The SITA Microsoft Ndivho Innovation Centre has officially opened – Hypertext

Earlier today the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and Microsoft South Africa unveiled a new initiative as part of a strategic partnership in the form of the Microsoft SITA Ndivho Innovation Centre in Centurion.

The pair explain that the Centre will aim to spur innovation and global competitiveness, as well as build the ICT capability and skills development of local, provincial and government departments.

The creation of the Centre also forms part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between SITA and Microsoft South Africa in October 2019. A key element of the MOU was modernisation and innovation, with the Ndivho Innovation Centre said to support this goal through various local partners.

“The centre is a key component of the bigger plan to support modernisation, SMME development and ICT enabled service delivery that will deliver inclusive growth for the country,” noted Luvuyo Keyise, Interim MD at SITA (pictured above).

“The services and benefits in the Ndivho Innovation Centre will be enabled predominantly through Microsoft Cloud-enabled solutions in the areas of Critical Infrastructure, Public Safety & Justice and Defense and Intelligence. Additionally, the centre will showcase the transformative value of Microsoft’s cloud services such as Azure, its collaboration solutions Microsoft 365 and business solutions Dynamics 365,” adds Microsoft in a press release sent to Hypertext.

As part of the Centre’s goals, a handful of programmes have already been outlined. Here, the Microsoft Enterprise Skills Initiative and the Microsoft Community Training Platform will be used by internal SITA employees to continue their training and reskilling in key areas.

For those outside the organisation the Emerging Partner Programme will prove pivotal, as it identifies and provides ICT SMMEs with training to accelerate their journey to Microsoft Gold partner status. 25 SMMEs from across all nine provinces are already receiving certification training, according to Microsoft SA.

“Partnering with SITA and investing in the centre and other initiatives is a vital part of Microsoft’s commitment to leverage cloud and emerging technologies to accelerate growth through innovation, work across sectors to better serve citizens’ needs, empower individuals and SMMEs with critical future-ready skills, and create broader societal impact,” noted Lillian Barnard, CEO at Microsoft South Africa (also pictured above), during the Centre’s launch.

“Microsoft fully supports SITA’s vision to digitise government to accelerate and enhance innovation and service delivery as part of our shared commitment to driving competitiveness, skills development and economic growth in the country – and the launch of the Ndivho Innovation Centre is an important step in reaching this goal,” she concluded.