Team TAWI, winners in the education category of the 2023 Imagine Cup world finals qualifying round have gone on to win the World Championship. The team qualified from 48 competing global teams to be selected among the top 3 to compete in the World Championship at Microsoft Build. They win the grand prize of USD 100,000, a mentorship session with Microsoft’s Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella, and Level 2 access to Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub.
They faced winning teams from the Americas and Asia regions; Eupnea from the United States, and CS-M Tool from Thailand, respectively. Winning the competition showcasing their solution that seeks to help people with auditory processing disorder communicate more easily. It leverages speech recognition tools from Azure Cognitive Services and OpenAI Whisper to enhance speech, reduce background noise, and transcribe speech to text in real-time.
The team will work to take their solution to the next phase and scale it. Watch the full 2023 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship event and hear more about their solution.
University students from across Kenya and some parts of Africa can now apply to participate in season 4 of the Microsoft Africa Development Centre’s (ADC) Game of Learners (GOL) student hackathon competition. The GOL initiative provides an opportunity for African university students, aspiring software engineers, and solution builders to improve their technical and coding abilities while creating solutions to current challenges facing the continent and the world.
GoL student hackathon Season 4
In this year’s student hackathon competition, participants will be working to develop possible technology solutions that can address different health challenges, including how to improve healthcare service provision in their localities or other parts of the world. The program runs as a 5-week hackathon with teams captained by Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors crafting the innovations while receiving technical training from Microsoft’s professionals.
“Since we launched Game of Learners four years ago, we have seen incredible development in the learner’ skills through each season as they create incredibly clever solutions to some of Africa’s pressing problems using Microsoft technology,” said Ruth Ferland, Senior Program Manager at ADC, and the founder of the Game of Learners Program. “This year’s theme will allow the participants to plug into an area that has enormous potential to impact lives across the continent and indeed around the world.”
The students will benefit from the instruction of 32 coaches and more than 20 advisors who will guide them through the process of learning new technologies and building their solutions. The coaches, mentors, judges, speakers, and trainers will consist of volunteers from Microsoft and partners, who for season 4 will include PSI and AMREF Health Africa.
Winning teams
At the end of the season, the winning team will be eligible for awards, including collaboration with GOL Season 4 partners to advance their solution and entry into the Microsoft Imagine Cup, where they will present their innovation on a global stage.
“This partnership with Microsoft is part of a larger initiative to increase the talent pool of individuals working in Digital Health across Africa”, said Martin Dale, Population Services International’s (PSI) Global Director of Digital Health. “There is so much talent graduating from our universities and Game of Learners is a great opportunity for students to dig in and create solutions that make health care more accessible to all.”, he continued.
Speaking about the initiative, Samuel Weru, AMREF Health Africa Group ICT Director, challenged students to apply for the program and be part of the drive towards creating home-grown solutions for Africa’s challenges.
“As a continent that has historically had serious healthcare challenges, we need the kind of ideas that can only come from the youth to revitalize healthcare service provision. There are myriad opportunities ranging from health informatics and telemedicine to big data analysis and system security for the learners to explore. We are eager to work with the teams to create solutions that have the potential to change Africa and the world,” said Weru.
GoL Season 4
In total, Season 4 will have 16 teams, each made up of 4 learners, 2 men and 2 women, drawn from all over the continent. The virtual student hackathon competition is open to students of accredited universities and colleges in sub-Saharan Africa, who will be vetted as per the requirements after submitting an online application.
“The program is designed to provide a fun, hands-on learning experience while creating a virtual environment that transcends borders to allow young minds to collaborate and drive the advancement of Africa into a global innovation hub. Having gender-balanced teams further ties into our mission of promoting diversity and inclusion within the tech industry,” explains Ferland.
Like a sports league, each 5-week season of Game of Learners follows up with a month-long season of GOL Clinic and GOL exhibitions to accord individuals seeking deeper hands-on technical experience and specialized training from Microsoft and GOL partners.
Microsoft announces Team Green Wavers as the winner of this year’s Game of Learners (GoL) university students hackathon competition. They won the climate change and sustainability-themed hackathon competition with a solution that encourages the public to plant trees. Team Wavers will have the privilege of working with the Green Belt Movement to develop their winning solution further.
Purity Jangaya (University of Nairobi), Ian Kariuki (Kenyatta University), Humphrey Kimathi (Kirinyaga University), Jessie Umuhire (African Leadership University) and Françoise Mukantwari (African Leadership University) make up the winning team, Green Wavers. The team got coaching support from Microsoft Africa Development Center’s Claire Limo (Software Engineer) and Loki Mutua (Product Manager).
The 5-week virtual hackathon’s objective was to propose solutions that reduce or reverse gas emissions and footprints, based on the theme Climate Change & Sustainability. Season 3 saw 40 students from universities in Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Uganda participating. It also had 21 judges from the Green Belt Movement, Kenya Climate Innovation Centre, UNICEF, the USIU, and the Microsoft ADC. In addition, there were 17 coaches and 16 trainers.
Green Wavers – Climate change solution
Based on the critical theme of Climate Change & Sustainability, the team created a tree planting competition website to encourage tree planting in line with the season’s challenge, which sought to propose a solution that reduces or reverses gas emissions and footprints.
The solution works in such a way that once a user has planted a tree and photographs it, the website allows the user to register and upload the image. Azure Computer Vision recognizes the uploaded image and confirms that the object in the image is a tree. If validation is successful, the database is updated with the user’s name, location, and tree image URL. If the user uploads another image and it is validated, the user’s tree count in the database grows.
If the validation fails, the user is prompted to upload a new image. After a month, the user with the most trees planted receives an award. The website also includes an education page where users can learn about the importance of planting trees, the consequences of cutting down trees, and how to plant a tree.
Carbon dioxide is thought to be responsible for 80% of global warming. Furthermore, it is estimated that the world emits approximately 43 billion tonnes of CO2 per year.
“Trees naturally absorb carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis and release pure oxygen into the environment. Therefore, planting trees equates to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. However, the number of trees being planted is far less than the number of trees being cut down. For one tree that is planted, three trees are cut down,” said Jangaya, the Green Wavers team captain.
“This is the problem that we identified, and the challenge is how we can make people plant more trees than those which are being destroyed. As team Wavers, we have found a solution and have developed a website that makes people plant trees.”
Microsoft Game of Learners
Speaking about the competition, the Game of Learners founder, Ruth Ferland said: “The focus of GOL is in fostering and encouraging continuous learning. It’s not about winning a prize but rather learning hands-on as much as possible in 5 weeks. Prizes and incentives are based on items that promote and assist learning including smartphones, Azure Credits, LinkedIn Learning Vouchers and MS Certification Vouchers.”
The participants’ journey is documented and released online as a weekly episode on the GOL Show with the finale having aired this week and can be found on the Game of Learners website. Volunteers support all GOL activities from Microsoft and partners as coaches, mentors, judges, speakers, and trainers.
Taking part in the Game of Learners competition is a winning experience for all participants considering the amount of learning that each participant is exposed to. The winning team gets an opportunity to have their winning solution adopted by an organization to develop it further.
“Another winning experience for Game of Learners participants is having the experience elevate them to become suitable candidates for various tech roles in the industry. From the previous Game of Learners seasons, we have seen a conversion rate of about 40% of our participants gaining meaningful employment with reputable companies, including Microsoft” Catherine Muraga, the ADC Managing Director emphasized.
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Team RUTELA is the winner of the first edition of the Equity Group Hackathon in partnership with Microsoft. The University of Nairobi student team wins a cash prize of Kes. 600,000, 3 months mentorship with Microsoft, Technical Cloud certificates for all team members and a gift hamper.
The Equity Hackathon brought students from the University of Nairobi and Meru University of Science and Technology together. To deliver solutions to address business and social challenges in the Payments, Financial Inclusion and Digital Identity thematic areas. The Hackathon, which opened for registration on 4th February, saw a total of 663 students register and compete to be among the top 120 participants to take part as innovators.
Equity Group, in partnership with Microsoft, brought together the shortlisted students for the virtual Hackathon which ran from the 17th of February to the 17th of March this year. The initiative challenged the students to be innovative and collaborate to build proofs of concept and minimum viable products for predefined business problems and social issues.
The Hackathon was phased into 4 stages. The first phase involved instructor-led and self-paced training of the participants on Microsoft Azure and the Business Problem Statements. In the second stage, the students went through the coding with mentorship from representatives from Equity, the University of Nairobi, Meru University of Science and Technology and Microsoft. Their solutions then went through a 1st and 2nd knock off stage, which culminated in the selection of the 4 winners.
Kenya is emerging as an innovations hub, especially in the financial sector, and organizations need to start looking internally for solutions that will give them an edge in the market says Microsoft ADC Kenya Program Manager, Irene Githinji.
“We are indeed not surprised by the ideas we have seen these young students work on during the Hackathon. The spirit of innovation is ripe in Kenya and it is time for Kenyan corporates to start looking at local education institutions and technology hubs for the development of unique solutions for their business needs.”
Irene Githinji
Equity Hackathon Winners
Winning team – Rutela, from the University of Nairobi
1st runner up – team Jazia, from Meru University of Science and Technology
2nd runner up – Hubert Kimani, from the University of Nairobi
3rd runner up – Team Code Ninjas, from the University of Nairobi
The 1st and 2nd Runners Equity Hackathon winners took home a cash prize of Kes. 250,000 and Kes. 150,000 respectively, a 3 months mentorship opportunity from Microsoft and a gift hamper. The 3rd Runners Up won Kes 100,000 and a gift hamper for each team member.
“The Hackathon has enabled us to sharpen our skills and align them to the demands of the marketplace“, notes Maluki Muthusi, from team Rutela. “We are grateful for the guidance given to us by our lecturers and the teams from Equity and Microsoft throughout the competition. We look forward to applying the principles even beyond this competition“, he adds.
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After weeks of gruelling teamwork, Microsoft announces team Bloom as winners of the second season of its Africa Development Center (ADC) Game of Learners Virtual Hackathon. Team kaizen came in second place and Team Tulearn came in third to complete the winning three teams.
Season 2 of the Microsoft ADC Game of Learners virtual hackathon competition involved 60 undergraduate students from Nigeria and Kenya. With the teams taking on the challenge of solving the education accessibility problems in Africa using technology. The 12 teams had a diversity and gender balance of 30 females and males.
Team Bloom led by Bethany Jepchumba from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, designed the winning solution Bloom-Learn.
The solution features a digital platform with capabilities to link students and teachers across Africa. Teachers are able to upload classes, create one-on-one sessions with students, as well as communicate with students on each course via a chat forum. Students can use a booking session to connect with teachers. Bloom-Learn is built with Microsoft’s Azure App Service, Power platform and Microsoft 365.
The other Team Bloom members include Joy Kathure (Dedan Kimathi University, Kenya), Festus Idowu (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria), Fortune Adekogbe (University of Lagos, Nigeria) and Afandi Indiatsi (Strathmore University, Kenya).
Jack Ngare, Microsoft ADC Kenya Managing Director, notes that Microsoft is committed to supporting these young innovators to develop some of their ideas into viable solutions.
Team Bloom gets the winning trophy and each member will receive a smartphone. They also get one-year Azure credits and one year LinkedIn Learning vouchers. Azure Developer exam voucher, digital certificate, digital badge, a swag bag, and one-on-one mentorship from preferred professionals for winning.
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