ICT students across the Sub-Saharan Africa region celebrated a strong showing at the global final of the 8th Huawei ICT Competition held in Shenzhen, China from May 23-26 2024.
Kenya had the most teams from the Sub-Saharan Africa and emerged with the most prizes of any other region:
- First Prize: Kenya Network Team 1, Kenya Network Team 2,
- Second Prize: Kenya Computing Team 1
- Third Prize: Kenya Cloud Team 1, Kenya Cloud Team 2, Kenya Computing Team 2,
- Women in Tech Award: Kenya Cloud Team 2
The 2023-2024 ICT Competition circuit attracted more than 170,000 students from over 2,000 universities and colleges across more than 80 countries and regions, making it the largest offline competition since its launch in 2015.
More than 160 teams consisting of over 470 contestants from 49 different countries and regions reached the global final in Shenzhen, having previously been successful in their respective national and regional competitions.
Dr. Esther Thaara Muoria, Kenya Ministry of Education Principal Secretary, State Department for TVET, Ministry of Education, said of the global final: “When you stay in your country you compete with others within your area, within your space, but when it is an international [event] like this, you are gearing up to meet on an international stage, and therefore you are striving to not only be the best in your environment but to be the best in the globe.”
She added that. ‘It is a good thing for Huawei to think about a way of encouraging students. Me, as a practical educator – an educator who wants students to work on practical skills – I am very impressed by this because I encourage students work on a real situation basis…That is why for Huawei to organize a [competition] like this one where the students know they are not only working to have the knowledge in their space but also to practice it out while competing with others is a very noble idea and it is an idea that I really think Huawei is doing so great at and we as a country are very impressed.”
At the same ceremony Kenya School of TVET was awarded a new Huawei Instructor Support Center in Kenya, the school will function as a center for ICT Cutting edge technologies training for TVET teachers in Kenya.
At the Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024 Final Closing & Awarding Ceremony, Zhou Hong, President of Huawei’s Institute of Strategic Research, addressed the finalists, saying: “To make sure everyone can truly enjoy the benefits of digitalization while such technologies are making radical progress, Huawei believes it is crucial to guarantee that digital technologies are accessible to all.”
On the same day, Huawei also held the ICT Accelerating Education Transformation Summit. At the summit, Huawei awarded 24 instructors the title Huawei ICT Academy Global Most Valuable Instructor for the first time. This award aims to show gratitude for the important contributions these instructors have made to talent development, and mark them as role models that show how the brightest minds can develop even brighter minds. These role models will help drive sustainable development of the ICT talent ecosystem.
The Huawei ICT Competition is an annual contest held by Huawei for global university and college students. Through the competition, Huawei aims to provide students with an international platform for healthy competition and the exchange of ideas. Since its launch in 2015, the competition has helped students enhance their ICT knowledge and practical skills, while also increasing their ability to innovate by using new technologies and platforms. The ultimate goal is to advance technological development and facilitate digital inclusion around the world. As one of Huawei’s key Seeds for the Future 2.0 projects, Huawei ICT Competition aims to provide a platform for college students to compete and communicate with each other around the world.
Huawei launched the ICT Academy in the Sub-Saharan African region in [YEAR]. As of now, there are 478 participating academies in the region – the most for any region outside of China. To date, over 24,000 students from over 5,000 universities and colleges have participated in the ICT competition. Huawei has involved over 100,000 students and over 1,500 teachers in the ICT Academy in the region.
About the ICT Academy
In 2013, Huawei launched its ICT Academy program, a cooperation project between Huawei as an enterprise and the universities, to help drive the talent ecosystem.
With the ICT Academy program, Huawei helps the universities improve their capacity in providing digital technology training so that they can certify students as ICT talents. In this way, it helps provide the talent needed for the digital industry development. Most students pass certification exams after completing related courses.
Huawei has partnered with over 2,700 universities and colleges in over 110 countries and regions to train more than one million students through the Huawei ICT Academy. More than 200,000 students are trained every year.
