Thursday, February 14, 2013

THE MICROSOFT 4AFRICA INITIATIVE

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Microsoft and China biggest Smartphone maker, Huawei recently teamed up and launched a new initiative dubbed ‘’Microsoft 4africa initiative’’. According to them the new initiative will benefit Africans in many ways.
First, to bring cheap quality Smartphones to the Africa region. Huawei, has already fulfilled that aspect when it unveiled and launched a windows-run smartphone. The smartphone is a customize version of the Huawei Ascend W1 which the company exhibited at the international Consumers Electronics Show(CES) in Las Vegas, USA last month. The device will roll out in: Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Morocco. Though, price for the smartphone was not disclosed.
Secondly, to bring one million small, medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) online.
In Nigeria alone, at about 70 per cent of SMEs are not online. This is because most of these businesses are unaware of how the internet can be of great importance for their businesses. Through the Microsoft new initiative, these mindsets will change soonest.
Microsoft Corporation said the initiative will offer free domain name registrations for one year to interested SMEs. This initiative will kick-off in April.
Third, to assist 100,000 recent graduates gain employable skills through the initiative skills acquisition program.
The high rate of unemployment in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general is relative high. In Nigeria 60 per cent of the nations citizens are either underemployed or unemployed. With the initiative, we hope that more graduates will be taught where and how to develop the required employable skills as it help decrees the high rate of unemployment in the country.

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