healthcare facilities.
“Imagineering” from Hwa Chong Institution in Singapore: An AI-powered app that identifies any anomalies in a baby’s faecal matter to support and guide new parents and provide early diagnoses of any diseases.
“Ying Wa Crazy” from Ying Wa College in Hong Kong: Designed to bring Chinese medicine to a digital platform, embracing the major principles of Chinese medicine and building those into an app to increase the speed of diagnosis.
“G Force” from On My Own Technology in India: A non-invasive pressure mapping method to screen skin cancer and enable earlier detection.
“SMSR” from Hurlstone Agriculture High School in Australia: The “Smart Mobile Sanitizing Robot” to supply and clean feminine products to support period poverty and efficient waste management.
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Khushi Gupta, Jeet Gohil, Dharmik Karania and Abdihamid Ali are computer science final year students of United States International University – Africa (USIS), Kenya. REWBA comes from their innovation name Remote Well Baby.
Team REWEBA entered into the competition under the healthcare category with an IoT-based early warning system for babies. Their innovation remotely monitors infant parameters during regular post-natal screening. It then sends measurements to doctors remotely, allowing for immediate interventions saving infants from fatal diseases and reducing infant mortality rates.
Microsoft organizes the developer competition each year for students aged 16 years and above. The student innovators, use their passion and purpose to tackle local social issues with technology. Winning a cash amount to help them to keep working on their project, as well as other prizes. The competition starts from the national or online level through the regional and then World Championship event.
Africa teams at the Imagine Cup
Throughout the history of the competition, student teams from various African countries have participated at the Europe Middle East and Africa regional level. With just a handful making it to the world championship level. Unfortunately, none has gone on to win the competition.
Last year, Team Knights from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya and Team RedWalls from Tunisia National Institute of Applied Science and Technology made it to the World Finals. In 2019, team Athena-IO, Tunisia and iCropal, Kenya joined 9 others from Europe as 12 EMEA Regional Finalist. Due to changes in the competition that year second-place team Athena-IO didn’t get to present at the World Finals.
Team iCropal, Kenya on the left
Team E-Parkfrom Morocco qualified through the Middle East and Africa competition held in Lebanon in 2017. Competing as the only team from Africa against 54 teams from around the globe at the finals. In 2016 four student teams from Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia qualified to represent Africa at the Imagine Cup Finals in Seattle. During this period in the competition history, winners at the national level got direct entries to the World Championship.
The wait has been long but it is finally here. Student teams making it to the World Championship successively these past few years show how far they have come.
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After weeks of gruelling teamwork, Microsoft announces team Bloom as winners of the second season of its Africa Development Center (ADC) Game of Learners Virtual Hackathon. Team kaizen came in second place and Team Tulearn came in third to complete the winning three teams.
Season 2 of the Microsoft ADC Game of Learners virtual hackathon competition involved 60 undergraduate students from Nigeria and Kenya. With the teams taking on the challenge of solving the education accessibility problems in Africa using technology. The 12 teams had a diversity and gender balance of 30 females and males.
Team Bloom led by Bethany Jepchumba from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, designed the winning solution Bloom-Learn.
The solution features a digital platform with capabilities to link students and teachers across Africa. Teachers are able to upload classes, create one-on-one sessions with students, as well as communicate with students on each course via a chat forum. Students can use a booking session to connect with teachers. Bloom-Learn is built with Microsoft’s Azure App Service, Power platform and Microsoft 365.
The other Team Bloom members include Joy Kathure (Dedan Kimathi University, Kenya), Festus Idowu (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria), Fortune Adekogbe (University of Lagos, Nigeria) and Afandi Indiatsi (Strathmore University, Kenya).
Jack Ngare, Microsoft ADC Kenya Managing Director, notes that Microsoft is committed to supporting these young innovators to develop some of their ideas into viable solutions.
Team Bloom gets the winning trophy and each member will receive a smartphone. They also get one-year Azure credits and one year LinkedIn Learning vouchers. Azure Developer exam voucher, digital certificate, digital badge, a swag bag, and one-on-one mentorship from preferred professionals for winning.
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More than 1000 students from 126 universities across Africa have participated in the UmojaHack Africa 2021 virtual machine learning hackathon. The hackathon organized by Zindi took place on the weekend of 27-28 March.
1150 Students from 21 African countries joined the event participating in three different machine learning challenges. They represent Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Data science students from 9 African countries won a total competition price of more than $10000 USD in prizes. 8500 submissions were made to solve three real-world machine learning challenges on Zindi.
A financial resilience prediction challenge, a logistics challenge for African B2B service provider Sendy, and a computational biology challenge using the DeepChain™ platform developed by InstaDeep.
The winning solutions developed by Zindi data science users will be shared with these organisations and deployed in real-world applications.
In winning second place in the Sendy Delivery Rider Response Challenge, Tony Mipawa, a data science student from the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, epitomised the spirit of Zindi and of UmojaHack. A year ago, Tony was a data science novice until he participated in Zindi’s first-ever Mentorship Programme in 2020. He has grown in leaps and bounds since then. As evidenced by his prize-winning submission in this hackathon, less than a year later.
“I’m very happy with the outcome,” Tony said at the awards ceremony. “My advice is, whenever there is an opportunity to learn, you should take it. Learning is all about passion; whenever there is an opportunity to learn, put your whole effort into it, do it well. Try to learn from anyone you meet. I would like to thank Zindi for what that mentorship programme gave me.”
Some of the leading names in the global and African tech, AI and financial sectors made UmojaHack Africa 2021 possible. These include InstaDeep, Standard Bank Group, Microsoft, DeepMind, NVIDIA, and Old Mutual. They were integral in making the event a success. By offering financial and professional development prizes, contributing their expertise and excitement to the event, and supporting UmojaHack Africa 2021 through their own channels.
“We are incredibly excited about this event spanning over 100 African universities and helping thousands of African students leverage their data science and AI skills to solve African problems,” says Chris Lwanga, Principal Director for Software Partnerships at Microsoft. “At Microsoft, we believe in empowering every organisation and person to do more.”
“Standard Bank is deeply invested in funding and implementing critical data science skills development programmes, such as Zindi’s UmojaHack Africa 2021 hackathon, to position Africa as a serious competitor in the world’s rapidly emerging data-driven sector,” says Adrian Vermooten, Chief Innovation Officer, Standard Bank Group.
“We are delighted to support UmojaHack Africa again, an incredible initiative close to our hearts. Seeing students from more than 120 universities come together to collaborate on real-world machine learning challenges is truly inspiring,” says Karim Beguir, Co-Founder and CEO of InstaDeep. “This is, in our opinion, the best way to accelerate AI growth on the continent. Hackathons like UmojaHack bring us one step closer to achieving InstaDeep’s mission: building an AI-first world that benefits everyone.”
According to Celina Lee, CEO of Zindi, “UmojaHack Africa has proven to be a game-changing event, especially when so many young people have been impacted by the global pandemic. This is a chance for students from across the continent to come together to learn, compete, and have fun. UmojaHack is about building skills, creating new machine learning applications to solve problems that really matter while forging new connections among the students as well as with industry. We are incredibly excited to see what the students come up with in just one weekend.”
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