The Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC) and Microsoft Leap are delighted to launch an inaugural workshop intentionally designed for university lecturers, proficient in leading technology-focused courses. University lecturers will be provided with an opportunity to engage with fellow educators in skill enhancement modules and identify best practices to incorporate into their curriculum. The 12-week program, which begins on March 6th, will use a hybrid classroom model and practical training to provide instructors with a better understanding of industry requirements and inspire a curriculum change that will align university classrooms with the needs of the technology industry.
“This program is the result of collaboration on many fronts, including university lecturers and their students. The training has been designed to provide lecturers with hands-on experience with industry needs, allowing them to design effective teaching for their students in an equally practical manner. The course will also expose them to advanced topics and allow them to learn and experiment with effective teaching techniques while obtaining essential aspects of carrying out research studies,” said Catherine Muraga, Microsoft ADC Managing Director, at the program’s launch.
Yolanda Natal-Santos, Microsoft Leap’s Senior Business Program Manager says “Rooted in our culture of the growth mindset and the belief that digital skills are for everyone, we are grateful for our partnership with the Microsoft ADC, as we extend Microsoft Leap’s global reach to a region that is rich in culture and talent. The growth of our partnership with the Microsoft ADC, has provided our program with a platform to continue identifying, engaging, and aligning with changemakers in Africa, as we impact and elevate together.”
Working collectively with Engineers from the ADC, Nairobi, the program will enhance skills, based on a curriculum developed and taught by Microsoft Leap instructors.
In addition to technical programming aspects and teaching a hybrid classroom, educators will receive training on specific Microsoft tools that are already being used in classrooms around the world and can be introduced to Kenyan lecture halls. The program will also provide technical educators with the tools they need to introduce popular Microsoft resources like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Power Platforms, and Microsoft Dynamics. “JKUAT’s Department of Computing is thrilled to participate in the Microsoft Skilling Program, as it will provide our staff with access to cutting-edge technologies and a leading global company. This opportunity to engage with industry-relevant skills and knowledge
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brings great joy to the university”, Dr. Lawrence Nderu, Chairman/Lecturer, Department of Computing, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology said. “The world is changing quickly, and if we are to mould tomorrow’s leaders, we as lecturers must evolve too. Each day, there are new tools and methods being devised that are becoming increasingly crucial to operating within the tech industry. For the sake of our students, it is best that we learn how to leverage industry-standard and emerging technology from industry leaders.”
Githinji emphasised a multi-pronged approach to improving technical education in Kenyan universities. “Improving lecturers’ capacities is line with the ADC’s digital skilling initiatives that range from elementary school-level all the way into the workplace. We held several campus tours last year, which prompted us to begin a curriculum review process with JKUAT. Improving all aspects of the training ladder is critical if we want to create a tech talent pipeline that is not only robust enough to meet today’s needs, but also propels Africa to compete on a global scale,” she added.
The first cohort of 23 educators is drawn from both private and public universities, including Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Multimedia University, and Kirinyaga University. Strathmore University, KCA University, Kabarak University, USIU- Africa, Zetech University, and Africa Nazarene University are the others.
This course is designed to magnify the lecturer’s delivery of core general management and drive engagement with advanced technology topics. Lecturers will be able to experiment with alternative teaching techniques and glean additional essential insight and research studies best practices.
About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
About the ADC Microsoft launched the Africa Development Centre (ADC) in 2019 with an initial site within Microsoft offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and another in Lagos, Nigeria. The centre’s goal is to attract world-class African engineering talent to create innovative solutions spanning the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. Since its inception in Nairobi in 2019, the ADC has grown to over 500
Microsoft and Intel invite you to see how Azure partners and customers are becoming more productive and agile with hybrid and multicloud solutions. The free Azure Hybrid and Multicloud event will take place on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, from 9 AM to 11 AM PT. [4 PM GMT, 7 PM EAT, 5 PM BST, 5 PM WAT, 6 PM SAT]
The two-hour event will start with a short keynote and followed by deep dives into key topics and real companies’ experiences. Check out the sessions below.
Intel and Microsoft: Partnering to deliver scalable, secure, and flexible hybrid infrastructure to customers.
Run Azure data services anywhere with the latest developments in Azure Arc–enabled data services. See how SKF Group and Dell Technologies are getting the most out of the latest generation of hybrid data offerings.
Quickly build, deploy, and update apps anywhere with Azure Arc. Learn how to ensure governance, compliance, and security for all deployments.
Get consistent operations and security for hybrid and multicloud environments—and learn to automate systems to meet security, governance, and compliance standards.
Modernize your datacenter and use Azure Stack HCI hybrid capabilities to help improve availability and performance across environments.
Microsoft says you’ll get to ask questions and get answers to your hybrid questions. From product experts during the live chat and from Microsoft leaders during the live Q&A panel.
Speakers at the event include Corey Sanders, Microsoft Corporate Vice President (CVP), Solutions, Roanne Sones, Microsoft CVP Azure Edge + Platform. Others are Jeremy Winter, Microsoft VP, Azure Compute, Rose Schooler, Intel CVP and General Manager, Global Data center Sales.
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Online learning platform, Udacity and Microsoft are introducing a new training program collaboration. The collaboration will see Udacity host various courses on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. The partnership will start with a Machine Learning Scholarship Program for Microsoft Azure.
The Machine Learning scholarship program will start with a two-month-long low-code experience introduction to machine learning on Azure course. Followed by a four-month full Udacity Nanodegree program. The first phase will see 10,000 scholarships spots awarded. However, only 300 spots will be available in the Nanodegree program. Top performers from the foundation level who meet the selection criteria will make it.
“AI is driving transformation across organizations and there is increased demand for data science skills,” says Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Azure Marketing, Microsoft. “Through our collaboration with Udacity to offer low-code and advanced courses on Azure Machine Learning, we hope to expand data science expertise as experienced professionals will truly be invaluable resources to solving business problems,” she continues.
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Automation Anywhere Paves Path to the Cloud with Microsoft Azure
Automation Anywhere, a robotic process automation (RPA) company announces integration of its products with Microsoft cloud. Bringing its purely web-based RPA platform seamlessly to customers worldwide using the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Organizations worldwide will now be able to access, Automation Anywhere Enterprise A2019 from Azure. Simplifying their entry in to RPA from anywhere, at any time. Hence this will allow thousands of new users to improve business processes with intelligent automation.
The company’s RPA platform can either be hosted on Azure, on-premises, in a public or private cloud. Helping drive customer productivity, increase innovation and boost ROI the company says.
“We’re excited that Automation Anywhere is using the power of Azure AI to usher in the future of work. Lila Tretikov, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality, notes. Automation Anywhere’s approach aligns with ours, which is to infuse data and intelligent automation into our product portfolio.”
“More organizations than ever before are seeing incredible benefits from their RPA implementations. Allowing them to become more competitive, productive and reduce costs. All by freeing up employees to focus on what they do best. To be creative and innovate“. More organizations will achieve these advantages faster in our expanded collaboration with Microsoft. Chief Corporate Development Officer, Automation Anywhere Peter Meechan, shares.
Customer benefits from the integration will include the following;
Expanded mutual artificial intelligence (AI) offerings. With the combination of Automation Anywhere’s IQ Bot with Azure Cognitive Services. To intelligently digitize, extract and process unstructured data hidden in electronic documents.
Advance business user productivity by running and managing Automation Anywhere bots directly within Microsoft Excel for improved user experience.
Use software bots to automate complex business processes and provide deep integrated capabilities with Microsoft products, including Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams with a single click enabling ease of use
Accelerate time to value by using more than 150 pre-built Microsoft bots from the Automation Anywhere Bot Store to complete automation projects faster.
