Five student teams from Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa are advancing to the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals. For an opportunity to win over USD50,000 in prizing and a slot in the World Championship in May. Where they can win the grand prize of USD100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella.
In the Imagine Cup World Finals round, they will compete against 43 other finalists from across the world. The teams will pitch their ideas to judges, demo their solutions, and engage in a question and answer session. Projects will be judged on their innovative use of Azure technology, accessibility and inclusion, and its marketability as a business idea.
The Africa Imagine Cup World Finalists include three student teams from Kenya, one from Cameroon and one from South Africa. They developed projects and solutions in the Education, Health and Earth competition categories. Five teams from the Middle East and Six from Europe bring this number to 16 finalists from the EMEA region.
Here are the teams, the qualifying category, the country and details about their solutions.
Imagine Cup World Finals – Africa Teams
Alpha14 – South Africa, Education category
ULearn is an online learning platform that consists of exciting and interactive activities, assessments, simple flashcards, and numerous types of rewards. Activities are fun and motivate Down Syndrome children to learn and gather valuable statistics to track progress and emotions.
Neural Voxel – Kenya, Health category
Neural Voxel enables specialists to easily and swiftly diagnose various forms of diseases in MRI and CT scans with much higher accuracy while at the same time reducing the workload and fatigue rates of specialists.
Sayari – Kenya, Earth category
In order to reduce post-harvest losses and maximize yields for farmers, the Ideal Monitoring System aims to ensure ideal conditions for the safe storage and transportation of produce in transit and in stores.
Team U-Map – Cameroon, Education category
U-Map is a mobile app that serves to provide geolocation services so students and lecturers can get directions to any location on campus using their mobile phones.
The_X_Team – Kenya, Education category
Kaizen helps mitigate issues affecting education in Africa.
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Futurize is launching its first annual Fuel Africa Innovation Program from March 17 to 25, 2022. In partnership with AstraZeneca, through the A.Catalyst Network, and Microsoft and co-funded by Bristol Myers Squibb and Famfa Oil. To equip young entrepreneurs with the resources to build high-potential venture ideas and contribute to sustainable development globally.
Fuel Africa 2022 will bring together students and alumni of 12 universities across 7 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges in healthcare. Through a virtual entrepreneurship bootcamp and innovation hackathon competition.
Coding or healthcare experiences are not a requirement to participate in the program. Participants will receive mentorship and hands-on training to build solutions for early-stage business ventures. It is currently focusing on solutions that provide access to healthcare as well as the screening, early diagnosis and optimal management of Non-Communicable Diseases. Winners will get investment money and opportunities to advance their careers.
Participating universities include Amref International University (AMIU), African Leadership University (ALU), Covenant University, JFN Institute of Technology, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, University of Ghana, University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, University of Capetown, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and the University of Nairobi.
“Microsoft, through the Africa Transformation Office, is committed to supporting education transformation across Africa with access to learning tools, resources and technology. We look forward to seeing what innovative solutions to pressing concerns these bright minds will develop during the program.”
Yacine Barro Bourgault, Enablement Lead, Africa Transformation Office at Microsoft.
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Microsoft is working with the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) to support Savings and Credit Cooperatives Societies (SACCOs) with digital finance solutions to improve and increase credit union lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya.
The company held a two-day ideation workshop with 16 SACCOs in Mombasa seeking to understand the digital transformation challenges faced by the lending sector. With a strategic partnership execution program drawn to address the concerns raised during the event.
Microsoft says digital transformation will firstly build trust among members and improve loan repayments. Secondly, It will enable informed decision making on members or clients. Thirdly, the transformation will enable better credit scoring letting SACCOs manage risks and improve their bottom line.
Microsoft announced an MoU with WOCCU last year to help accelerate digital transformation within the savings and credit sector. Where both parties will work to establish a framework for the digital transformation of SACCOs in Kenya. Microsoft will leverage programs to close the skills gap and develop a training curriculum to accelerate the adoption. It will also identify local partners to support the development of solutions and business strategies within the sector. Whilst WOCCU will deploy its TIFI lending methodology and SME Finance Toolkit.
“COVID-19 has accelerated the need for SACCOs to evolve and embrace digital channels. Empowering them to embark on this journey is not only critical to their sustainability but also the key to unlocking further growth potential within the region,” said Megan O’Donnell, WOCCU Vice President of Financial Inclusion.
Both organizations will develop a proof of concept that can be tested and deployed once they meet sector demands.
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Four undergraduate students teamed up to participate in the 2021 Microsoft Student Hackathon, they eventually emerged winners and have received and accepted offers to join Microsoft as full-time software engineers. The students Gloria Keya, David Lutta, Christine Wambui, and Audrey Njenga will start their professional careers at Microsoft when they graduate from school.
They are all final year students pursuing computer science at universities located in Kenya and Rwanda. Firstly, Gloria and Christine are students at the University of Nairobi(UoN) in Kenya. Whilst David is a student at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology(JKUAT). Finally, Audrey is a student at the African Leadership University(ALU) based in Rwanda.
The students who had just completed their summer internship with Microsoft learned about the hackathon and decided to extend their Microsoft experience. By forming a team to participate in the student hackathon. Which was concurrently taking place with the Microsoft Global Hackathon for Microsoft employees. The hackathon event was to hack solutions for Sustainability, Society, Education, and Ability using Microsoft technologies. In all, there were students from 22 other countries participating in the virtual Microsoft student hackathon. Over the course of just a week, they conceived, built, and tested their idea.
“We wanted to create an opportunity after their Microsoft internship for the students to stay connected to Microsoft and use the skills and knowledge they acquired in a new project and challenge that reflected their own passion,” says Steve Scallen, Senior Director of University Engagement at the Microsoft Garage. “They were all summer interns at Microsoft, and they all have offers to come back, which they’ve accepted. We are very excited they have chosen to start their professional careers at Microsoft.”
The students won the grand prize-winning project with their idea Forest Guard. Which falls under the hack for earth challenge and sustainability category. Forest Guard is a real-time on-site deforestation sensor and alert system that detects and reports dangerous or illegal activity in protected forests. It will be able to detect illegal logging and forest fire, using an IoT tool and Azure cognitive services.
Microsoft says they will have the opportunity to continue hacking the Forest Guard at The Garage when they begin work as full-time software engineers at Microsoft Nairobi in 2022. Microsoft is bringing The Garage program to Africa and will be opening new locations on the Microsoft Lagos and Nairobi campuses. The Garage is a Microsoft resource for employees to connect, experiment and be creative outside of their day job.
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TECNO mobile is announcing its latest smartphones with three new devices in the Camon 18 series. The TECNO Camon 18 Premier, Camon 18P and Camon 18 with Camon 18i and Camon 18T being tweaked global variants.
TECNO is introducing an ultra-steady gimbal camera and 60X Hyper Zoom in the flagship Camon 18 Premier. Saying it is the most advanced pro-camera Camon phone yet. It brings its previous best features the super night and selfie camera modes to the new device as well. It is powered by the newest MediaTek Helio G96 Chipset and sports a 6.7″ 120Hz AMOLED display.
In terms of pricing, the Camon 18 series starts at about $160 – $400 covering all the smartphone ranges. We provide you with the country-specific device prices in the following markets; Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan and India.
The new TECNO Camon 18 series smartphones will be able to upgrade to HIOS’s Android 12 when it becomes available. Here are the full device specifications below. I’m also adding an unboxing video comparing the normal version to the premier version so you can see the differences.
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