Nedbank is introducing the Nedbank DigiSkills online platform. A low bandwidth digital skills training program in partnership with Microsoft and Afrika Tikkun. To help South Africans acquire the in-demand skills needed in a more digital post-COVID-19 economy. It plans to upskill and create sustainable income opportunities for one thousand South Africans by the end of 2021. With plans to scale this number to five thousand in the longer term.
The platform offers five free online courses and learning tracks that lead to roles in software development, data analysis, IT administration, customer service specialist and project management. Participants will undergo an evaluation process after the completion of a learning path. Those who qualify proceed to complete a Microsoft Certification exam.
South Africans over the age of 18, who can read and write English are eligible to participate in the Nedbank DigiSkills training.
Participating in the skills program is easy and here are the steps. First, visit the platform https://www.digiskills.careers and sign up. Enter your mobile number to start the registration process. You will receive an SMS to verify and confirm your mobile number. Then enter your details to complete your profile. Finally, you’ll then have access to the course library. Choose a course and start learning.
Nedbank says exam writing is available at its facilities in major cities across South Africa.
Microsoft South Africa’s partnership with Nedbank is part of Microsoft’s global skills initiative to help people most affected by the pandemic gain in-demand skills to be employable. By offering free online courses across Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub learning platforms. So far over 30 million people across the globe have participated in the program and over a million across Africa. Microsoft is partnering with organizations and governments in Africa to bring this to more people. Offering additional funding and services to make this possible where this is necessary.
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Microsoft celebrates its excelling local partners in South Africa at its annual partner award event. The award event is set aside each year to recognize the contributions of the Microsoft partner community. The community that enables and empowers Microsoft customers and organizations in South Africa to do more. The event wasn’t short of the usual partner excitement even though it took place virtually this year.
Microsoft South Africa awarded partners in 18 categories. Among the many winners on the night, Gijima Holdings (Pty) Ltd took home the 2021 Managing Director Partner of the Year award. Mint Group won awards in three categories, the most by any Microsoft partner. Mint also got the most partner nominations in six categories. Followed by BUI with awards in two categories and four nominations.
Here below is a full list of award winners at 2021 Microsoft South Africa partner awards winner.
2021 Microsoft South Africa partner Award Winners list
Microsoft Modern Work Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Azure Infrastructure Partner of the Year – BUI
Data and Analytics Partner of the Year – Altron Karabina
Artificial Intelligence Partner of the Year – Praelexis
Security Partner of the Year – BUI
Business Applications Power Platform Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Dynamics Customer Engagement Partner of the Year – Enterprisecloud
Application Development Partner of the Year – Tangent IT Solutions
Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner of the Year – Just Dynamics Software Solutions (Pty) LTD
CSP Indirect Provider of the Year – Tarsus on Demand
Dynamics Finance & Operations Partner of the Year – Parity Software (Pty) Ltd
Commercial Channel Partner of the Year – NTT Dimension Data
Microsoft Consulting Services Partner of the Year – Mint Group
Industry Solution – Public Sector Partner of the Year – Boxfusion
Industry Solution – FSI Partner of the Year – InQuba
New or Emerging Services Partner of the Year – InfoVerge Solutions (Pty) Ltd
New or Emerging ISV Partner of the Year – iiDENTIFii
Managing Director’s Partner of The Year – Gijima Holdings (Pty) Ltd
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Digital SA Nation (SAtion), is collaborating with Microsoft South Africa to create digitally skilled South Africans. By introducing a Digital Skills Hub that will promote digital literacy, skills transfer and upskilling, and close the digital divide. The partnership between the two organizations hopes to aid in the socio-economic transformation of South Africa.
For Microsoft, the partnership with Digital SA Nation will provide opportunities that enable citizens to effectively operate in the digital space. Letting the South African youth unlock their career with skills that will improve their chances of securing a job.
“The digital economy creates the ideal opportunity for job creation,” says Lillian Barnard, General Manager, Microsoft South Africa. It also spurs innovation, boosts economic growth and supports long-term competitiveness“, she adds.
The SAtion Digital Skills Hub will host three initiatives; the Global Skills Initiative, Mahala, and Microsoft Cloud Society. Each initiative will offer different opportunities for all South Africans to acquire digital skills. This includes the youth, unemployed, small, medium and micro enterprises, and government officials.
With the Mahala initiative, South Africans aged 8 to 24 can sign up for the full Microsoft Office 365 free of charge. Through this portal, you will be able to activate Microsoft licenses for the Microsoft Office 365 suite and 5TB OneDrive cloud-based storage.
If you are interested in cloud computing and looking to learn and grow, the Microsoft Cloud Society initiative helps you identify and engage with passionate and influential cloud computing focused experts from the industry. You also get free online training and free or subsidized vouchers to take certification exams.
Through the Global Skills Initiative unemployed or economically disadvantaged South Africans can acquire skills and certification for in-demand jobs. These include roles such as software engineer, data analyst, customer service specialist and more.
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Standard Bank and Microsoft announce a strategic partnership to accelerate the digital transformation of Africa’s largest financial institution and further drive the continent’s growth. The Bank’s growing investment in the Microsoft Cloud will enable the innovation, efficiencies, and resilience required to respond to market dynamics and customer needs.
This partnership builds on the 30-year relationship between the two companies and involves migrating workloads, applications, and platforms to Microsoft Azure to drive organisational efficiencies, as well as workforce collaboration with Azure, PowerApps, Workplace Analytics and Microsoft Teams.
“Investing in the cloud will allow Standard Bank to achieve its strategy to transform from a traditional financial services company into a digital platform company, providing financial services, plus ancillary and associated services. We have adopted a cloud-first strategy, underpinned by end-to-end security and data-driven insights that will enable transformation with tangible results,” says Standard Bank Group Chief Executive, Sim Tshabalala.
“Standard Bank’s cloud-first strategy underlines the growing momentum in financial services to deliver differentiated experiences that today’s customers expect,” said Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s executive vice president of Worldwide Commercial Business. “As a long-standing technology partner, we are pleased to collaborate with Standard Bank in realizing this strategy and in becoming Africa’s future-first financial services firm through digital skilling-focused initiatives that will expand economic opportunity for young people across Africa.”
As part of the partnership, the companies will also:
Establish the African Digital Foundry (The Foundry), a strategic alliance, for Standard Bank and Microsoft to collaborate to co-create unique solutions through new technology to meet the financial needs of Africa’s consumers. Through the Foundry, the companies aspire to reach 100 million customers in Africa over the next five years.
Bring together their resources and know-how to provide youth with the relevant digital skills needed to secure future-ready jobs and equip Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with digital skills and capabilities so that they can take advantage of the growing shift to digital technologies.
The African Digital Foundry (The Foundry)
Standard Bank and Microsoft, through the Foundry, will co-create and execute joint go-to-market digital services related to trade, payment, and risk-based (lending and insurance) solutions. They will also develop ecosystems enabling digital trading to facilitate Africa’s growth.
“The Foundry is a digital initiative established in Africa, for Africans, to address the unique challenges the continent faces with customised innovations, services and solutions,” says Tshabalala. “The partnership will further enhance and create ongoing collaboration between our firms around co-engineering solutions for African consumers’ unique needs.”
Skills and Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Development
Harnessing the power and reach of both organisations, the partnership will also drive digital skills development, boost youth employment, and accelerate the growth of SMEs on the African continent.
Both organisations believe that digital transformation represents an opportunity for the continent to leap ahead, taking a leading role in enabling economic and societal growth in Africa.
Microsoft and Standard Bank will leverage their combined research, industry, partner and start-up programmes to impact the continent – where similar opportunities and challenges exist – using technology such as mixed reality and artificial intelligence.
“Continuing to build on the partnership is part of the ongoing journey that Standard Bank and Microsoft are on to invest in digital transformation as the enabler of meaningful and tangible innovation. Our journey is underpinned by collaborative efforts to develop, scale and roll-out digital solutions that will deliver personalised services to 100 million Africans and by meeting their unique and evolving needs and demands,” says Tshabalala.
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Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) is collaborating with pricing and rebate management experts Flintfox, and Microsoft to modernise how it uses technology. This is part of an ongoing digital transformation programme at its bottling plants. The collaboration will help the bottling giant retire legacy solutions, to better manage pricing and overcome existing challenges at all stages of the supply chain.
The collaboration between Microsoft and Flintfox helps CCBA to accelerate its digital transformation journey, via seamless digital systems that enable the entire business to operate as one.
“Flintfox’s Trade Revenue Management and RMx pricing extended the capabilities of our Finance and Operations solutions. Enabling CCBA’s digital transformation“, notes Gavin Holme, consulting services director at Microsoft South Africa. “With Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Azure, CCBA will achieve their goal to unify operations and intelligently adjust processes in real-time. He adds.”
Trade Revenue Management and the RMx pricing engine provide CCBA with the ability to manage advanced pricing and promotions, reduce operating costs and monitor margins. By extending the capability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and integrating with existing e-commerce and sales force automation platforms, Flintfox will enable real-time hyper-speed pricing and help deliver accurate pricing across the supply chain.
“It’s an exciting time to be working with CCBA, as they bring their digital transformation vision to life via Microsoft Dynamics 365 and set out on a path of accelerated growth“, says Flintfox EMEA Director Mark Conway. He adds, “Our intelligent solutions will reduce operating costs, create productivity gains and future-proof operations. What’s more, we will provide real-time pricing accuracy across CCBA’s channels and deliver significant, measurable ROI to the business.”
Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Chief Information Officer Joshua Motsuenyane notes: “Because CCBA was born out of a merger of different companies, there are a number of infrastructure redundancies, supply duplications, and lines of accountability that were blurred. We needed to perfect the overall business’ ability to operate as one and improve pricing transparency and visibility. Flintfox and Microsoft helped us strategize how to better manage advanced pricing, promotion management, and complex supply chain pricing, as well as provide a roadmap for the future. This integration with Flintfox and Microsoft modernizes the way we use technology across our entire IT landscape and allows us to completely retire legacy systems“.
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