Microsoft names Kunle Awosika as the new Managing Director of the Africa Transformation Office (ATO) in a new reorganization to optimize its operations in Africa to scale impact. He succeeds Wael Elkabbany, who now heads Microsoft’s new Africa Regional Cluster (ARC) subsidiary. Kunle will lead the ATO subsidiary with a focus on driving digital transformation initiatives across the continent.
“I am passionate about the incredible potential Africa has to become a truly connected continent that exports digital goods and services to the rest of the world. I am delighted to have the opportunity to meaningfully impact this growth and help unlock the continent’s full digital potential,” said Kunle.
Kunle has over 22 years of experience working in multiple countries across the continent. He also has a deep understanding and passion for Africa’s growth. He has held several positions at Microsoft, including director of Enterprise Business, Country Manager Microsoft Kenya, as well as director of Small and Medium Corporates, Emerging Markets. Kunle Awosika was also one of three pioneer team members when Microsoft opened its Nigeria office.
He is credited with the introduction of different transformational technology opportunities to a wide range of organizations in both the public and private sectors, enabling them to unlock significant value. Kunle will bring this deep experience in multiple African markets to the new role.
While welcoming him to the new role, Elkabbany said: “With his multifaceted experience of the continent and deep understanding of transformative technology, Kunle Awosika is ideally placed to lead the strategy, investments, and initiatives of Microsoft’s transformation plans for the African continent.”
“I look forward to playing a role in unlocking Africa’s potential as the ATO develops and steers strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, and partners to accelerate digital transformation agendas and fuel a knowledge-based economy,” Kunle added.
Microsoft Africa Transformation Office
Launched in 2021, the ATO supersedes the continent-wide multi-million dollar Microsoft 4Afrika investment project launched in 2012. In simple terms, the Microsoft ATO is Microsoft’s move to scale out what it did with 4Afrika across the continent. It focuses on enabling growth and fuelling investment in four essential development areas. – Digital infrastructure, skilling, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and start-ups. –
Now, we have a responsibility to play a different role that drives impact at scale, says Wanja Gitonga, Microsoft ATO Communications lead. Reaching millions of Africans and accelerating Africa’s digital transformation to help deliver long-lasting African economic prosperity through digital technologies. The ATO will play an enabling role to accelerate and scale up existing programs within Microsoft, she adds.
Wanja notes that Microsoft is committed to rethinking how and why it develops digital solutions and strategies to better serve the needs of Africa. Through large-scale digital partnerships and initiatives across infrastructure, skilling, SMEs, and startups, we hope to impact the lives of millions of Africans and foster economic prosperity through digital technologies.
Microsoft understands that it cannot achieve these ambitious goals alone. Saying, strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, multinationals, and African enterprises will accelerate investments in Africa and increase the continent’s export of digital services.
Since its inception, Microsoft Africa Transformation Office has spearheaded a number of initiatives and strategic partnerships across Africa. It announced the launch of Microsoft Startups Founders Hub in Africa and new partnerships with accelerators and incubators to provide startups with access to markets, technical skills, and funding to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups over the next five years.
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Microsoft is promising its commitment to working with both the private and public sectors to accelerate digital transformation in African agriculture in order to increase food security for the continent.
Speaking during a virtual roundtable panel discussion on the topic, Microsoft Kenya Acting Country Manager Kunle Awosika said the organisation is committed to continuing investing in agritech on the continent, with the goal of developing agritech that enables data-driven, precise and connected farming that optimises yields, boosts farm productivity and increases profitability.
“We understand that these important issues will not be solved by one company, but through partnerships with the private sector and our partners in government for maximum impact and benefit to the farmers of Africa,” he said.
Speaking at the same forum, ATO Coordinator, Agriculture Transformation Office, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives Thule Lenneiye, said: “Through partnerships such as the one with Microsoft, we can offer our smallholder farmers valuable services that help them modernize and digitize age-old farming practices, increasing productivity and boosting food security for our communities and country.”
One way in which agritech changes the face of agriculture is through democratising information. In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Microsoft is investing in the Kenyan National Agriculture Platform as a key initiative to drive digitalization in agriculture. As part of this investment, a developer team based in Kenya has developed an Agri chatbot, which provides extension and advisory services to smallholder farmers using either feature phones or smartphones, via SMS, WhatsApp and Telegram.
The AgriBot provides a key platform that farmers can use to access all the relevant information from the Ministry of Agriculture and other government institutions, as well as services from the private sector. These services are invaluable to the over 400,000 farmers already on the platform who would otherwise not have access to such a resource.
Olatomiwa Williams, Microsoft Country Manager Nigeria and Ghana speaking at the forum said the organization is working with stakeholders to identify and develop sustainable and inclusive digital solutions for agro-products and services that seamlessly connect farmers, customers and other stakeholders in the ecosystem. Importantly to improve the economic situation of farmers in Nigeria.
Microsoft also recently announced that it is extending its partnership with the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The initial collaboration between the two organizations started in 2019 when Microsoft and AGRA co-created the AgriBot as a digital solution for localized extension and advisory services for smallholder farmers.
The new phase of the relationship will promote digital innovation and technology as an enabler to connect the agriculture ecosystems, sustainably integrating stakeholders in the service of strategic value chains.
“Our partnership with AGRA forms part of Microsoft’s ongoing investment in agritech across the continent as we support digital transformation in the sector. We’re excited to continue building locally relevant technology solutions that address the local farmers’ needs and deliver meaningful impact,” added Kunle.
On his part, John Macharia, AGRA Kenya Country Manager, said: “At AGRA, we realized early on that digital innovation is critical in advancing food security and poverty eradication in Africa. Our partnership with Microsoft will directly support governments, SMEs and farmers, by bringing the digital tools needed to build resilient food systems.”
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Catherine speaking at a Girls in ICT Kenya event. Image via Twitter: Shikoh Gitau @DrShikoh
Catherine Muraga brings a diverse wealth of experience to Microsoft ADC having worked in a variety of industries such as manufacturing, aviation, and banking. With an expansive 15 years of knowledge of the IT landscape in Kenya and the region.
Prior to joining Microsoft, she led the Engineering team at Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan. Leading all engineering capabilities including information technology, data, AI and Analytics, Cyber Security, Operations & Real estate services. She was also a member of the bank’s Executive Leadership team. She was previously the Director of IT and Operations at Sidian Bank.
I am excited to be joining the ADC at this particular time says Catherine Muraga. “I look forward to continuing the tremendous work that has already begun“, she adds.
Catherine is an alumnus of Columbia Business School Digital Strategies for Business, Oxford University Fintech Programme and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science from Africa Nazarene University.
Microsoft says the ADC engineering hub has grown to over 450 full-time employees.
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I’ve always wanted to improve my skills as a developer. I knew that the best people are at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook. I’ve always wanted the kinds of challenges they represent. I always wanted to work with people who would wow me and teach me at the same time. When I heard that Microsoft had come to Kenya, I knew that “this is my chance”.
This is the story of George Maina, a Software Engineer at the Microsoft Africa Development Center (ADC-East) located in Nairobi, Kenya. He is one of the first hires of Microsoft and works on the Identity and Network Access team in Kenya.
Even though the ADC was an experiment the success of George’s team in the early days will go on to help Microsoft make investing more in the ADC an easy decision. The ADC has grown from 21 employees in three teams to over 400 in more than eight teams in three years. With Microsoft launching a 27 million dollar office facility to house the software engineers.
Geroge works for the Microsoft Graph onboarding team, which is the third team to be formed at the ADC. “Right now, we’re four people, we help teams within Microsoft to onboard onto Graph and to manage their Graph deployments. … My role is to develop tooling to make sure we can automatically link their API when they publish it to our repo.”
I think we were the very first team to join Identity here, and we all came on the same day. There were then three teams at Microsoft’s Africa Development Center (ADC) in Nairobi. Each team had around seven people, making a total of 21. One team came aboard just a week before my team. At that time, it was not really clear where ADC was going. But it turned out really well. We’ve gotten our footing and have developed specialized areas. Several teams are now owners of certain operations within Microsoft. ADC has grown to around 400 just here in Kenya alone. That’s a testament to how well ADC has performed.
I remember when you came to visit, Igor, you said that you’d evaluate the operation after a few years, that it was an experiment. I remember going home that night thinking, wow, what happens if this fails?
I’ve learned so much. The last two years have blown my mind. I love working here and really love Microsoft. Microsoft offers so many opportunities everywhere.
George Maina
Igor Sakhnov, Microsoft Corporate vice president of Identity and Network Access Engineering, talks with software engineer George Maina about his entrepreneurial journey and the beginnings of the Microsoft ADC. Click to read the full conversation.
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Microsoft wants to accelerate the growth of startups in Africa and fast-track investment in Africa’s startup ecosystem. By providing support to 10,000 startups over the next five years to enable them grow. A new partnership with accelerators, tech hubs and incubators across Africa including Grindstone, Greenhouse, FlapMax and Seedstars will seek to provide startups with access to markets, technical skills, and funding opportunities.
Through the intiative, startups will get access to technology, skilling programs and an opportunity to co-sell with Microsoft. They will also get support from Microsoft engineering and product teams for co-innovation opportunities.
Microsoft believes the vibrant African startup market is well placed to become a cornerstone of the continent’s digital economy. However it represents less than one percent of total investments worldwide. Wael Elkabbany, Managing Director, Microsoft Africa Transformation Office, points out, this needs to change.
“Investments into Africa’s startup ecosystem are growing at an exciting pace. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), there are more than 640 active tech hubs across Africa, accelerating innovation and creating employment, particularly among the youth.”
Wael Elkabbany
Microsoft will also partner with key B2B-focused start-ups, scaleups, “soonicorns” and unicorns across a range of leading African industries. As well as startups concentrating on developing solutions for SMEs. Microsoft will tailor each partnership based on the needs of a startup says Gerald Maithya, Startups Lead, Microsoft Africa Transformation Office.
“We understand that each start-up is unique and exists beyond the limitations of a one-size-fits-all partnership model. Therefore Microsoft will tailor each partnership to the needs of individual start-ups, providing support and access. – Whether to technology, markets and co-sell opportunities, funding or digital skills. – To enable them to grow and contribute to the wider economic growth of Africa,”
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