Rabat – Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) has partnered with Microsoft Africa Transformation Office to provide training and resources to Moroccan student developers, startups, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The two establishments signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday, aiming to “provide multiple audiences with stronger access to technology and upskill startups and SMEs with valuable digitization skills,” UM6P noted.
Commenting on the partnership, UM6P President Hicham El Habti stated that the Benguerir-based university, “with its focus on education, the development of new technologies, and the pursuit of innovative and promising projects, is looking forward to working with Microsoft to generate a positive impact within many spheres of influence in Morocco, and beyond.”
Echoing El Habti’s sentiment, General Manager of Microsoft Morocco Salima Amira reiterated the commitment of the American tech giant to support Morocco’s efforts in advancing youth capacity-building and establishing a digital nation.
General Manager of Microsoft Morocco Salima Amira (left) and UM6P President Hicham El Habti (right)
“We are convinced that by increasing the number of qualified young professionals and empowering startups and SMEs to achieve sustainable growth, we will contribute positively to the growth of the digital economy in Morocco and across Africa,” Amira explained.
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Microsoft plans to deliver a training program for the benefit of young developers. The program is set to be available on the Microsoft Azure platform for students at UM6P and 12 other Moroccan and African universities.
The tech company also works on developing a coding curriculum with UM6P to increase young African talent’s knowledge and prepare them for the job market. The program would leverage 1337’s peer education.
In addition to providing training to student developers, Microsoft and UM6P plan to facilitate access to technology, markets, and investors to startups incubated at the UM6P startup campus “StartGate.”
The collaboration would provide Morocco-based startups, particularly ones led by women and have a positive social impact, with access to the Microsoft for Startup Founder Hub and the Microsoft Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact program.
Besides startups, the partnership would allow UM6P to identify and enroll SMEs in need of digitization support as well as provide them with access to independent software vendors (ISVs) and Microsoft’s Airband initiative.
Microsoft further partnered with UM6P subsidiary Atlas Cloud Services to deliver local businesses with cloud-based services offered by the American tech company.
According to Atlas Cloud Service CEO Hicham Alaoui, the subsidiary “has worked with Microsoft to deliver resilient cloud solutions using its colocation and data center capabilities alongside Microsoft Azure Stack HCI (hyper-converged infrastructure) and Azure Arc technology.”
The partnership allows local businesses to “address low-latency workloads, build resiliency and enable business continuity,” Alaoui noted.
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