Microsoft Corp aims to provide free online classes and resources for job-hunting to 25 million people by the end of 2020 as a way to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The classes are going to be held on LinkedIn and GitHub online platforms and are expected to teach 10 highly demanded jobs. 

The training is available to workers across the globe and it is geared towards teaching digital skills. The pandemic, having created a more technology-dependent face of work, and Microsoft is on a quest to aid the development of digital skills ranging from data analysis, digital marketing, and help-desk services.  

Microsoft, leveraging data from its LinkedIn business, chose 10 job roles as a result of the growing demand for them as well as their potential to provide opportunities for a wide range of people – including those without college degrees.  

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Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, called it “the largest skills initiative” explaining that Automation and artificial intelligence are changing the skills required for probably every occupation; hence, workers without digital skills will fall further and further behind.  

“Everything we envisioned when 2020 began has accelerated more quickly than we imagined. Even when COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror, equipping individuals with work skills will remain an extremely important priority for companies like us and for the economy as a whole.” 

Skills training in recent years has moved increasingly online, as providers of online classes like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and others have emerged, offering ease and affordability compared to traditional education options.  

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A number of organizations, over the past few months have come up with similar training programs. Just last month, Bank of America noted that job training and career reskilling would be one of its four focus areas for $1 billion in funding for economic-opportunity initiatives over the next four years. In the same month, Walmart Foundation had also donated $6 million to Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit organization focused on identifying and scaling successful workforce-development programs. 

Microsoft will give users access to LinkedIn content for “learning paths” relating to the 10 jobs until the end of 2020. Its commitment also includes $20 million in grants to organizations that will support individuals using the free resources, as well as $5 million to companies that cater to the needs of communities of color. 

Global Engineering Talent company, Andela that helps companies build remote engineering teams announced on Wednesday that it now accepts Engineers from all African countries.

Andela says it is a bid “ to double is final talent pool and connect an even greater number of specialist engineers with opportunities”.

Andela also announced it will accept Pan African applications from engineers with full-stack programming experience such as Node, React, Python and Ruby.

Andela co-founder, Jeremy Johnson says, “Over the past five years, we have become experts at identifying engineering excellence from non-traditional backgrounds. We know that there are extremely talented engineers across Africa and we believe that opportunity should not be limited by proximity to a major tech hub. Being a remote-first engineering organization allows us to open up access to Andela for engineers across the continent.”

He added that the removal of location-based restrictions will help double Andela’s talent pool to roughly 500,000 engineers in Africa, who will leverage on Andela’s work with top international engineering teams.

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Andela’s customers include Cloudflare, Wellio, ViacomCBS and Women Who Code and helps them gain access to high-quality software engineers who work as long-term, embedded team members.

Andela said the announcement will enable companies that it works with to source the talent they need, “by opening up to additional talent pools access the continent.”

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Co-founder Johnson also said the world is realising remote work will be a catalyst for “democratization of opportunity by doubling our talent pool, we are professional to help accelerate their critical work of building the future.”

Absa was launched in 2014 and prior to being a fully remote organization, Andela operated in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. the company says it has fully completed the transition to full remote with a pilot program in Ghana (2018) and Egypt last year.

FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria, has announced a profit before tax of N18.75 billion for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2019.

This represents a 15 per cent increase from the N16.31 billion posted in 2018.

The producers of Peak and Three Crowns Milk also announced a turnover of N161.83 billion for the year, 8.5% up from the N149.16 billion declared in 2018.

Mr Ben Langat, Managing Director, FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria, announced this on Thursday at the 47th Annual General Meeting of the company held virtually.

NAN reports that the shareholders unanimously approved a total dividend payout of N9.49 per 50k share. This sums up the interim dividend of N2.68 per 50k share in November 2019; with a final dividend payout of N6.81 per share.

Langat stated that the company pushed through the challenging business environment during the year, coming up with several innovations to stay profitable.

“In the year under review, the business environment remained challenging. In spite of the headwinds, FrieslandCampina WAMCO played a leading role in Nigeria’s backward integration initiative led by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the dairy sector,” Langat said.

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He stated further that the company has activated it Dairy Development Programme (DDP) in Bobi Grazing Reserve, modeling 10 years success of the programme on a 10,000-hectare grazing reserve in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger, and also inaugurated a state-of-the-art factory for the production of Yoghurt and introduced the new Peak Yoghurt Drink in three distinct flavours (Plain Sweetened, Strawberry and Orange) into the market, in line with its business plan.

He promised that the company would continue to focus on providing better nutrition and advocating healthy living, as well as pursuing its backward integration for business sustainability.

On the company’s business outlook for 2020, Langat said that the Board of Directors and management of FrieslandCampina WAMCO remained positive and confident about the future of the company, in spite of the challenges caused by COVID-19 pandemic.