Huawei Technologies is targeting to train close to 1 million new ICT professionals in partnership with universities in Africa, under the theme Connection, Glory, Future. The training programme aims to increase academia collaboration with the ICT industry to advance the digital transformation of local industries. To this end, the company has invited university students from 70 countries and pursuing ICT courses to test their skills and competence through an assessment.
This year, young Kenyans drawn from the University of Nairobi are among others, part of a group of 15,000 students in 130 teams, from 500 top universities and colleges are participating in the assessment. The students are tasked with designing and building innovative solutions on Huawei technological platform, including the Cloud to address issues of environmental protection and close societal gaps with digital skills.
Besides the traditional Network and Cloud Track, the assessment includes an Innovation Track that aims to stretch students’ creativity. With a target of 700,000 skilled professionals trained by the year 2023, the firm is using its annual ICT assessment to examine the students for their ICT knowledge, practical skills and innovation. The programme also serves as a platform for talent placement, with 350 students having succeeded in getting jobs over the last 5 years.
This year, Kenyan students will be keen to maintain the winning streak set in 2020 by the Mazingira Team from Kenya that presented the Wildfire PrediTec solution. The solution was designed and built on Huawei IoT and AI platforms to detect, analyze, predict and prevent wildfires. Team Kenya tied with two other teams from Uganda and Mauritius for the joint first prize while the grand prize was collected by a team from Nigeria. The sub-Saharan Africa finals are scheduled for February 2022 while the global finals will take place in May 2022.