Microsoft Afrika Sustainability Project – Supporting the Circular Economy
Over the past few weeks, my team and I have been working with Microsoft on the “Afrika Sustainability Project”, where we have been conceptualising solutions to certain problems in Africa, using technology as a tool to help us achieve this. Not only this, but we would like to collaborate with the communities in Africa and establish a rapport with them.
This joint project with Habs Boys & Habs Girls has allowed us to come together to brainstorm ideas under the overarching themes of Education, Healthcare and the Environment. We are truly privileged to be able to attend Habs, hence we regard Education as one of the most important factors of one’s life.
If I could change one thing in the world, it would be to ensure that each and every child receives a quality education with the resources and opportunities they desire. My favourite quote is by Nelson Mandela:
After multiple meetings and calls with the team, we came up with multiple solutions to present to Winjera and Shaun, both of whom are professionals from the Microsoft Africa team.
The Solutions
In our meeting with Winjera, Shaun and Mr. Quinn, we received constructive feedback about our ideas, which we appreciated because it allowed us to narrow down our solutions and develop our strategy.
Firstly, we had to be careful about making any assumptions regarding the development of the schools in Africa, because power and connectivity is not readily available in all places and remains very expensive. In this way, we started to consider using low-usage solutions such as downloaded, offline resources on Microsoft devices that could be given to the students.
Secondly, the best solutions were those that developed the creativity and collaboration skills for the young children in Africa, because these are undoubtedly vital skills that will aid them in their future careers. While we reflected on this point, we established that coding is an indispensable skill to teach every student in the community; namely Python because it is exciting to learn, thrilling to teach and has endless opportunities for their futures.
A key piece of feedback was that Africans love gamification and certification, and thus our solutions should incorporate aspects of a ‘points’ system or the ability to receive a certificate that is recognised in various other countries.
Finally, we decided that we would most definitely be educating ourselves about the lifestyles of those living in Africa, by developing our knowledge about their innovative solutions, such as optimising the recycling and reusing processes. Similarly, in this collaboration project, we could educate others about healthcare, such as fundamental first aid knowledge as well as essential IT skills such as Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, using the fantastic resources from Microsoft Learn.
We believe that all students are motivated and capable of learning; all they need are the chances to develop their knowledge and the resources to help them do so.
Moving Forward
Our strategy to move forward is to devise short-term and long-term plans where we can join up with the students in Africa. My first step from now is to contact a leading school in Nairobi called Strathmore School. We will politely find out about any solutions that they have been working on to educate others near them, such as in the Kibera slums. Next, we would ask if they would be interested in collaborating with us during a session during the Summer holidays, with a hope of developing a relationship with the students for our long-term plan.
Throughout the process, this has been a learning experience for all of us, and with the help of our experts from Microsoft Africa, we hope to gain a greater insight into the societies in Africa – to propose suitable strategies to tackle the problems.
This promises to be an inspiring and powerful project, and we are very grateful to Mr. Andrew Quinn – Global Director Industry Digital Strategy at Microsoft UK, as well as Winjera and Shaun from Microsoft Africa. This project would not have been possible without the support and encouragement by Mr. Phillips, who has always been their to guide us when we need any help.
If you have any suggestions or ideas, we would love to hear from you. Please email Yash at: sha007@habsboys.org.uk.
Article written by Yash (Year 11)
Team: Yash, Dhruv, Ari, Sia, Hattie, Maya, Jai, Dhilan, Aashni, Katya, Nicola
