As Microsoft celebrates its 50 anniversary, we looked back at the recent announcement by the tech giant to invest $1 million to deepen artificial intelligence (AI) training for Nigerians within the next three year.
During its recent AI Tour (Nigeria), Ola Williams, the country manager of Microsoft, Nigeria & Ghana, in the company of Lillian Barnard, president, Microsoft Africa, made the announcement in Lagos.
In a powerful presentation, Ola said that Microsoft’s investment in the West African country is beyond business.
She thanked Microsoft for believing in Nigeria and Nigerians.
“Thank you, Microsoft for this great investment. The truth is that Microsoft’s interest in Nigeria is beyond business. We want to impact lives and the economy positively”, the country manager said.
The AI Skill Development programme, Techeconomy gathered, is for startups, businesses and government officials.
Aside that, Microsoft has been empowering enterprise businesses in the country too. For instance, TD Africa, the continent’s leading technology distributor, announced a mouthwatering offer, substantial discounts on essential Microsoft licenses as part of its commitment to driving business growth and fostering digital transformation across Africa.
Although, a limited-time juicy promotion, but for businesses that were able to leverage the opportunity, it allowed them access significant savings on a range of Microsoft solutions such as 15% reduction on Microsoft 365 E3, 40 % price slash on Power Apps premium and Power Automate premium Per User Licenses and 30 % rebate on Office 365 E1 plus.
While Microsoft 365 E3 enables seamless collaboration of all Microsoft suite which include email, cloud storage, productivity tools such as Word and Excel, and advanced security features, PowerApps Premium licenses simplifies app creation without coding, helping businesses simultaneously automate processes and improve data visualization.
Power Automate on the other hand, boosts productivity by streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks even as Office 365 E1 helps seamlessly boost essential productivity tools, such as web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, combined with email and basic collaboration features.
Microsoft has been impacting the economy, particularly, in the digital transformation journey.
The global tech giant has been pushing for AI adoption, of course, exposing professionals to benefits of leveraging Copilot.
In her recent article published on Techeconomy, Ola mentioned that AI at work is a reality today and it is transforming the way we spend our time.
Nearly 60 percent of businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa anticipate that expanding digital access will significantly influence their business strategies between 2025 and 2030.
Across the continent, AI and information processing technologies are expected to have the most profound impact.
“It’s incredible to think that the global job market is set to grow by 78 million jobs by 2030, with technological advancements helping lead the way”, she wrote (read more here)
50 years down the line Microsoft continues to introduce tools like Copilot, Azure that are shaking up productivity, letting people work more efficiently and freeing up time for creative and strategic tasks.
Still 50 hearty cheers to Microsoft!
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