Meet Ghana’s Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP)

Meet Ghana’s Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP)

Every good work done deserves an acknowledgement or reward and Microsoft recognizes technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with their community by honouring them with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. The MVP award spans over 100 contribution areas in 11 award categories across developer and IT Pro products and services technology areas including open source.

The Microsoft MVP global community has over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries who support in the advancement and adoption of Microsoft technologies. Out of which 56 recipients are awarded in nine African countries. South Africa and Nigeria record the highest number of MVPs with 16 each, followed by Ghana with 8. Egypt has 5, 4 in Morocco, Mauritius and Tunisia with 2 each and Senegal, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire with 1 MVP each.

Before the year 2019, even though there were Microsoft MVPs in Africa and the Middle East region, there weren’t any from Ghana. This however changed when Abou Conde founder of the Microsoft User Group Ghana community got awarded in the Azure category. The situation has improved over the past few years with Microsoft turning its focus and commitment towards Africa. The number of award recipients in Africa has since increased from 32 to 56. Ghana now has eight Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals across five award categories. Microsoft Azure, AI, Business Applications, Data Platform, Developer Technologies and Office Apps & Services.

Here below are Ghana’s Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals passionately sharing their knowledge with the community. Read on to get to know them, and follow and contact them on their channels.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals Ghana

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals MVP Ghana Africa

Abou CONDE – Award category: Microsoft Azure

Abou is a Senior Cloud & Infra Security Consultant in Avanade’s Security Talent Community based in Paris, France. He was awarded the first MVP in 2019 before moving to France in August 2021 to join METSYS as a System Architect and then Avanade. He lived and worked in Ghana as a Senior Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Consultant at Axxend. He also worked with GITS and IPMC. He became the first-ever Microsoft MVP in Ghana and Microsoft Azure MVP in West Africa.

He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert in Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, Microsoft Certified Solution Associate in Microsoft Azure Security, and Microsoft 365 Security. He is also an expert in cloud solutions architecture, including the IaaS, PaaS, and hybrid cloud scenarios, migrations/deployments, systems administration, and virtualization.

Abou is the Founder of Microsoft User Group Ghana Community (MUGGH), Speaker, and Blogger. He is a frequent speaker and organizer at various Microsoft Azure, Cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, Windows Server Events, and other User Group conferences.

Samuel Segbornya Kodzo Adranyi – Award Category: Microsoft Azure

Samuel is a Senior Software Engineer and Technical Lead with extensive experience and knowledge in most areas of application development, data analytics, internet of things, artificial intelligence, mixed reality and machine learning.

He is an early adopter, abreast with emerging technologies, trends, patterns and architectures with applicable skills in Cloud Development, SDLC, application life cycle management (ALM) and DevOps spanning over 15 years in all phases of small to large-scale software projects.

With a strong passion for problem-solving, he loves curating and mashing up technologies from IoT, AI, ML and programming to solve the most demanding, and complex challenges you throw at him. He has built, trained, managed and coordinated dedicated, capable and technical distributed offshore teams, especially in Africa and led them to deliver beyond expectations and world-class solutions.

Aside from his technical competencies, Samuel is a community leader, Blogger, Pod-caster and Streamer. He is the Co-Organizer for the Accra .NET User Group and the Organizer of the Accra Power Platform User Group. He has a weekly podcast that highlights Africans all over the world in Technology and streams 3 times a week on IoT (IoT Tuesday – Tuesdays), General Azure and Technology (Demystify Tech – Fridays) and Power Platform (Power Series – Sundays).

Frank Arkhurst Odoom – Award Category – Developer Technologies

Frank is a software consultant, a Managing Partner at Accede and the co-organizer of the Accra .NET User Group. He loves teaching software development and contributing to the open-source ecosystem.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the .Net Foundation with the goal of creating a strong awareness and presence of open-source .NET technology in underserved communities. He also serves as the .Net Foundation Education Committee Chairperson.

Dawuda Iddrisu – Award Category – AI

Dawuda Iddrisu is a full-stack software developer and Chief Technology Officer at BezoMoney. He is a B.Sc. graduate in Information Technology and former president of the Computer Science Society of the University for Development Studies (UDS).

He is passionate about creating innovative products and changing lives with his soft and technical skills by organizing training programs and workshops. In 2019, while still at the university, he served as a Microsoft Gold Learn Ambassador and his activities as an ambassador earned him the outstanding Microsoft Student Partner EMEA Award.

He is also an ambassador at AI Gaming and a board member of the Global AI Community.

Bernard Obeng Boateng – Award Category – Office Apps & Services

Bernard is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Financial Modeler and Data Analyst with over 10 years of work experience in Banking, Insurance and Business Development. He is a certified Microsoft Excel Expert skilled in Business Analytics, Dashboards and building Financial models for Budgeting, Business Valuation, Scenario Planning and Investments.

He runs the Finex Project, a pro bono student training outreach program for students in Microsoft Excel, Office Tools and Financial Modeling. Bernard provides consultancy services for SMEs (start-ups and existing ones) in Financial Management, Business Planning and Research.

Bernard is also the founder of Finex Skills Hub and co-founder of Business Evolution Systems & Training Ltd.

He has an active audience of about 16,000 followers on his LinkedIn where he shares tips and tricks on Microsoft Excel and other Office Apps.

Eric Entsie – Award Category – Business Applications

Eric Entsie is a Chartered Accountant by profession and manager at the National Health Insurance Authority with a career objective to improve business work processes through the use of information technology.

He is also a Power Platform enthusiast and a Super User in the Power Apps Community Platform. He likes to contribute to the community by providing support to users.

Thomas Festus Cudjoe – Award Category – Data Platform

Festus is a Microsoft Certified Power BI Analyst, a Google Certified Data analyst, a Chartered Accountant, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant with professional qualifications from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK (CIMA).

He is the founder and the lead trainer at FestMan Learning Hub, a Leading Edtech firm that provides premium Digital Skills Bootcamps in Data Science, Financial Modeling, Data Analytics, UX Design, and Digital Marketing.

Festus has trained over 1500 professionals in Data Analytics, Financial Modeling, Modern Excel, and Power BI over the past 5 years. He is passionate about technology and loves sharing his experience with others.

Shadrack Inusah – Award Category – Business Applications

Shadrack is a software developer, ex-Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador (MLSA) and a member of the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors Low Code No Code League. He is also a Power Platform Specialist with community-building experience, assisting experts and citizen developers.

Shadrack loves to network and help students learn and build to solve a technical world problem. He also likes to mentor students for the MLSA program in Africa.

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Meet Abou Conde, Ghana’s first Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

Microsoft recognizes technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with their community by honouring them with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. One such outstanding community leader is Abou Conde.

Abou Conde, Ghana’s first MVP

Abou Conde

Abou becomes the first recipient of the prestigious Microsoft MVP award in Ghana. He has been awarded Microsoft MVP in the Azure category for 2020-2021. This makes him the first Azure MVP in West Africa. He joins four other MVP award winners in the Azure category in Africa. Three are located in South Africa and one in Egypt.

Microsoft MVP Africa outlook

There are currently thirty-two Microsoft MVP recipients in Africa. 17 are located in South Africa, 3 each in Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria. Senegal, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana each have 1 MVP. The majority of MVPs in Africa are awarded in the developer technologies, Office Apps & Services and Data Platform categories. Africa is yet to get an MVP in the Office Development, Artificial Intelligence and Windows & Devices for IT categories.

Abou notes that growing up there were no communities, expertise and mentorship to look up to. People usually had to find answers from communities and people online. He felt inspired to change this and help the local community in Ghana.

Our co-founder and editor, Christopher Bennett spoke with Abou Conde about winning the MVP award and the Microsoft User Group Ghana community. Watch the conversation below.

https://youtu.be/aJ-y8kgXnf8?t=17
MVP talk starts at 11:00

Abou Conde currently works at Global Information Technology Solutions (GITS). Specializing in both on-premise and cloud enterprise architecture. He is also an ambassador for the aOS community.

Check out what’s new on our YouTube channel. Subscribe to follow for the latest videos and news in the ecosystem.

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Andela Nigeria Developer and Microsoft MVP selected as Ignite Community Reporter

Andela Nigeria Developer and Microsoft MVP selected as Ignite Community Reporter

Toni Edward Solarin-Sodara selected as 2018 Microsoft Ignite Community Reporter. 

Ignite Community Reporter

?: Andela Nigeria

Microsoft’s developer and IT professional conference Ignite will be taking place September 24th to the 28th. Like last year, individuals have been selected from the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and Regional Director(RD) community. These individuals will become community reporters during the conference period, keeping us up to date. The ignite community reporters specialize in varying fields of tech making it possible to hear about the various tools and their development opportunities. 

 Microsoft MVP Visual Studio and Development Technologies, Toni Edward Solarin-Sodara who also is a software engineer at Andela Nigeria has been selected. Toni will join this years Ignite Community Reporter’s in Orlando, Florida where the event will take place.

Microsoft introduced the new reporters in a blog statement.

Ignite Community Reporter

We’re excited to bring a new crew of Community Reporters to Microsoft Ignite!
Last year we had 10 reporters from the MVP community helping you stay close to the action through the Microsoft Ignite Live Stream on Day One of the event.
Interviewing speakers and attendees throughout the week and keeping you connected to what was happening on social
.” 

Fellow MVP, Microsoft Office Apps and Services, Tracy van der Schyff from South Africa joins Toni as the only African MVP’s in the crew.  

Toni says he’ll “be the resident engineer reporting on all things software development, from .NET to Azure to UWP apps”. So if you are looking to getting scoops of what’s being announced at Microsoft Ignite follow his twitter feed for updates.  

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, will be speaking at the keynote event on Microsoft’s vision for the future of technology. We will have the live stream available to watch. So join us explore the new tools and technologies that’ll be coming. 

Featured Image: ?: Andela Nigeria, Toni demos during ALCwMicrosoft