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Shenzhen, China | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda university students have won one of the top prizes at the recently concluded Huawei Global ICT Competition.
Teams from the southern Africa region represented a great success in the competition, which lasted for one year and attracted 150,000 students from 85 countries all over the world. The teams won two grand prizes, four first prizes and three second prizes.
The 2021-2022 ICT Competition Awards and closing ceremonies were held in Shenzhen, China on June 25th, 2022 with 130 teams from 43 countries competing fiercely. The grand prize was pocketed by Nigeria ABU and Nigeria University of Port Harcourt.
Uganda was represented by nine students- six from network track (Makerere University), and three from cloud track (Muni University).
Nigeria ABU, Uganda’s Makerere University (team 1 and 2) and Kenya’s Kenyatta University (Innovation competition) scooped prizes, coming top in one of the categories.
Tanzania’s University of Dodoma, Nigeria’s University of Ibadan, Ghana KNUST (Innovation Track & Woman in Tech Awards) won second place prizes in the different categories, while a third place prize was won by KU Kenya, Machagos University, U Zimbabwe, KNUST Ghana, UOM Mauritius, MU Uganda, and UDSM Tanzania.
The success of the competition highlighted the resilience of South African students in the world competition platform.
In addition, the success of the competition further enhanced the business environment. The presidents and ministries of various countries praised Huawei, which inspired young Africans to learn ICT technologies, strengthened their soil fertility, cultivated Huawei fans and provided a strong moat for the brand.
Huawei ICT Competition is a competitive ICT talent exchange program developed globally for university, college and TVET students. This aims to promote the healthy development of the ICT talent ecosystem and support the integration of industry and education.
Launched in the African region just six years ago, the competition has developed into the largest ICT skills competition in Africa and the world at large.
In May, 2022, Huawei, the leading ICT global solutions provider, awarded the 2021 Seeds for the Future Finalists and the 2021-2022 Huawei Regional ICT Competition finalists.
Under the theme of “Connection, Glory, Future”, the nine month long Huawei ICT competition for Sub Saharan Africa was finalized on 19th February, 2022 with over 16 countries and 38 teams sitting for written and laboratory exams. The competition attracted over 15,000 participants from Sub-Saharan Africa from 500 universities.
Globally, the Huawei ICT Competition 2021 covered over 83 countries worldwide, with 150 000 contestants from more than 2,000 universities and colleges.
Huawei Uganda Public Relations Director, Gaojian said, “Huawei Uganda approached over 15 universities and interested them in the 2021 ICT Competition. We registered 750 students and opened for them our free online learning platforms in the various courses of Network and cloud. The network track consists of Datacom, Security and Wireless Lan while Cloud track consists of Artificial intelligence, Big Data, Cloud Computing and Storage. These studied and were subjected to preliminary exams, national exams and Regional exams where we attained the first and second position.”
According to the company, Huawei has, over the past two decades, helped advance the ICT skills of more than 80,000 people across the sub-Saharan Africa region. In doing so, it says it has helped increase youth employability and bridge the gender gap in the ICT industry. Huawei itself is an employer of choice in the region. Its subsidiaries in 9 Sub-Saharan African countries earned the Top Employer seal in 2021.
With a series of talent ecosystem campaigns in Sub Saharan Africa, including the ICT competition, Huawei hopes to skill up more than 700,000 ICT professionals by 2023.
