Microsoft Middle
East and Africa plans to come with the strong antivirus protection, programs,
training and windows suitable for Africa with purpose of fostering social
interaction and improving Africa’s competitiveness in the global market.
Speaking to East
African Business Week last week in Dar es Salaam, Director, Product Marketing
Application Platform Middle East & Africa, Aydin Gencler said that
Microsoft is on the mission to address Africa‘s IT skills shortage through its
employee volunteer programme My Skills 4Africa which was launched in February
this year.
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| Director, Product Marketing Application Platform Middle East & Africa, Aydin Gencle |
He said the
programme is designed to enable Microsoft’s global employees – both technical
and non-technical – to contribute to improving Africa’s competitiveness.
“We designed the
program in line with the company’s heritage of giving back to the communities
in which we operate, and in order to advance the overall goals of the 4Afrika
Initiative around accelerating innovation, world-class skills and affordable
access for Africans,” said Gencler.
Gencler added
that the programme is a response to the consistent concern from partners about
a real skills gap in Africa due to the lack of enough people to hire with the
skills needed to meet 21st century business demands including not just ICT
skills but also sales, marketing as well as leadership skills in office
management.
He further said
that it aims to train 200,000 Africans by 2016, with 100,000 coming from the
existing workforce which is largely made up of Microsoft’s partner community
while the remaining 100,000 will consist of recent graduates, 75% of who will
be helped in terms of jobs placement via partners.
“We will make
sure also that we work closer with the universities in Africa by creating
suitable programs, products and solution with minimum cost and affordable with
aims of creating more jobs for young graduates in Africa,”
“While 4Afrika is
definitely about helping Africa grow, it is not about charity. This is a
business strategy for Microsoft’s own growth on the continent as well,”
“We believe
deeply that helping Africa accelerate economic development and create jobs will
help Microsoft achieve our company’s mission in Africa.
MySkills4Afrika is
about developing Africa’s business climate to enable people to compete and
reach their full potential,” stated Gencler, adding that the skills focus is
squarely on entrepreneurship and employability, and subsequently helping
Africans find and create jobs.
He noted that the
first batch of about 50 volunteers from 17 countries around the world embarked
on the programme in early February after a pilot conducted in 2013 by 49
volunteers. During the pilot, about 667 partners benefited, with the beneficiaries
being drawn from Microsoft partners, innovation hubs and NGOs.
One of the
beneficiary innovation hubs is Kenya’s iHub, which has since February 2013
received most volunteers, both technical and non-technical under the
initiative.
“In my opinion,
MySkills4Afrika is the best part of the 4Afrika initiative as it is a value
adds in building talent pool. While the focus remains tech startups and
individuals, ironically the kind of people also attending the volunteer
trainings at the iHub are non-tech people,” said Senior Product Marketing
Manager Windows Microsoft Middle East &Africa, Onur Gorur.
Gorur said that the
partnership with iHub is part of the strategic cooperation agreements signed
between Microsoft 4Afrika with three incubator organizations across the African
continent to enable startups, innovators and Africa’s developer community to
grow their skills and build businesses with Microsoft technologies.
He added that the
fundamental change going forward is looking at initiatives to meet a local
need, solved by local people by also introducing new product such as SQL server
fast growing product that allows developing data, store, report data and
business intelligence for Africa.
Gorur noted that
the 4Afrika initiative is endorsed by Microsoft in the US, so they have their
full support to ensure that Africa is growing fast in the ICT skill in the
world
“In Africa, 44%
of the youth are younger than 15-years-old. Small and Medium Enterprises are at
a level of growth and innovation is all about how we do things, do business and
how we deal with our challenges,’
“Skills
development is something that we need to develop and provide access to.
If we
address skills development, it will address all the factors that will make
Africa even better. In the world, 16 out of the 30 fastest growing economies
are in Africa, and technology and the growth thereof has a large part to play
in it,” he noted.
According to him,
Microsoft is looking forward to continue investing in Africa especially in
Small Medium Enterprises (SME) due to the fact the total global market share
six percent in from the SME.
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