Mecer Inter-Ed (MIE) and Microsoft are giving 10 South African ladies the opportunity to break into tech or advance their IT careers with an internationally accredited Microsoft certification. The initiative dubbed #SheCanDoIT aims to evolve the ICT sector through the growth and enablement of women. It targets South African ladies between the ages of 21 and 30 who are passionate, curious, and have the desire to learn about technology.
Each selected lady will receive a laptop, Microsoft course, and exam vouchers. They will get mentorship sessions with female leaders in the ICT field, as well as step-by-step assistance from Mecer Inter-Ed’s qualified talent acquisition department. This Mercer says is “to ensure these South African ladies are ready and equipped for their new careers in IT“.
MIE and Microsoft are committed to investing in programs that support equality. This is why we are launching the #SheCanDoIT campaign, which aims to bring a fresh approach and offer unique opportunities to women in the tech field.
Mecer Inter-Ed, Microsoft #SheCanDoIt initiative requirements and steps
You must be a South African lady between the ages of 21 and 30.
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Microsoft South Africa has launched the Microsoft SITA Ndivho Innovation Centre in Centurion, Pretoria in partnership with SITA (the State Information Technology Agency). The centre aims to spur innovation and global competitiveness, as well as build the ICT capability and skills development, of local, provincial and government departments in order to enhance service delivery and drive broader economic growth.
The creation of the centre forms part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between SITA and Microsoft South Africa in October 2019, aimed at accelerating the digital transformation of government services in South Africa through the adoption of public cloud services.
A key element of the MOU was modernisation and innovation, and the Ndivho Innovation Centre supports this goal through Microsoft technologies that will accelerate the development of cloud solutions and skills required in today’s digital economies.
“Having a space dedicated to collaboration, digital innovation, skills development and capacity building provides a unique opportunity to create new services for government departments and customers. The centre will also help to unlock IT and organisational productivity and efficiencies in service delivery that will deliver inclusive growth for the country and better enable economic recovery,” says Mr. Luvuyo Keyise, interim Managing Director at SITA.
These services and benefits will be enabled predominantly through Microsoft Cloud-enabled solutions in the areas of Critical Infrastructure, Public Safety & Justice, Defense and Intelligence and Life Sciences. Additionally, the centre will showcase the transformative value of Microsoft’s cloud services such as Azure, its collaboration solutions Microsoft 365 and business solutions Dynamics 365. However, the centre is not limited to Microsoft technologies and provides an innovation platform for Government’s technology investments.
Upskilling and enabling public sector employees and small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) is a critical part of the drive towards modernisation and innovation, and the two partners have also invested in a number of initiatives to equip individuals and business owners with the skills and certification needed to deliver services to government.
These initiatives include:
The Microsoft Enterprise Skills Initiative and the Microsoft Community Training Platform will be used by internal SITA employees to reskill and become technically astute, and to provide consulting services around digital transformation and moving into the Microsoft Cloud.
The Emerging Partner Programme identifies and provides ICT SMMEs with training to accelerate their journey to Microsoft Gold partner status. The programme is currently underway and 25 SMMEs from across all nine provinces are receiving certification training to help grow a sustainable, diversified and inclusive supply chain that contributes more broadly to economic growth in the country.
KEI Solutions and Take Note IT are two of the 25 beneficiaries of the Emerging Partner Programme. “A dream only stays a dream if you don’t take action, so I registered my IT infrastructure company during the height of the pandemic, knowing that my competitors were large organisations with a long-standing history and experience in the sector,” says Kabelo Mbelle, Managing Director and Founder of KEI Solutions. “Being part of the Emerging Partner Programme turned being an SMME into a unique selling point by allowing us to sit on the shoulders of giants like Microsoft and SITA and giving us the vantage point to see and equip ourselves with the training and certification needed to compete and succeed in the sector.”
Cindy Ntombela, Cyber Security Analyst at Take Note IT, agrees: “The ability to partner and work with government and one of the biggest technology companies globally provides a unique opportunity to not only identify the broader skills needed in the country, but learn these on-demand skills, share knowledge with like-minded professionals and channel this experience into the right paths to create real business value and enable the personal and professional development for South African ICT professionals.”
Collaboration across sectors is key. “Partnering with SITA and investing in the centre and other initiatives is a vital part of Microsoft’s commitment to leverage cloud and emerging technologies to accelerate growth through innovation, work across sectors to better serve citizens’ needs, empower individuals and SMMEs with critical future-ready skills, and create broader societal impact,” says Lillian Barnard, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft South Africa.
“Microsoft fully supports SITA’s vision to digitise government to accelerate and enhance innovation and service delivery as part of our shared commitment to driving competitiveness, skills development and economic growth in the country – and the launch of the Ndivho Innovation Centre is an important step in reaching this goal.”
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Microsoft is committing to training ten thousand software developers in South Africa by the end of 2022. By giving them an opportunity to learn new and modern skills as well as access to the latest technologies. This is in an effort to help in building the local software developer community in the country.
Microsoft will through skilling programs and initiatives upskill developers so that they can add value within informal developer communities as well as across commercial and corporate environments.
“At Microsoft, we understand the power of community says Lillian Barnard, General Manager at Microsoft South Africa. “And appreciate the value these shared spaces can bring to employees, businesses, and, ultimately, the world“, she adds.
Lillian notes that when organizations like Microsoft work together with developer communities to overcome skills gaps the result is creativity and more innovation. Developers with access to the latest technologies and skills result in an acceleration of the digital transformation of businesses.
“When we build thriving developer communities, …, we also create innovations that have a societal impact and that have the potential to change lives.”
Lillian Barnard, Microsoft South Africa MD
Microsoft didn’t throw light on how or who it will partner with to execute this project. However, in previous campaigns, it has worked with developer communities such as the Andela Learning Community, Geekulcha, and other groups.
Microsoft has selected The Awareness Company as the winner of its AgriChallenge competition. The Awareness Company will receive investments from Microsoft to configure, develop, educate, market and contextualise three high-impact agritech products within the next year to empower smallholder farmers in South Africa.
We want to help unlock the potential of one of South Africa’s core industries and its smallholder farmers by tapping into the capabilities of agritech. By investing in local businesses and technologies that are truly disruptive says Lillian Barnard, CEO of Microsoft South Africa.
“Technology – specifically agritech – has the ability to empower our country’s smallholder farmers. By enabling them to become more productive, efficient, competitive, commercially viable and sustainable.”
Lillian Barnard, CEO of Microsoft South Africa.
Microsoft notes the solutions will enable smallholder farmers to improve efficiencies in their farming operations through the use of operational insights. Allowing them to reduce the cost of production, increase yields, strengthen linkages through the value chain and improve farm security.
Priaash Ramadeen, CEO of The Awareness Company says Microsoft’s support and investment is a jump-start. Noting smallholder farmers play a critical role in driving food security.
“The country’s two to four million smallholder farmers play a critical role in driving food security and economic participation. But they face specific and deep-rooted challenges, and the sector is typically underserved in terms of high-tech solutions.
That’s why Microsoft’s support and investment in helping us as a local, homegrown business to grow and develop solutions that focus on solving real-world problems is so meaningful. The programme is a jump-start that has enabled us to create and update products that synchronise with the work we have already done in the agricultural space to promote sustainable agriculture and food security through intelligent data.”
Priaash Ramadeen, Co-Founder and CEO of The Awareness Company.
The solutions developed by The Awareness Company includes HYDRA FarmSecurity, HYDRA FarmAwareness and HYDRA AgriInsights. All of these solutions are driven by data, and the insights and intelligence tell a story about the farm. Click to find out more about the solutions.
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The Surface Laptop 4 is now available in South Africa as Microsoft officially launches the device. The least configuration for the Surface Laptop 4, AMD Ryzen 5 4680U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, will start selling at R945 per month at Vodacom and R18,999 at Everyshop and Incredible Connection. With the highest configuration, Intel Core i7-1185G7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, selling at R32,999. Unfortunately, the is no mention of the 32GB RAM and 1TB models.
“We are excited to add Surface Laptop 4 to our growing Surface range locally, says Colin Erasmus, Modern Workplace and Security Business Group Lead at Microsoft South Africa. It powers modern multitasking demands, and combines a vibrant touchscreen display, large trackpad with gesture support and an industry-leading typing experience,” he adds.
The 2021 version of the Surface Laptop looks very similar to the Surface Laptop 3 in design. But has a massive internal upgrade. It comes with two processor types; an 11th generation Intel processor and a custom AMD Ryzen Surface edition processor. It is also designed in 13″ and 15′ models.
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