Microsoft unveils 4Afrika project

Microsoft has introduced the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, a new effort through which the company will actively engage in Africa’s economic development to improve its global competitiveness.

This is a multi-year initiative that represents Microsoft”s increased commitment to Africa as they celebrate 20 years of doing business on the continent. Microsoft wants to explore new ways to link the growth of their business with initiatives that accelerate growth for the continent. They will be focusing on three critical areas – World-class skills, Access and Innovation.

The goal is to empower every African who has a great idea for a business or an application and to turn that idea into a reality which in turn can help their community, their country, or even the continent at large. The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is built on the dual beliefs that technology can accelerate growth for Africa, and Africa can also accelerate technology for the world.

The 4Afrika Initiative will be tightly connected to Microsoft’s network of more than 10,000 existing partners in Africa today, a network it has built through more than 20 years of investing and operating in the continent. The 4Afrika Initiative will leverage these existing partnerships and create new ones across the public and private sectors to help advance common goals and to create value for Africans. Together with its partners, Microsoft has initiated various other efforts in recent months as part of the 4Afrika Initiative:

AppFactory (South Africa and Egypt). Microsoft is hiring 30 paid student interns to staff the AppFactory — centers to which the public can submit requests for Africa-relevant Windows applications (Windows 8 or Windows Phone). These requests are being crowdsourced for voting, and the most popular ideas are assigned development resources to build and launch the apps in the Windows Store. Already, the AppFactory teams have built 73 Windows apps and 39 Windows Phone apps, and at full capacity, the teams plan to contribute approximately 90 new apps to the Windows Store per month.

Nokia and Windows Phone user training (Kenya and Nigeria). Microsoft has established agreements with Safaricom in Kenya and Bharti Airtel in Nigeria to accelerate local adoption of the Nokia Lumia 510 and Nokia Lumia 620 Windows Phones. In Nigeria, 95 percent of phones sold are feature phones. Through these agreements, Microsoft is funding in-store training for consumers who purchase these Nokia models with a data plan. The training explains the benefits of owning a smartphone, helping make these smartphones better understood and, therefore, more desirable for consumers.
Female empowerment portal (North Africa). This portal targeted at North African women will launch in March as an offshoot of the MasrWorks IT skills portal. It is designed to empower young women to play a leadership role in their communities, build their skills and self-esteem, and introduce new models for self-employment. It will provide IT skills training and softer-skills training on topics including leadership, self-confidence and interviewing, as well as the mentorship needed to build a long-term career in technology. The mentorship will be provided via a sustained engagement between Microsoft, its partners, a local NGO and the beneficiaries to support them in career building and to plan their role in society as female leaders.

“We believe there has never been a better time to invest in Africa and that access to technology — particularly cloud services and smart devices — can and will serve as a great accelerator for African competitiveness,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois , president of Microsoft International. “The launches of Windows 8 and many other new products in the coming months represent a new era for Microsoft, which we believe will redefine the technology industry globally. These additional investments under the 4Afrika banner will help define our company’s new era in Africa.”

Simultaneous launch events to kick off this new era in Africa are taking place today in five locations spanning the continent: Cairo; Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Lagos, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; and Johannesburg. In all locations except for Cairo, Microsoft will also be hosting separate developer workshops in the coming weeks to facilitate and accelerate the development of new and innovative Windows applications for Africa, by Africans.