Alan Boshwaen

Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH), which acts as government agency that will take the country to IT superhighway, says it is ‘excited’ by Microsoft’s decision to choose Botswana in an initiative that aims to modernise the SMME sector and support the Africa’s promise.

CEO of BIH, Alan Boshwaen, said participating in the new project is something that they look forward to. “We are excited that Botswana has been selected as this will allow us to drive our agenda,” Boshwaen told a media briefing after meeting the visiting General Manager of Africa Initiative, Fernando de Sousa.

“We are (also) excited because Microsoft is a leading company. This is something that we want to scale out”.

The Microsoft’s 4Africa Initiative aims at changing lives of millions of young ambitious people and entrepreneurs in the continent by coming up with solutions that will ‘support promise of Africa’ through partnerships and incubation amongst others.

Under the initiative, young people in Africa who have ideas, but do not know how to grow those ideas and earn a living from that idea will be given a platform to make their dreams come true. Boshwaen said Botswana and the Innovation Hub will be ready to learn from other examples in the continent where the initiative is also been rolled out like in countries that include Kenya. “For us it is a demonstration that that we are in the forefront,” he said.

4Afrika is a Microsoft initiative that was introduced in Feb 2013 as a multi-year investment in the African continent. It has three core pillars of focus – innovation, world-class skills and access. These pillars were chosen because they were the common focus areas of the majority of African governments looking to accelerate economic development. Microsoft has more than 20 years of doing business in Africa.

The Global Initiative headed by de Sousa, the Microsoft veteran with 22 years of experience in the company, will bring technology to many parts of the country even in areas where there is no electricity as they endorse solar technology.

The initiative will bring one million SMMEs online in order for them to benefit from online services. The project will also encourage employment in the continent and de Sousa revealed that already they have 12, 000 partnerships in ecosystems projects in the continent that employs 120, 000 people. The aim is to grow the number by another 250, 000 in the next three years.

Microsoft will also under the initiative bring tens of millions of technology devices that will enable the creation of wealth to the continent. de Sousa said over the past 12 years they have built the technology that use the television signal (TV White Space Technology) after realising that about 95% of the continent do not have access to the internet. This will enable Microsoft to bring internet to the community. The technology will lessen the burden of community members from travelling long distances to access a service. “Then we want these services to be available,” de Sousa said.

Botswana Innovation Hub revealed that it is working out the fine details of a new three way pilot project partnership that will involve the globally renowned University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in the United States of America to bring White Space to Botswana. The solution is commonly known as TV white space broadband and can facilitate the delivery of broadband access to places that currently lack electricity and telecom network deployment.

“Microsoft technology together with Botswana Innovation hub will make unbelievable results in the next 10 years,” said de Sousa.

Equally, the Botswana Innovation Hub collaboration with Microsoft Corporation is intended to facilitate technology transfer to Botswana .This project was officially launched on 1st December 2011 by the Vice President. Through this partnership a Youth Empowerment pilot program was recently launched on the 8th March 2013.

The pilot program is a localised Global Microsoft Initiative aimed at empowering young people around the world with relevant ICT skills that enable them to be employable and to start their own businesses. BIH and Microsoft Corporation have partnered with the Department of National Internship on this program, with the aim of facilitating internship opportunities and providing specialized skills training for the interns.