Microsoft’s Workshops at AI Expo Africa 2020 ONLINE

Securing master data using AI and Blockchain, Azure Cognitive Search and Azure Machine Learning — these were just some of the topics covered at the virtual workshops delegates at AI Expo Africa 2020 ONLINE had access to at Microsoft’s ebooth as part of the Microsoft AI Labs.

THE MICROSOFT AI Labs were held on 3 and 4 September during the virtual tea and lunch breaks at the expo. In all , seven workshops were held.

In the workshop titled, In data we trust, or do we?, Fabian Van Der Merwe, Cloud Solution Architect Data and AI at Microsoft discussed how to secure master data using AI and Blockchain. Van Der Merwe also conducted another workshop titled AI in building a decentralised Governance Model in which he discussed the use of AI in building resilient and scalable decentralised systems and organisations.

Asif Valley, National Technology Officer at Microsoft, discussed how Microsoft is using AI for Good.

Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect Data and AI, Kunda Chaikatisha held a workshop titled Azure Machine Learning where he discussed how to build, train, deploy and manage machine learning models using the Azure Machine Learning Service.

This while Tawanda Emmanuel Ziki, Cloud Solution Architect Data and AI at Microsoft conducted a workshop which tackled a salient issue around AI innovation -- trust. Tiki’s workshop, titled Responsible ML: Protect Privacy and Confidentiality with ML focused on the Azure Machine Learning Service’s capabilities around securely and confidentially training, deploying and managing AI models.

Microsoft Head of Philanthropy, Charlene Verzmoter presented a workshop on the Microsoft Global Skilling initiative which aims to bring more digital skills to 25 million people around the world by 31 March.

Ignacio Floristan, Global Black Belt in Artificial Intelligence and Technical Specialist at Microsoft, conducted a workshop on Azure Cognitive Search which walked participants through Microsoft’s AI-powered cloud search service. The virtual workshop included a demo with online web pages and a PDF about Covid which had been ingested and cracked by several AI skills, and indexed into a search index.

The Microsoft AI Labs at AI Expo Africa 2020 ONLINE proved just how, even with this year’s virtual format, the show is one of Africa’s largest AI learning platforms. ai