Microsoft unveils mentorship programme

By Fredrick Obura

Software developers will profit from a mentorship programme targeting ICT incubation hubs and schools across the country.

The programme will be carried out by Microsoft’s Africa Apps team, which is a group of Developer Platform Evangelists that will work with software developers in Kenya and Africa at large.

The team is made up of experts on Microsoft technologies — such as Visual Studio, Kinect, Windows Azure, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Bing Search and Open Source technology — and will help African developers build, scale and market their innovations across the world.

The team of developers held several interactive sessions with several groups, including students and entrepreneurs during their tour of Emobilis Academy and Strathmore University as part of their evangelism campaign. In these sessions, they trained attendees on how to use the different tools and technologies, and highlighted ways to create applications for the Microsoft environment and the Windows Marketplace.

 “We are very excited to be interacting with the students and preparing them to innovative use of our technology. We have had a very good response from these young people on our various offerings and are confident that we should be seeing a churn of apps from them quite soon,” said Dele Akinsade, Microsoft’s director for developer platforms.

Fully utilise

Dele called upon the developers to engage and fully utilise the various Microsoft tools to build great products and advance their cause.  These tools include Microsoft DreamSpark, which offers free access to Microsoft software to students who are registered on it, Microsoft WebSpark, which offers access to premium Microsoft technology to young web design companies and Microsoft BizSpark, which is a suite of reasonably priced premium software for young companies that have been running for under three years.

Microsoft is also keen on expanding reach using school projects like Faculty Connection and Microsoft Academy for school faculty members interested in being Microsoft certified and the Microsoft Student Partners (MSP), which empowers students to be Microsoft evangelists in their schools and around their social circles.

 “It is exciting to see Microsoft on the ground for such a commitment. It means we will now have help on the broad spectrum of tools like Windows Azure, Kinect and the newly launched Windows Phone 8. All you can expect now is excellence,” said George Mbuthia, a beneficiary of the Microsoft Student Partner programme.