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Microsoft SA and partners - Intervate, 2enable launch online portal to empower students


Johannesburg, 26 Jun 2017

Microsoft South Africa, together with Intervate and 2enable, have created a portal for young South Africans, called Mahala.ms. Through this portal, young people can activate licences for the Microsoft Office 365 suite and OneDrive cloud-based storage services free of charge.

The main objective is to enable learners from grades R to 12 to become more productive and better prepared for the next phase of their academic careers or the workplace, by gaining free access to Office 365's services, including Microsoft Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint.

In addition, students receive one terabyte (1 000GB) worth of free OneDrive online storage to save their documents, class notes, assignments, research, podcasts and vodcasts. An IDC study* that scanned 16.4 million job postings found that high-growth/high-wage jobs want employees with a range of skills that include a good working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.

Peter Reid, Executive Head of Intervate, notes that for some time, Microsoft's Student Advantage programme has been in place, giving students free access to the Office tools. "But, in many schools, the problem has been limited capacity to activate the licences and provision the services."

Through the Mahala.ms portal, students and parents are able to self-provision their licences and install the software on up to five devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

Students can organise their school and personal data in one secure location, and are able to create and share content as well as collaborate on documents in real-time. Moreover, they can access useful educational resources.

Says Lionel Moyal, Office Business Group Lead at Microsoft South Africa. "There are around 12 million learners and students in SA, but only a fraction of them have access to digital tools. As such, there is an immense opportunity to change the fortunes of millions of young people through the Mahala.ms portal, enabling many more students to master the use of technology and acquire 21st century learning skill sets, such as collaborating within groups and delivering captivating presentations."

Reid concludes that education is of "fundamental, structural importance to the future of our nation. Wherever we can, we should find ways to make our education system more robust, so students can have better access to technology and to opportunities."

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Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of 31 December 2014). The group provides fixed network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228 000 employees worldwide. The group generated revenues of EUR 62.7 billion in the 2014 financial year - more than 60% of it outside Germany.

T-Systems

Deutsche Telekom considers the European business customer segment a strategic growth area. Deutsche Telekom offers small, medium-sized and multinational companies ICT solutions for an increasingly complex digital world. In addition to services from the cloud, the range of services is centred on M2M and security solutions, complementary mobile communications and fixed network products, and solutions for virtual collaboration and IT platforms, all of which form the basis for its customers' digital business models.

With approximately 47 800 employees worldwide, T-Systems generated revenue of around EUR 8.6 billion in the 2014 financial year.

Since the inception of T-Systems in South Africa in 1997, the company has cemented its position as one of the most successful T-Systems companies outside of Europe. A leading ICT outsourcing service provider locally, T-Systems offers end-to-end ICT solutions in both the ICT operations and systems integration markets. Its extensive portfolio of services covers the vertical, horizontal, IT and TC space. T-Systems South Africa's head office is located in Midrand, with another major office in Cape Town, and 20 further representative offices in locations throughout southern Africa.

Intervate

Intervate, a T-Systems company in South Africa, is an enabler of digital transformation, delivering digital workplace solutions and customer experiences that drive business value and improve productivity.

It has over 17 years' experience in delivering innovative solutions that enable digital transformation including enterprise mobility, enterprise information management, customer and data insights, business process solutions, cloud solutions and enterprise application integration. Intervate's technical expertise is supported by an understanding of the strategic drivers and challenges that enable it to provide its customers with professional guidance regarding the best practices proven to deliver successful projects and business benefits.

Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.

Read more at https://news.microsoft.com/facts-about-microsoft/#ZLHb8Dt1ecXhiCFt.99.

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