Google – KigaliTech

Google announces 30,000 scholarships under African developer scheme

Opportunities for software developers in Africa are at an all time high, according to the 2021 Africa Developer Report by Google and Accenture, opportunities for software developers in Africa are at an all time high, driven primarily by the booming startup ecosystem and the global demand for remote work. Local businesses are also contributing to this demand as they seek to hire more developers to help them build a better online presence.

The report also looked at ways that technology companies can accelerate access to these opportunities through education and training programs that improve on job readiness. At Google we have been supporting developers in Africa through community and training programs for over 10 years. Today, there are more than 180 active developer communities in 30 countries across Africa. These local developer communities provide developers with the opportunity to connect, learn and grow together. The research report showed that nearly 1 in every 2 developers in Africa has been through a Google developer training or community program.

Mampho and Christopher are two software developers based in Johannesburg and Lagos respectively who have graduated from the Google Africa Developer Scholarship program. They both heard about the opportunity online and decided to apply for the Google Cloud learning track. After completing the training, they went a step further and took the Associate Cloud Engineer certification. This has enabled them to be more productive at work, and opened up a world of new opportunities for them. To quote Mampho, “The GADS program empowered me, and showed me that I could be a world class developer”

Google is announcing an additional 30,000 Android and Google Cloudtraining opportunities for aspiring and professional developers in Africa. «We are pleased to be partnering with Andela and Pluralsight on this program for the 5th year in a row, continuing our commitment to Africa’s developer ecosystem.» Developers selected for the program will gain access to carefully curated training content and hands-on learning experiences. They will also access a pan-African network of peer learning groups and community mentors who will guide them on the learning journey.

Follow this link to apply for the scholarship.

africa.googleblog.com

Google Translate learns 24 new languages

For years, Google Translate has helped break down language barriers and connect communities all over the world. And we want to make this possible for even more people — especially those whose languages aren’t represented in most technology. So today we’ve added 24 languages to Translate, now supporting a total of 133 used around the globe.

Over 300 million people speak these newly added languages — like Mizo, used by around 800,000 people in the far northeast of India, and Lingala, used by over 45 million people across Central Africa. As part of this update, Indigenous languages of the Americas (Quechua, Guarani and Aymara) and an English dialect (Sierra Leonean Krio) have also been added to Translate for the first time.

Here’s a complete list of the new languages now available in Google Translate:

Assamese, used by about 25 million people in Northeast India
Aymara, used by about two million people in Bolivia, Chile and Peru
Bambara, used by about 14 million people in Mali
Bhojpuri, used by about 50 million people in northern India, Nepal and Fiji
Dhivehi, used by about 300,000 people in the Maldives
Dogri, used by about three million people in northern India
Ewe, used by about seven million people in Ghana and Togo
Guarani, used by about seven million people in Paraguay and Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil
Ilocano, used by about 10 million people in northern Philippines
Konkani, used by about two million people in Central India
Krio, used by about four million people in Sierra Leone
Kurdish (Sorani), used by about 15 million people in Iraq and Iran
Lingala, used by about 45 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Angola and the Republic of South Sudan
Luganda, used by about 20 million people in Uganda and Rwanda
Maithili, used by about 34 million people in northern India
Meiteilon (Manipuri), used by about two million people in Northeast India
Mizo, used by about 830,000 people in Northeast India
Oromo, used by about 37 million people in Ethiopia and Kenya
Quechua, used by about 10 million people in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and surrounding countries
Sanskrit, used by about 20,000 people in India
Sepedi, used by about 14 million people in South Africa
Tigrinya, used by about eight million people in Eritrea and Ethiopia
Tsonga, used by about seven million people in Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe
Twi, used by about 11 million people in Ghana

This is also a technical milestone for Google Translate. These are the first languages we’ve added using Zero-Shot Machine Translation, where a machine learning model only sees monolingual text — meaning, it learns to translate into another language without ever seeing an example. While this technology is impressive, it isn’t perfect. And we’ll keep improving these models to deliver the same experience you’re used to with a Spanish or German translation, for example. If you want to dig into the technical details, check out our Google AI blog post and research paper.

We’re grateful to the many native speakers, professors and linguists who worked with us on this latest update and kept us inspired with their passion and enthusiasm. If you want to help us support your language in a future update, contribute evaluations or translations through Translate Contribute.

blog.google

[Rwanda] CcHUB and Google unveil 9 Startups selected for the Fintech Incubation Programme

Nigeria’s technology innovation centre Co-creation Hub (CcHUB) in collaboration with Google, Ministry of ICT and Innovation Rwanda, and Mojaloop Foundation has announced the nine startups selected for the Fintech Incubation Programme.

The Fintech Innovation Project which consists of the Fintech Incubation Programme and other developmental programmes is a part of the ongoing efforts to turn Rwanda into the Fintech hub for Africa with Mojaloop as the national payments switch. The programme aligns with Rwanda’s ambition to drive inclusive economic development by leveraging technology.

The selected startups are

KudiBooks; a payment and accounting software for non-finance and non-accounting professionals targeting SMEs across Africa. They help users send and receive payments from their preferred financial institution within Kudibooks.
Food Bundles; is leveraging digital technology to improve market links for smallholder farmers and meet the growing demand for fresh food produce. The platform helps farmers participate in e-commerce, get paid on their mobile money, and more!
Quiqpay; is leveraging digital technology to improve market links for smallholder farmers and meet the growing demand for fresh food produce. The platform helps farmers participate in e-commerce, get paid on their mobile money, and more!
Bafana.io; This amazing startup is giving over 1200 African artists and creatives a personal page where they can easily share their work and a digital wallet to collect tips/payments from their fans around the world.
Uplus Mutual Partners (Uplus); is a digital group financing platform where people can efficiently raise funds and savings with their family, friends, and colleagues.
PesaChoice; is a financial technology company that focuses on data-based lending. The startup offers short term loans without the requirement of collateral.
CentWise; aims to unlock financial access for micro traders such as street vendors and hawkers by building alternative collateral products. The company converts financial data into bankable profile insights.
PayingTone; is a marketplace that provides ecologically trackable products and services on credit. The platform brings a digital product passport technology to enable a gamified ecological footprint tracker for recurring consumption customers.
Exuus; is a FinTech company working towards achieving universal financial inclusion for both the unserved and underserved through technology. The company’s flagship product SAVE is a digital & inclusive wallet that allows users to manage both their savings (individually and/or in saving groups) and spendings.

Over the next three months, CcHUB will be supporting the teams to achieve product stability and scalability, market readiness and investment. They will be able to leverage mentorship from industry and domain experts while taking advantage of Google products and Mojaloop.

This first cohort of the program will conclude with a demo day in July, 2022 where the startups will present to investors through the CcHUB syndicate.

cchubnigeria.com

Google and Tony Elumelu Foundation support 1 mln more African entrepreneurs

Google and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) have announced an inaugural Google.org Fellowship to provide 1 million more people in Africa with access to TEFConnect, as part of TEF’s mission to support young entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries. Nine full-time Google employees, including software engineers, UI/UX researchers and policy experts, will work with the Foundation to upgrade the TEFConnect platform.

TEFConnect already provides over 1 million African entrepreneurs with tools, market partnerships, and access to coaches and investors for small businesses. The fellowship builds upon an initial USD 3 million grant by Google.org to support the 2021 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme to enable 500 African women to start or expand their businesses. The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is a USD 100 million initiative that has supported over 15,000 African entrepreneurs.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation is a philanthropy venture to support African entrepreneurs, catalyse economic growth, eradicate poverty and create jobs.

TEF has disbursed over USD 85 million in seed capital to date to support small business growth across Africa.

With African entrepreneurs raising more than $4 billion in funding in 2021, more than double the $1.5 billion raised in 2020, it’s clear investors around the globe are waking up to the continent’s potential. For some, like philanthropist Tony Elumelu, this growth is the validation of a long track record of backing African entrepreneurship.

Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), he has helped empower African entrepreneurs from across the continent. To date, TEF has distributed more than $85 million in grants for seed capital, and supported more than 1.5 million entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries through its proprietary digital platform, TEFConnect.net. Google is similarly enthusiastic about African startups and has supported them with funding, mentorship and skills development, among other things. That’s what makes it so exciting that TEF and Google’s paths are once again converging in 2022.

Last year, Google.org committed $3 million to the TEF to support an additional 500 female entrepreneurs across the continent. To further support the effort, this year, nine Google employees from Africa and Europe will devote six months of their time and expertise to TEF as part of the first Google.org Fellowship in Sub-Saharan Africa. Composed of engineers, user experience (UX) specialists and business and marketing managers, these Googlers will work with TEF full-time, pro bono, to build a new TEFConnect platform, equipped with new tools to help entrepreneurs access the resources they need to succeed.

We hope to support TEF in reaching one million more African entrepreneurs through the new TEFConnect, expected to launch later this year. The improved, more mobile-friendly TEFConnect platform will give those entrepreneurs access to a catalog of more curated educational resources, and more avenues for funding.

Additionally, as the world kicks off a month of celebration for International Women’s Day, Google.org and The Tony Elumelu Foundation want to mark the occasion. As part of these collective celebrations, we will convene policymakers, private sector and entrepreneurs to engage in a discussion about entrepreneurship on the continent. We will hear from female entrepreneurs who have benefited from the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s support, as well as from notable leaders.

As the year 2022 progresses, we want to play a larger role in supporting the world’s next generation of entrepreneurs. Africa’s citizenry is youthful, optimistic and enterprising. There is so much to be gained by leveling the digital playing field and creating possibilities that will raise the ceiling for the continent’s population.

By bringing together people from the private and public sector and supporting entrepreneurs in areas that will make the most difference, we can go a long way to helping Africa’s entrepreneurs reach their full potential.

www.tonyelumelufoundation.org

www.blog.google

Government of Rwanda and Google collaborate to accelerate digital transformation

The Government of Rwanda, led by the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, has partnered with Google to accelerate the country’s digital transformation. This initiative is in line with Rwanda’s ambition to drive inclusive economic development leveraging technology.

Rwanda’s vibrant economy is an ideal launch pad for future innovation in Africa, with focus in four key areas: affordable and universal access to connectivity; adoption of digital platforms; Digital Skilling for All; and fostering a pan-African innovation ecosystem. The Rwanda-Google collaboration is one of several initiatives to advance the above key areas. It will also include support for a progressive policy framework and contribute to an open digital payment ecosystem through the Mojaloop platform.

Initially, the partnership aims to:

Support a Training of Trainers (ToT) pilot for Rwanda’s Digital Ambassadors, a national program to increase digital literacy among Rwanda citizens by recruiting digitally-savvy youth to deliver digital literacy training
Upskill 500 developers through Google’s developer training and community support programs
Pilot a fintech incubation program for early stage fintech companies, starting with 15 companies in collaboration with Kigali Innovation City, and delivered by a Google for Startups partner
Accelerate e-commerce growth by supporting 3,000 Small and Medium Businesses to go online as well as equipping 1,000 iWorkers
Bring Rwanda to the world through Google Street View by enhancing digital maps of key urban centres
Digitise Rwanda’s cultural assets and provide access to heritage through digital storytelling in collaboration with the National Museums of Rwanda

“This collaboration with the Government of Rwanda is an important milestone for us coming soon after our CEO’s commitment to the continent to support Africa’s digital transformation. We will help build a Digital Rwanda by up-skilling the youth, digitally accelerating small businesses, supporting start-ups and developers, improved maps and navigation, digitising Rwanda’s cultural heritage as well as supporting a progressive policy framework. We look forward to deepening our collaboration with the Government of Rwanda,” Agnes Gathaiya, Country Director, Eastern Africa.

“We are pleased to launch this partnership with Google to complement existing efforts to drive digital inclusion, skilling and support the growth of the innovation ecosystem in Rwanda. Growing the digital economy is critical and will continue to drive Rwanda’s economic transformation in line with the country’s vision to become a knowledge-driven economy,” Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation.

Google will continue to work with the Ministry of ICT and Innovation to increase its efforts to support Rwanda’s digital transformation.

www.minict.gov.rw

Introducing Incentro Africa Google Bootcamp: Now available online for free

Incentro and Digicloud have organized a Google bootcamp for both professionals and students. The bootcamp will be run by Google certified engineers and architects from both Kenya and South Africa.

Successful students at the end of the program will sit for an exam and get Google Cloud Certified – attaining one of the most coveted industry recognition, allowing them to validate their expertise and take their careers to the next level. Incentro will also provide the successful candidates with an opportunity to join the team for at the Nairobi office, that will deliver great Google Cloud solutions to the African market.

See program details in the attachments below:

Google Cloud Architect/Security Engineer
Google Collaboration Engineer

This bootcamp is perfect for both undergraduates pursuing an I.T. related degree or diploma or an I.T. professional looking to advance their careers.

Interested?

Registration closes on 15th September.

See you online!

For any questions reach out to Matthew Munyiri – matthew.munyiri@incentro.com.

Sparkle to build Blue and Raman submarine cable systems in collaboration with Google

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top ten global operators, announces its collaboration with Google and others to build Blue and Raman Submarine Cable Systems: Blue will connect Italy, France, Greece and Israel, while Raman will connect Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and India.

Each equipped with 16 fibre pairs and embracing the innovative concepts of open cable, supporting multiple fibre tenants, and open landing station, enabling competitive access to the cable termination points, the two systems set a new reference in terms of diversification, scalability and latency throughout these geographies.

In particular, Blue will be deployed along a new northbound route in the Mediterranean, crossing the Strait of Messina, rather than following the traditional route through Sicily Channel. As a result, Internet Service Providers, Carriers, Telecom Operators, Content Providers, Enterprises and Institutions will benefit from high-speed Internet and state-of-the-art capacity services with unparalleled diversity and performances.

Within the Blue System, BlueMed submarine cable is now Sparkle’s own private domain sharing its wet components with four additional fibre pairs and an initial design capacity of more than 25 Tbps per fibre pair, and is extended up to Jordan (Aqaba) with additional private branches into France (Corsica), Greece (Chania – Crete), Italy (Golfo Aranci – Sardinia and Rome), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, Cyprus and more in the future.

BlueMed flexible design allows both seamless express connections throughout the Mediterranean Basin, with unprecedented latency and spectral efficiency, and sophisticated regional subsystems, based on specific customer requirements.

In addition, Sparkle’s Genoa Open Landing Platform is set to become the alternative priority access for other upcoming submarine cables looking for a diversified entry to Europe, backhauled to the Milan’s rich digital marketplace, and thus a new reference gateway between Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Blue and Raman are expected to be ready for service in 2024, with the Tyrrhenian part of BlueMed planned to be operational already in 2022.

“We are extremely proud to bring our collaboration with Google to the next level with this cutting-edge intercontinental infrastructure”, comments Elisabetta Romano, CEO of Sparkle. “With Blue and Raman Submarine Cable Systems, Sparkle boosts its capabilities in the strategic routes between Asia, Middle East and Europe and the enhanced BlueMed strengthens our presence in the greater Mediterranean area”.

www.tisparkle.com

Bold company Incentro credited for growth in Google Cloud adoption in Africa

DigiCloud Africa has credited Incentro Africa for its role in expanding Google Cloud in Africa and subsequently being recognised as the Google Cloud Expansion Partner of the Year – Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

The annual award recognises one global partner in the region that has shown outstanding success in helping a large number of customers achieve better results through the Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace.

Incentro Africa (founded 2017), announced in 2020 that it had achieved the Work Transformation – Enterprise Partner Specialization in the Google Cloud Partner Specialization Program, becoming the first and only premier partner with this specialization in Africa.

By earning the Partner Specialization, we proved our expertise and success in deploying Google Workspace to enterprise organizations, which includes providing services across all project work streams – such as technical implementation, change management, training and ongoing premium support.

Our continued collaboration with DigiCloud has yielded many successes with key clients such as Central Bank of West Africa (Google Workspace) , Textbook Center (SAP on Google Cloud) and Britam (Workspace).

“We are proud to have been credited by DigiCloud as one of their key partners in achieving this truly prestigious award – the first for an African organization no less.” said Dennis de Weerd, Sales Director, Incentro Africa. “Our continued partnership is truly a special one and look forward to many more shared successes.” he continued.

“Whilst the complete list of resellers would be too lengthy to mention, three companies were monumental in their efforts through 2020 to drive Google Cloud adoption in Africa, namely: Incentro Africa, for work in Kenya and Senegal specialising in workforce transformation, machine learning and infrastructure…” Gregory MacLennan, CEO, DigiCloud.

About Incentro

Incentro delivers innovative digital solutions, grounded by passion and happiness of employees, Incentronauts. 340 Incentronauts worldwide (The Netherlands, Spain, Kenya) are helping organizations to reach their digital goals.

Based on the maturity of clients, they setup an e-commerce environment which enables customers to deliver an awesome shopping journey and drive growth. They deliver a full range of services from strategy until conversion optimization for B2C and B2B focussed companies

Incentro Africa opened her door in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2017; The takeout on things was special: the company aimed for the delivery of fairtrade software solutions in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Our mission? To positively impact the lives of 10.000 Africans before the year 2022.

We continue to achieve this by bringing quality services and digital solutions to the (East) African market, supported by strong partnerships and growing local talent into product experts. We help organizations in developing their Cloud digital strategies in order to increase productivity and collaboration. We achieve this through our value propositions and expertise in enterprise collaboration, cloud migration, and developing smart applications.

Are you bold enough to step into the unknown? We are… and we dare you to do the same. We will be with you every step of the way. Not by making small changes but to truly do things differently – for a change!

With over 10 years of proven expertise in technical consultation and related services, Incentro, the only Google Premier Partner in East, West and Central Africa has become the go-to partner for successful business transformation in the continent.

From Enterprise Collaboration, Cloud Migration and Smart application development, we proudly serve over 26 countries in Africa and are growing. Whatever your ambition is, we’ll aim for maximum impact. We dive deep into your organization, challenge your plans, build solutions swiftly and make sure they work.

Please feel free to visit our website or send an email to Customer Success Manager Elizabeth Akinyi – liz@incentro.com.

www.incentro.com

Call of Duty League and Google Cloud deliver new feature for esports fans

Millions of people annually view esports, as top players and teams compete in thrilling, fast-paced tests of reflexes, strategy, and teamwork. Fans are a diverse group, sharing a passion for action. A new, revolutionary project we’re working on with Call of Duty League just made that action a lot better.

ActivStat brings fans, players, and commentators the power of competitive statistics in real-time—stats that matter not only to the game at hand, but also for a full roster of competitors globally. Using ActivStat, live broadcasts will soon be enhanced with more depth and color-of-play while they’re happening, building excitement and adding to the overall experience.

Technically, ActivStat is an entirely new capability for esports. It’s a constantly updating catalog of statistics that is sourced, analyzed, updated, and delivered in an easy-to-consume way across global-scale computing systems, with a latency of milliseconds or seconds, rather than minutes or hours. By comparison, many of these stats today are available to fans after a day or more of processing.

Call of Duty League plans to begin rolling out ActivStat during the 2021 season. The initial rollout will include critical information like player and team standings and winning ratios across multiple aspects of virtual combat—including ultimately what these numbers mean for rankings. ActivStats are delivered both in raw statistics and via visualizations and graphics, providing commentators with fast access to the types of insights fans crave.

For engineers at both companies, building the service has been an epic success all its own. Due to a sponsorship with Call of Duty signed last February, our dedicated game engineering team quickly innovated a new solution incorporating high-speed networking, data pipelines from multiple cloud sources, and data warehousing to create a user-friendly dashboard. Real data was flowing into commentator dashboards by April.

Esports are more complex to cover in many ways than regular sports. Instead of a well-defined physical playing field (often a simple rectangular space), multiplayer games involve complex and sprawling virtual environments that can be the size of a large campus or airport with multiple levels and hidden locations.

Gameplay between competitors happens across many of these locations simultaneously. In addition, competitors also each choose their own configurations of equipment, known as “loadouts,” which can dramatically affect gameplay and strategy. All of this additional complexity in online gaming involves data that needs to be captured, analyzed, and communicated to the fans in insightful ways.

Two Google Cloud technology capabilities play central roles in the operations of ActivStat. BigQuery—a planet-scale data warehouse that can store and query petabytes of information in real time—is the foundation of the ActivStat platform for gathering and summarizing millisecond-level statistics. Looker, an intuitive analytic dashboard, surfaces those insights to commentators in an easy-to-use, real-time dashboard that enables the commentators to speak to compelling insights and statistics in sync with the gameplay as it is happening in the live broadcast.

While the initial release of ActivStat for this season of Call of Duty League provides compelling and powerful capabilities, it’s only the beginning of this Call of Duty League-Google Cloud co-innovation partnership. Our future vision is mapping gameplay hotspots on the field, and predicting where to place cameras with machine learning as the match evolves–enabling broadcast producers to build excitement for fans by always being in the middle of the best action. Call of Duty League and Google will also look to drive statistics and metrics directly into the broadcast feed.

The implications of the real-time statistical capabilities of ActivStat go beyond gaming and esports. Historically, gaming has been at the leading edge of what computer processing, computer graphics, wide-area networking, data analysis, and insight can do. The real-time data ingestion and output used in ActivStat could one day be useful powering live broadcasts in other types of sporting events, as well as blending live video feeds and data to support use cases in media & entertainment, healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and other verticals. We’re excited about the potential for this bold new solution and partnership between Call of Duty League and Google in esports and beyond.

www.cloud.google.com

African projects among 30 new AI for Social Good projects to be supported by Google

Working in partnership with Google.org and Google’s University Relations program, their goal is to help academics and nonprofits develop AI techniques that can improve people’s lives — especially in underserved communities that haven’t yet benefited from advances in AI. They reported on the impact of six such projects in 2020. And today, Google is sharing 30 new projects that will receive funding and support as part of their AI for Social Good program.

During the application process, Googlers arranged workshops involving more than 150 teams to discuss potential projects. Following the workshop meetings, project teams made up of NGOs and academics submitted proposals which Google experts reviewed. The result is a promising range of projects spanning seventeen countries across Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa — including India, Uganda, Nigeria, Japan and Australia— focused on agriculture, conservation and public health.

In agriculture, this includes research to help farmer collectives with market intelligence and use data to improve crop and irrigation planning for smallholder farmers. In public health, we are backing projects that will enable targeted public health interventions, and will help community health workers to forecast health risks in countries such as Kenya, India and Uganda. We’re also supporting research to better forecast the need for critical resources like vaccines and care, including in Nigeria. And in conservation, we’re supporting research to help understand animal population changes, such as the effect of poaching on elephants, and gorillas. Other projects will help reduce conservation conflict and poaching, including human-elephant conflict in Kenya.

Each project team will receive funding, technical contributions from Google and access to computational resources. Academics in this program will be recognized as “Impact Scholars” for their contributions towards advancing research for social good.

Google have seen the impact these kinds of projects can make. One of the nonprofit leaders supported by the program last year, ARMMAN founder Dr. Aparna Hegde, has received AI research support from IIT Madras and Google Research to improve maternal and child health outcomes in India. The team is building a predictive model to prevent expectant mothers dropping out of supportive telehealth outreach programs. Results so far show AI could enable ARMMAN to increase the number of women engaged through the program by 50%, and they have received a second Google.org grant to enable them to build on this progress. Dr. Hegde says the program is “already showing encouraging results — and I am confident that this partnership will bring immense benefits in the future.”

Congratulations to all the recipients of this round’s support. Google is looking forward to continuing to nurture the AI for Social Good community, bringing together experts from diverse backgrounds with the common goal of advancing AI to improve lives around the world.

www.blog.google