Microsoft pledges support for African startups, wants to accelerate innovation

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Microsoft Pledges Support for African Startups

Microsoft is offering African startups support to help accelerate innovation. Through the 4Afrika Initiative, the company is entering into cooperative agreements with CcHub, DTBi and AfriLabs — three innovation hubs covering different parts of the continent. Microsoft is looking to nurture the talent Africa has to offer by opening up new opportunities to startups.

In addition to providing access to Microsoft mentors and experts, startups will be able to take advantage of Microsoft BizSpark free of charge. There are also capital investment opportunities business networking help as well as access to other resources

Leila Charfi, Director, Innovation Partnerships, Africa Initiatives said on the Microsoft on the Issues Africa blog: “We’ll be a catalyst for young innovators to have much easier access to the tools and resources they need to fully develop their ideas. This builds upon our existing agreements with Kenya’s iHub and m:lab which were announced in March.”

The new program was announced at DEMO Africa and builds on Microsoft Ventures African partnership expansion that was revealed last week.