The African Development Centre is among Africa’s largest software engineering facilities that set the standard for new generation technology hubs. It is located at Dunhill Towers in Westlands, Nairobi. It accommodates the research, design, engineering, & innovation teams and the Microsoft Garage, an incubation hub to scale technology innovation in Africa. The facility is a pioneering development that advocates the international recognition of Kenya’s ample high-tech workforce capabilities, business opportunities, and conducive investment environment.
The center is built similar to Microsoft’s global offices for optimizing space utilization, air conditioning, and lighting adjustments, part of Microsoft’s global ambition to be net carbon negative by 2030. The facility also has self-heating windows, a mini solar plant to power the facility, and a water treatment facility to recycle and purify the water, only available at the new ADC facility and not in other Microsoft offices. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta stated that as a premier center of research and development for Microsoft, there would be another construction of local world-class talent and create innovative technological solutions that will yield positive global impacts.
Microsoft partnered with local universities and start-ups to create over 200,000 jobs in the digital economy for Kenyan youth. So far, the partnership has created 431 full-time jobs for Kenyans in software development, program management, technical design, content writing, operations, research, and applied science. Microsoft enhanced research, technology, and skills through projects like Mawingu that connects the unconnected and the “one million farmers platform: for improving crop yields.
