Microsoft will host NexTech Africa, the organisation’s new flagship Africa technology event taking place on 2 and 3 February 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The event aims to connect technology and business leaders, Microsoft engineers, local developers and entrepreneurs, in an effort to listen, engage and collaborate on developing more locally relevant technology.
External speakers at the event, according to the promoters will include Joseph Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary of the Kenyan ICT Ministry; Ranjith Cherickel, CEO of icolo.co; Regina Honu, CEO of Soronko Solutions; and Andreas Fruhen, CIO of M-KOPA Solar. Microsoft representatives include Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector at Microsoft; T.K Rengarajan, Corporate VP of AI & Research; Hoop Somuah, Technical Advisor to the Microsoft CEO; and Kunle Awosika, Country Manager for Microsoft in Kenya.
“NexTech Africa 2017 is running under the theme: Building for Africa. African entrepreneurs seek to solve many business and market related challenges, and developers play a critical role in developing locally relevant solutions across various sectors from healthcare to fintech. We believe in the power of the emerging technologies to connect people to key services and boost productivity, while utilizing unique and differentiated business models. Our goal with this event is to bring various players together and collaborate, so that we can equip our innovators with the right technology-based tools and infrastructure, helping them create and scale more of these solutions,” Kunle Awosika, country Manager of Microsoft Kenya, said.
The two-day line-up will include a series of talks, sessions and forums on topics including cloud, big data, machine learning, the Internet of Things, digital transformation and technology in emerging markets. (via Vanguard)
Africa Energy Indaba 2017 brings together Africa’s leading women in energy
The third annual Women in Energy conference, organised by the Africa Energy Indaba, will bring together Africa’s leading women in the energy sector on Monday, 20 February, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.
The Africa Energy Indaba was the first energy conference on the continent to launch a specialised event for the promotion and empowerment of women in the energy sector and the theme of the 2017 one-day conference is “Developing African Women Leaders to create our energy future”.
Research indicates that overcoming gender inequality and gender-related legal restrictions would increase annual GDP growth in sub-Saharan Africa by 0.75 percent.
According to Liz Hart, the Managing Director of Women in Energy, “It is important for women to play a bigger role in the workplace in Africa, where women play a disproportionately active role as breadwinners and caretakers of the future generations on the continent. If more women were represented in the continent’s energy sectors, which are responsible for providing electricity access to improve the quality and standard of living, then many more people would have access to education and healthcare.”
The Women in Energy conference is designed to aid the increase in leadership and development of women involved in the African energy sectors. The event comprises a number of keynote addresses by leading African women from the energy sector as well as a number of panel sessions. The event provides a platform for women to network, share their knowledge, discuss achievements and encourage the advancement of women across all sectors of the energy industry.
