Tech giant Microsoft has opened a Ksh 3B African Development Centre facility in Dunhill Towers, Westlands Nairobi. This digital hub is one of the only two facilities in Africa with the other one in Lagos, Nigeria.
During the official launch on March 25th, the engineering facility disclosed that it will employ 450 fulltime employees.
The move will create exciting career opportunities for the Kenyan youth in digital space especially in fields like software engineering and internet of things.
Accompanied by the ICT cabinet secretary Joe Mucheru, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the facility after three years of successful operations since its inception in 2019.
Kenyan tech community
Needless to say, Microsoft did not just choose the location of the two centres arbitrary.
According to a report published by Google and the International Finance Corporation, Africa has approximately 700,000 developers. More than half of these developers are concentrated in five countries- Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and Nigeria with majority coming from Kenya and Nigeria.
Interestingly, Kenya has positioned itself in a position to attract more of such facilities in the near future. Kenya is ranked number one globally in peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading volume.
It is also ranked number five globally in overall cryptocurrency activity hence standing out as a promising centre for Africa’s crypto hub.
