Microsoft is hiring software engineers from African universities to USA and Canada

Microsoft is hiring software engineers from African universities to USA and Canada

As part of plans to showcase the talent pool in Africa, Microsoft through its University Recruiting program and Africans at Microsoft is hiring final-year students and recent university graduates from across Africa into full-time engineering roles at Microsoft. The Microsoft African University Recruitment Program for recent graduate engineers will provide successful candidates with relocation to the USA and Canada.

Interested persons who will like to apply should have recently graduated from the university or will be graduating by 2023. Here are the qualifications you will need to meet.

  • Open to relocating to USA or Canada
  • Pursuing or recently completed a bachelor’s or master’s degree in engineering, computer science, or related field.  
  • One year of programming experience in an object-oriented language (C, C#, C++, Java, Python).  
  • Ability to demonstrate an understanding of computer science fundamentals, including data structures and algorithms. 

Activities that will give you an edge include experience building software outside of the classroom environment like an internship, hackathon, or research project. As well as showing the ability to work in a team and effective time management.

USA and Canada Microsoft

Microsoft started the program in 2017 dubbed Africa to Redmond; Hack for Africa. For its first iteration, Microsoft University Recruiting and Africans at Microsoft selected five universities on the continent to recruit from. University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Lagos (Nigeria), Ashesi University (Ghana), Makerere University (Uganda), and University of Cape Town (South Africa).

The Microsoft Team is organizing free virtual resume workshops to help interested persons prepare for the application process. Where they will provide information on Microsoft’s recruitment program, share tips on how to make your application stand out, and answer your questions. The free resume workshop will take place at different times depending on your country. Here are a few below:

Ghana – from 6 – 7:30 pm GMT on Saturday 20th August 2022. The link to join the session will be provided after you register, link: http://aka.ms/ghtomicrosoft.

Nigeria – from 7 pm WAT on Thursday 18th August 2022 via https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OdKrBDoOAeKX.

Kenya – from 6 – 7 pm EAT on 24th August 2022 via https://www.meetup.com/ms-ambassadors-ke/events/287900428/

During the workshop, Microsoft recruiters will share more on the recruitment process. But it usually takes place in three phases and will look something like this. It starts with an online coding challenge. A panel will then review the entries and select applicants for the next stage. The selected candidates will have an in-person or virtual interview. Finally, a successful candidate from the three steps will join Microsoft for a full-time position. The candidate will be assigned to an engineering team once they accept the offer.

Don’t forget to kindly share this opportunity with your friends or anyone this might help so they don’t miss out.

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GitHub Sponsors is now available to open source developers in Africa

GitHub Sponsors is now available to open source developers in Africa

GitHub announces the availability of GitHub Sponsors in 30 new regions including six located in Africa. The GitHub initiative is now available to open source developers and organizations in Kenya, Gambia, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia and Morocco. Developers and creators located in these countries can start receiving financial support for their work.

GitHub says there is no waitlist and anyone in these countries with a bank account can sign up right away. All you have to do is to create a GitHub Sponsors profile. Check this post out on how to create a profile. Alternatively, if you were on the waitlist you are now automatically in the program. You should see an email in your inbox welcoming you to the program. Anyone can sponsor, but you must reside in a supported region to receive funds.

we are here to support the humans behind human progress

GitHub Sponsors is an initiative by GitHub that allows anyone who contributes to open source to receive financial support. It is built for funding all types of work that advance open source software. Providing opportunities to participate in and build on open source, either through code, documentation, design, technical writing, mentorship, etc. It also provides a platform for the developer community to financially support the people and organizations who design, build, and maintain the open source projects they depend on, directly on GitHub.

GitHub says financially supporting the people who build and maintain open source is key to ensuring a healthy and sustainable open source ecosystem. The announcement makes the initiative now available in 68 countries or regions.

GitHub Sponsors Kenya Egypt South Africa Morocco Tunisia Nigeria

Through the GitHub Sponsors explore tool, GitHub has made it easy for anyone across the world to discover projects and maintainers and support them.

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Mint Group wins 2022 Microsoft Partner of the year South Africa country award

Mint Group wins 2022 Microsoft Partner of the year South Africa country award

Mint Group, a Microsoft Gold IT consultancy and systems integrator is the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year country Award winner in South Africa. The company receives the award for providing outstanding solutions and services in South Africa.

The company is among other Microsoft partners from across the globe who received recognition for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology within their respective countries. Mint is part of nine other organizations to receive recognition for the Microsoft Partner country award this year from Africa.

I am honoured to announce the winners and finalists of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice-president of Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft.

These partners were outstanding among the exceptional pool of nominees, and I’m continuously impressed by their innovative use of Microsoft Cloud technologies and the impact for their customers.

Mint Group Microsoft South Africa partner award winner

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognises Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based applications, services and devices during the past year. Awards were classified in various categories, with honourees chosen from a set of more than 3 900 submitted nominations from more than 100 countries worldwide.

We are delighted to receive this prestigious award for the second time in four years, particularly in a country that has such a highly competitive partner landscape,” says Mint Group CEO, Carel du Toit.

As an organisation, we strive for consistency and innovation. A win pre- and post-COVID demonstrates that we have been successful in adapting to changing circumstances and evolving our business to meet shifting demands.”

Mint Group is a cloud solution provider (CSP) with expertise across all three Microsoft Clouds – Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. Mint crafts industry solutions to help improve customer experiences, increase agility, improve operational efficiency and accelerate the digital transformation journey with AI and cognitive services for businesses and government institutions globally.

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5 African student teams qualify for the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals

5 African student teams qualify for the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals

Five student teams from Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa are advancing to the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals. For an opportunity to win over USD50,000 in prizing and a slot in the World Championship in May. Where they can win the grand prize of USD100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella.

In the Imagine Cup World Finals round, they will compete against 43 other finalists from across the world. The teams will pitch their ideas to judges, demo their solutions, and engage in a question and answer session. Projects will be judged on their innovative use of Azure technology, accessibility and inclusion, and its marketability as a business idea.

Imagine Cup World Finals 2022

The Africa Imagine Cup World Finalists include three student teams from Kenya, one from Cameroon and one from South Africa. They developed projects and solutions in the Education, Health and Earth competition categories. Five teams from the Middle East and Six from Europe bring this number to 16 finalists from the EMEA region.

The student innovation competition known by others as the Olympics of Technology celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. It allows students to create inspiring and inclusive projects using cutting-edge technologies and develop valuable skills. Last year a student team from Kenya became the first African team to win the Microsoft student competition. A testament to the impact skilling and mentorship is having on students through programs such as the Microsoft Learn Students program.

Here are the teams, the qualifying category, the country and details about their solutions.

Imagine Cup World Finals – Africa Teams

Alpha14 – South Africa, Education category

ULearn is an online learning platform that consists of exciting and interactive activities, assessments, simple flashcards, and numerous types of rewards. Activities are fun and motivate Down Syndrome children to learn and gather valuable statistics to track progress and emotions.

Neural Voxel – Kenya, Health category

Neural Voxel enables specialists to easily and swiftly diagnose various forms of diseases in MRI and CT scans with much higher accuracy while at the same time reducing the workload and fatigue rates of specialists.

Sayari – Kenya, Earth category

In order to reduce post-harvest losses and maximize yields for farmers, the Ideal Monitoring System aims to ensure ideal conditions for the safe storage and transportation of produce in transit and in stores.

Team U-Map – Cameroon, Education category

U-Map is a mobile app that serves to provide geolocation services so students and lecturers can get directions to any location on campus using their mobile phones.

The_X_Team – Kenya, Education category

Kaizen helps mitigate issues affecting education in Africa.

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Futurize launches university Innovation challenge in partnership with Microsoft, AstraZeneca

Futurize launches university Innovation challenge in partnership with Microsoft, AstraZeneca

Futurize is launching its first annual Fuel Africa Innovation Program from March 17 to 25, 2022. In partnership with AstraZeneca, through the A.Catalyst Network, and Microsoft and co-funded by Bristol Myers Squibb and Famfa Oil. To equip young entrepreneurs with the resources to build high-potential venture ideas and contribute to sustainable development globally.

Futurize Fuel Africa Innovation Program 2022

Fuel Africa 2022 will bring together students and alumni of 12 universities across 7 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges in healthcare. Through a virtual entrepreneurship bootcamp and innovation hackathon competition.

Coding or healthcare experiences are not a requirement to participate in the program. Participants will receive mentorship and hands-on training to build solutions for early-stage business ventures. It is currently focusing on solutions that provide access to healthcare as well as the screening, early diagnosis and optimal management of Non-Communicable Diseases. Winners will get investment money and opportunities to advance their careers.

Participating universities include Amref International University (AMIU), African Leadership University (ALU), Covenant University, JFN Institute of Technology, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, University of Ghana, University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, University of Capetown, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and the University of Nairobi.

Microsoft, through the Africa Transformation Office, is committed to supporting education transformation across Africa with access to learning tools, resources and technology. We look forward to seeing what innovative solutions to pressing concerns these bright minds will develop during the program.”

Yacine Barro Bourgault, Enablement Lead, Africa Transformation Office at Microsoft.

Click to learn more about the Futurize Fuel Africa 2022 Health Innovation challenge and how to participate.

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