by Sylvester Addo | Sep 29, 2018 | 4Afrika, General, Microsoft Africa, Startup
Microsoft sponsors DEMO Africa 2018, as it seeks to support African Startups
DEMO Africa 2018 is set to take place in Morocco and Microsoft is a lead sponsor of the event. Taking place October 18-19th 2018 in Casablanca and hosted by the African Technology Foundation.
30 startup finalists from across Africa will showcase their innovations to an audience of investors, corporate acquirers and strategic partners. Five finalists will qualify for the Lions Innovation Tour of Silicon Valley.
Since the introduction of 4Afrika Initiative back in 2013, Microsoft has partnered and supported programs that aim at developing startups. This year won’t be any different as Microsoft continues to support DEMO Africa.
Speaking on the partnership Microsoft’s Africa Startup Lead, Tarik Hilali, said; “the engagement forms part of Microsoft 4Afrika’s continent-wide commitment to empower local technology startups. By providing them with access to technology, information, markets, finance, skills and services“.
Microsoft’s partnership with Demo Africa and others like it, it says are to create an environment where key role players are working together to support startup needs.
“Microsoft 4Afrika is actively empowering SMEs and startups in Africa to digitally transform. Ensuring they are more profitable, sustainable, scalable and competitive“. – Tarik Hilali, Africa Startup Lead – Microsoft
Through the Microsoft 4Afrika initiative, Microsoft reports 64 startups have received financing. It also shares 100 other startups across the region have received direct mentorship and technical supports.
Tarik shared on how Microsoft will be involved at Demo Africa 2018. Microsoft will be involved in speaking sessions, hosting hands-on workshops for finalists and providing technical and financial support for the conference. “Microsoft 4Afrika also uses DEMO Africa as a platform to identify and recruit high-potential startups into its own investment network”.
Silicon Valley will be at DEMO Africa 2018
This year organizers of the event say it will receive leading Venture Capitalists from Silicon Valley. They will seek to explore investment opportunities, broaden their knowledge of the African startup ecosystems as well as share best practices on global venture creation during the event.
“The 2018 edition of DEMO Africa will also include the Ecosystem Enabler Series. A combination of keynotes, panels and fireside chats that will yield productive dialogue between industry leaders and innovation actors about the future of the African technology ecosystem; the Investor Round-tables and Angel Investor Summit”
Interested in attending? Get a ticket for the event here.
by MCGH Admin | Sep 17, 2018 | General, Microsoft Africa
Microsoft shares that Ecobank Group has improved its business performance using Microsoft’s Power BI solution.
The released statement says; Ecobank, one of the continents leading banking conglomerates has been able to drastically improve its business analytics needs with the help of Microsoft Power BI.
“We were looking for something that was easy to implement and configure as well. Moreover, as we deal with sensitive data, Power BI provides a secured environment which helps protect data integrity.” – Sarah Aryee-Oppan, Head of BI & Big Data Ecobank
Microsoft’s Power BI is a suite of analytic tools that deliver insights. It allows a user to connect data from multiple sources and produce reports that can be accessed on different platforms and devices in real-time.
With it a user can unify data from many sources to create interactive, immersive dashboards and reports that provide actionable insights and drive business results says Microsoft.
On how easy it was getting around Microsoft’s Power BI solution, Sarah said “None of us have attended any formal training. – With most of us being self-taught on Power BI. Various tutorials are also available online – allowing for easier learning.”
Ecobank’s needs in terms of data mining and business analytics was and is prodigious. With operations spread over a whole continent, reporting environments and individual affiliate databases are diverse. Hence the need expressed by Ecobank’s Group CEO, Ade Ayeyemi, for a single dashboard for quicker and easier access to data.
This could be another move in the digital transformation partnership journey between both organizations. As Ecobank CEO Ade Ayeyemi said a year ago, “the main focus is to increase financial inclusion in Africa”.
Feature Image ?: Ecobank
by Sylvester Addo | Sep 11, 2018 | General, Microsoft
Deep Learning Indaba 2018 is taking place at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The event put together by a group of researchers who realized the machine learning landscape in Africa was non existant. They share that “the African continent has been absent from the contemporary machine learning landscape the last decade”.
At the 30th conference on Neural Information Processing in 2016, one of the world’s foremost gatherings on machine learning, there was not a single accepted paper from a researcher at an African institution.
In fact, for the last decade, the entire African continent has been absent from the contemporary machine learning landscape.
This landscape is surely changing with the announcement of a Google AI research center in Africa, which will open later this year in Accra. Microsoft has joined this ecosystem in the region by sponsoring Deep Learning Indaba 2018. Microsoft talks about its commitment to strengthening Machine Learning in Africa by supporting the event.
Deep Learning Indaba is a weeks event of teaching, sharing and debate around machine learning and artificial intelligence. It aims to be a catalyst for strengthening machine learning in Africa. The conference will offer keynote sessions, hands on workshops, poster sessions, networking and mentoring sessions.
Microsoft engineers and researchers will speak at the event. They will also host a Women in Machine Learning session to encourage, support and unite women. Microsoft also said “as there will be a high number of students in attendance, our panel also highlights diverse career paths, from academia to industrial research, to applied machine learning, to start-ups”.
by Sylvester Addo | Sep 6, 2018 | General, Windows, Windows 10
Learn about the new tweaks and features to expect in the coming Windows 10 RS5 update
Microsoft’s Windows Insider team are putting finishing touches to the current preview builds in testing. The latest Windows 10 Insider Preview build 17751 released, no longer has the build watermark on the desktop. This means we are almost at the finish line, where it gets generally available to the public. Microsoft also announced at IFA Berlin trade show that the current Windows 10 RS5 build will officially be known as the October 2018 Update. So we start counting down to its release.
At Microsoft Build this year Microsoft talked about its vision and strategy for its platforms including Windows. The fusion of Windows and Office in the Microsoft 365 platform. Some of these features Microsoft says are necessary as our world grows into a multi-sense and multi-device world. These features in as much as try to help you save time and be productive have the new sense of Microsoft. Meeting customers where they are and connecting customers PC experiences with their phones.
Let’s take a look at what has been in testing for a while and Microsoft’s plans with it. Earlier we highlighted Mixed Reality Flashlight, New Emoji’s in a post. If I haven’t included a feature you know of and like, kindly share that with us in the comments. I’ll update post with it. Thank you.
What’s new in Windows 10 RS5, October 2018 Update
Your phone
This feature was announced and demoed at Build 2018 as “your phone” and looks pretty helpful. It helps connect your phone to your PC. Making it easy to access the contents of your phone. Easy access to notifications, text messages, photos, etc. using your PC instead of picking up your phone to do this.
No matter your device, iOS or Android, “Your phone app helps you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your computer to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen.
“There’s a new way to connect your phone to your PC with Windows 10 that enables instant access to text messages, photos, and notifications. Imagine being able to quickly drag and drop your phone’s photos into a document on your PC in one swift movement – without having to take your phone out of your pocket. Today, this experience allows you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your PC to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen. With a linked phone, continuing on your PC is one share away“.
Skype for Windows 10
There have been calls for changes in Skype ever since ever. Some felt it wasn’t lite enough to use etc.. Then other messengers came on the block like WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber etc. Skype lost most of their users. I don’t want to say skype was business focused. Looks like Skype finally has a friendly consumer version. Try it when the update rolls out if you haven’t already in the preview and come tell me what you think.
Microsoft lists out some of the changes it has made to the application.
Best in class calling experience – We’ve added several new calling features to make Skype’s calling experience even better than before:
Flexible group call canvas – Customize your group call experience and decide who appears in the main call canvas. Simply drag and drop people between call canvas and the overflow ribbon to select who you want to focus on.
Take snapshots – Use snapshots to capture images of important moments within a call. Snapshots makes sure you never forget important memories like your grandkid’s funny antics or crucial information like the content that’s been screen shared during a meeting.
Easily start screen sharing – We’ve made sharing your screen during calls even easier. Look for the ability to share your screen with the top level call controls.
New layout – Based on your feedback, we’ve made your contacts easier to access and view.
Customizable themes – Choose a color and theme for your Skype client through or application settings.
And much more – Improvements to our media gallery, notifications panel, and @mentions experience and more!
A modern Snipping experience
The Snipping tool has a big boost. It’s way easier using shortcuts to launch application and get going. The new capabilities with the Sketch app makes editing and transforming the snip even better.
One of the loudest things we heard is that you want to be able to quickly snip & share a screenshot. We’re making it happen! WIN + Shift + S will now bring up a snipping toolbar – snip a rectangle, something a bit more freeform, or full screen and it will go straight to your clipboard. If that’s all you need, you can take it from there. Want more, though? Immediately after taking a snip you’ll now get a notification that will take you and your snip to the Screen Sketch app where you can annotate and share away!
Press Print Screen. You heard it right, just one button! It’s not enabled by default – go to Keyboard Settings – you’ll see a new option that says “Use the Print Screen key to launch screen snipping”. Opening Settings and searching for “print screen” will take you to the right page.
Press the quick action button in Action Center. Called “Screen snip” – it should be there as soon as you upgrade, but if not you can always enable it via Notifications & Actions Settings.
New Clipboard experience
Copy paste – it’s something we all do, probably multiple times a day. But what do you do if you need to copy the same few things again and again? How do you copy content across your devices? Today we’re addressing that and taking the clipboard to the next level – simply press WIN+V and you’ll be presented with our brand-new clipboard experience!
Not only can you can paste from the clipboard history, but you can also pin the items you find yourself using all the time. This history is roamed using the same technology which powers Timeline and Sets, which means you can access your clipboard across any PC with this build of Windows or higher.
Our new settings page for enabling this experience is under Settings > System > Clipboard – please try this out and share feedback! This link will open the Feedback Hub to where you can tell us about your experience and what you’d like to see next.
SwiftKey intelligence comes to Windows
If you’ve been a windows 10 mobile user you’ll be used to the swift key. This feature is finally enabled in tablet mode on Windows 10.
SwiftKey will now power the typing experience on Windows when using the touch keyboard to write in English (United States), English (United Kingdom), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), or Russian.
These are just a few of the amazing updates coming in Windows 10 RS5 or should I say Windows 10 October 2018 Update.
Dark theme in file explorer (above), more fluent designs across the operating system and applications. Microsoft Edge improvements, Xbox and game mode features etc. Share your favourite new feature with us.
UPDATE : So i saw somewhere in the feedback hub people requesting your phone gets changed to my phone. It got answered and closed but well in the final push out it remained Your Phone.
by Sylvester Addo | Aug 8, 2018 | Editor Picks, General, Microsoft, Microsoft Africa
Meet the grant recipients of the 2018 Microsoft Airband Initiative
A ColdHubs storage ?: ColdHubs
Microsoft has announced the eight early-stage companies selected for its third annual Airband Grant Fund. This year 3 companies from Africa become grant recipients. These are ColdHubs – Nigeria, MeshPower – Rwanda and Agsol – Kenya.
This brings the total number of grant partners in Africa to 19. Other recipients of the initiative are Spectra Wireless – Ghana, VisionNet – DRC, My Digital Bridge – Namibia, iSizwe – South Africa, C3 – Malawi, Mawingu – Kenya amongst others. Last year 6 African entrepreneurs were awarded in its 2nd year.
“As a global technology company,
we believe we have a responsibility and a great opportunity
to help close this gap”. – Microsoft
The Airband Initiative grant from Microsoft is a partnership with equipment makers, internet, energy access providers and local entrepreneurs. With this partnership Microsoft believes the initiative will provide access that unconnected and underserved communities need to thrive.
The grant partners receive financing, technology, mentorship, networking opportunities and other support. This helps to “scale the start-ups’ innovative new technologies, services and business models”.
Microsoft says “today, internet access is as essential as electricity. It empowers entrepreneurs to start and grow small businesses. Farmers to implement precision agriculture, doctors to improve community health and students to do better in school. But almost half the world’s population is still not online. Often because they live in underserved areas, and therefore miss out on opportunities to take advantage of and become part of the digital economy. As a global technology company, we believe we have a responsibility and a great opportunity to help close this gap“.
Grant recipients of the 2018 Microsoft Airband Initiative
MeshPower
Based in Kigali, Rwanda, MeshPower focuses on providing energy to off-grid regions. They’ve developed a smart, internet connected, PV DC microgrid which delivers 48V DC energy to customers at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.
Cold Hubs
Based in Owerii, Nigeria, Cold Hubs provides solar-powered walk-in cold rooms to help eliminate the impact of food spoilage, which affects 470 million farmers globally. Their next phase of innovation involves equipping the cold rooms with Wi-Fi hotspots.
Agsol
Agsol, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is a startup that manufactures solar powered agro-processing machines for off-grid farming communities. Their machines process crops such as maize flour, milled rice, and grated cassava and excess power is used for lights, phone chargers, and small appliances.
Microsoft shares the innovative story of ColdHubs, a 2018 Microsoft Airband Initiative grant recipient
?: ColdHubs
ColdHubs is another organization finding innovative ways to tackle the broadband access challenge. In Owerri, Nigeria, ColdHubs is transforming their refrigerated crop storage rooms into Wi-Fi hot spots using TVWS technology. The company aims to empower smallholder farmers with the ability to earn better livelihoods. Their solar-powered crop storage facilities help reduce food spoilage, which causes 470 million smallholder farmers to lose 25 percent of their annual income. Farmers who use ColdHubs can extend the freshness of their fruits and vegetables from two to about 21 days, reducing post-harvest loss by 80 percent. By turning these facilities into Wi-Fi “Farm Connect Centers,” ColdHubs will enable farmers to get online and access agricultural training, resources to improve crop yields and marketing and digital skills training.
