Students from Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Africa which came out tops in the Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa ICT Competition have qualified for the global final list.
According to a statement made available to Financial Street, the teams from these four countries, along with counterparts from Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius and Zambia, qualified to compete with students from around the world in the global final slated to hold online from November 6-9, 2020.
Nigerian, Tanzanian, Ugandan, and South African teams had stood out from more than 40 African teams during the fierce regional competition.
More than 50,000 students from 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa participated in the competition, even as the move to online allowed more students participation.
Mr. Hou Tao, Global Vice President of Huawei, explained that the impressive enthusiasm of the students is much needed for Africa’s digital inclusion in the era when the gravity of workplace skills is already shifting online.
“As a private company serving the African market for over 20 years, Huawei has dedicated itself to and will always remain a trusted partner of governments and academia in building an ICT talent pool, strengthening capacity building and increasing people’s digital competence,” Tao said.
South African Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dr. Blade Nzimande, said his country’s goal is that of “repositioning to not just being a consumer of knowledge but also to be a producer of knowledge and new innovation.”
He emphasised that Huawei’s unique contribution to this goal is by creating “a highly skilled and globally competitive ICT talent pool for Africa’s development in the era of digitisation and the global economy.”
Nzimande further stated that South Africa and Africa as a whole will need to actively collaborate both internally and externally in order to remain competitive due to the globalized nature of the economy and the digital transformation, therefore “look forward to Huawei alignment with the broader national effort.”
Over the past five years, Huawei has signed cooperation agreements with over 250 universities in 14 Sub-Saharan countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, a cooperation that has enabled more than 7,000 university students obtain Huawei ICT certification.
Vincent Waiswa Bagiire, the Permanent Secretary in the Ugandan Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance, said ICT can surely bring substantial increases of productivity to address the country’s most urgent needs, and the development of human capital extremely important.
Also, Mr. Darius Mogaka Ogutu, Director of University Education and Research at Kenya Ministry of Education, said that “collaboration between private sector and universities, especially when that private sector is one of the world’s leaders in that field,” he also commends the real impact brought by Huawei’s talent strategy for enabling “tens of thousands of other students across the region, by learning and practicing their ICT knowledge and skills through this innovative format.”
Prof. Funso Falade, a Nigerian who serves as the President of African Engineering Education Association, said, “The skills development opportunities provided by Huawei are in line with AEEA goals and aspirations for our students in a critical area which we now require a lot of expertise in Africa, now more than ever due to the disruption the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to our educational system.”
