Microsoft Student Summit Africa (MSSA) is back and is scheduled to take place from 1st to 3rd December 2021. The free three-day virtual conference will seek to upskill and expose students to Microsoft technologies. With learning covering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Microsoft Power Platform, web development, etc.
The event will have two days of learning with about 20 deep-dive sessions. Learners will form teams and collaborate on projects in a hackathon on the third day and compete to win prizes. Like the previous editions, there will be sessions on recruiting workshops for software engineer and program manager roles.
The Microsoft student summit is open to students in universities and tertiary institutions across Africa and the globe. But only students in Africa will be eligible to participate in the hackathon and win prizes.
Microsoft Africa Development Center is sponsoring the summit and learners will get the opportunity to hear and learn from Microsoft leaders and software engineers.
Click for more information and register your details to participate in the MSSA. Don’t forget to share this post with your friends or anyone who might benefit from this training.
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Check out other stories making the news in the technology ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East.
Four computer science final year students of United States International University – Africa (USIS), Kenya, are the winners of the 2021 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship. The team wins the competition trophy, USD 125000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Named Team REWEBA, they become the first student team from Africa to lift the prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship trophy in its 19-year history. The student team beat three other finalist teams from New Zealand, the United States and Thailand to win the competition.
Their journey began by beating ten thousands of students entries from 163 countries to qualify for the online semifinals round. They then progressed as part of 40 teams to qualify for round one of the World Finals stage. Where two other student teams from Kenya; Cafrilearn and INTELLIVOLT qualified to compete. At the world finals stage, Team REWBA emerged winners of the healthcare category. Advancing to the World Championship which took place during Microsoft Build 2021.
The students showcased an IoT-based early warning system for babies using technologies such as Machine Learning, IoT, Analytics, etc. Their innovation, Remote Well Baby (REWEBA), remotely monitors infant parameters during regular post-natal screening. It then sends measurements to doctors remotely, allowing for immediate interventions saving infants from fatal diseases and reducing infant mortality rates.
The Kenya students; Khushi Gupta, Jeet Gohil, Dharmik Karania and Abdihamid Ali, win USD 75,000 cash, USD 50,000 Microsoft Azure grant and will get a mentoring session with Satya Nadella.
The students are planning to enhance and scale their project. They will also launch a startup in Kenya that provides better access to healthcare especially to those in marginalized areas.
Watch the World Championship below.
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More than 1000 students from 126 universities across Africa have participated in the UmojaHack Africa 2021 virtual machine learning hackathon. The hackathon organized by Zindi took place on the weekend of 27-28 March.
1150 Students from 21 African countries joined the event participating in three different machine learning challenges. They represent Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Data science students from 9 African countries won a total competition price of more than $10000 USD in prizes. 8500 submissions were made to solve three real-world machine learning challenges on Zindi.
A financial resilience prediction challenge, a logistics challenge for African B2B service provider Sendy, and a computational biology challenge using the DeepChain™ platform developed by InstaDeep.
The winning solutions developed by Zindi data science users will be shared with these organisations and deployed in real-world applications.
In winning second place in the Sendy Delivery Rider Response Challenge, Tony Mipawa, a data science student from the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, epitomised the spirit of Zindi and of UmojaHack. A year ago, Tony was a data science novice until he participated in Zindi’s first-ever Mentorship Programme in 2020. He has grown in leaps and bounds since then. As evidenced by his prize-winning submission in this hackathon, less than a year later.
“I’m very happy with the outcome,” Tony said at the awards ceremony. “My advice is, whenever there is an opportunity to learn, you should take it. Learning is all about passion; whenever there is an opportunity to learn, put your whole effort into it, do it well. Try to learn from anyone you meet. I would like to thank Zindi for what that mentorship programme gave me.”
Some of the leading names in the global and African tech, AI and financial sectors made UmojaHack Africa 2021 possible. These include InstaDeep, Standard Bank Group, Microsoft, DeepMind, NVIDIA, and Old Mutual. They were integral in making the event a success. By offering financial and professional development prizes, contributing their expertise and excitement to the event, and supporting UmojaHack Africa 2021 through their own channels.
“We are incredibly excited about this event spanning over 100 African universities and helping thousands of African students leverage their data science and AI skills to solve African problems,” says Chris Lwanga, Principal Director for Software Partnerships at Microsoft. “At Microsoft, we believe in empowering every organisation and person to do more.”
“Standard Bank is deeply invested in funding and implementing critical data science skills development programmes, such as Zindi’s UmojaHack Africa 2021 hackathon, to position Africa as a serious competitor in the world’s rapidly emerging data-driven sector,” says Adrian Vermooten, Chief Innovation Officer, Standard Bank Group.
“We are delighted to support UmojaHack Africa again, an incredible initiative close to our hearts. Seeing students from more than 120 universities come together to collaborate on real-world machine learning challenges is truly inspiring,” says Karim Beguir, Co-Founder and CEO of InstaDeep. “This is, in our opinion, the best way to accelerate AI growth on the continent. Hackathons like UmojaHack bring us one step closer to achieving InstaDeep’s mission: building an AI-first world that benefits everyone.”
According to Celina Lee, CEO of Zindi, “UmojaHack Africa has proven to be a game-changing event, especially when so many young people have been impacted by the global pandemic. This is a chance for students from across the continent to come together to learn, compete, and have fun. UmojaHack is about building skills, creating new machine learning applications to solve problems that really matter while forging new connections among the students as well as with industry. We are incredibly excited to see what the students come up with in just one weekend.”
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Check out other stories making the news in the technology ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East.
Four computer science final year students of the United States International University – Africa (USIS) in Kenya will represent the Europe Middle East and Africa region at the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship.
The students are winners of the healthcare category and one of four teams advancing to the finals of this year’s Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. Where they get to compete with other teams from New Zealand, the United States, and Thailand for USD75,000 and mentorship with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.
“We have no words, it means a lot“
The Team
Meet team REWEBA, made of four members; Khushi Gupta, Jeet Gohil, Dharmik Karania, and Abdihamid Ali. REWBA comes from their innovation name Remote Well Baby.
Team REWEBA entered into the competition under the healthcare category with an IoT-based early warning system for babies. Their innovation remotely monitors infant parameters during regular post-natal screening. It then sends measurements to doctors remotely, allowing for immediate interventions saving infants from fatal diseases, and reducing infant mortality rates.
The students from Kenya say we have no words, it means a lot after working hard to get to the Imagine Cup World Championship.
Their journey includes beating tens of thousands of students from 163 countries in the online semifinal round. Then selected as part of 40 teams to qualify for round one of the World Finals stage. Where two other student teams from Kenya; Cafrilearn and INTELLIVOLT qualified to compete.
They among 11 other teams from across the world qualified to present in round two of the World Finals. Advancing to the next stage of the competition means the team wins USD10,000 and Azure credits.
Imagine Cup World Championship
The four finalists present ideas that tackle local and global issues in one of each of the competition categories; healthcare, education, earth, and lifestyle. The three other teams are Team ProTag from New Zealand, Hand-On-Labs from the USA, and Threeotech from Thailand.
The world championship is taking place before the Microsoft Build 2021 Keynotes. Team REWEBA from Kenya will get the opportunity to be the first team from Africa to win the Microsoft Imagine Cup student competition.
Firstly are you a team player? Do you have a growth mindset? Are you resourceful and customer focused? Have a demonstrated desire and ability to readily take on complex challenges and work towards solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems? Do you have passion for technology and how technology can inspire and ignite change and renewal? Finally are you Within 12 months of graduation or graduated within the last 12 months?
If you tick yes in all the categories above then Microsoft invites you to apply for a full-time opportunity. Microsoft believes “when smart people with a passion for technology get together they create things that change the world.”
Here are details on qualifications and responsibilities on Full-time Opportunity
Qualifications Applications to this opportunity are considered depending on education level and/or location. To be considered as student/recent graduate, you should be:
Within 12 months of graduation or graduated within the last 12 months.
Up to 2 years of accumulated full-time professional experience.
Passion for the technology and innovation.
Excellent verbal and written communication, analytical and presentation skills.
English language fluency.
Responsibilities We are looking for candidates that have the following qualities:
Team Player: driving digital transformation with our customers is a team sport. We need teammates who can stay maniacally focused on our customers’ satisfaction while operating in a highly-collaborative, matrixed global organization.
Growth Mindset: your life is truly about learning-it-all. You approach every new piece of information, knowledge, and competency with insatiable curiosity. Ultimately, you’re open to the ideas of others, where the success of others does not diminish your own.
Resourceful: you have the drive to overcome any obstacle in your work.
Customer Focused: you learn about your customers and their businesses with a beginner’s mind and then bring solutions that meet their needs.
Pure Challenge: demonstrated desire and ability to readily take on complex challenges and work towards solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.
Passion for Technology: you’re deeply motivated by the incredible opportunity of how technology can inspire and ignite change and renewal.
Microsoft Full-time Opportunity, click to apply below
