Students from three Nigerian universities, University, Ahmedu Bello University, and the University of Port Harcourt have been selected to represent the country at the grand finale of the Huawei Global ICT Competition later in October.
The students – 12 in number – emerged winners of a 5 team competition. The teams competed under the network and cloud category from which four teams were guaranteed rickets to the Global ICT Competition.
Launched first in Nigeria in 2017, the Huawei ICT competition fosters ICT learning in Africa and bridge the gap between theoretical study and practical experience typically comprises a national preliminary contest, regional semi-final, and a global final. The objective is to train students for free in the latest internationally relevant ICT skills in subjects such as networks, cloud computing, and big data.
The competition covers the examination of the latest ICT technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, mobile networks, and big data. In Africa, it features 123 talented students from 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which are divided into 41 teams (28 network track and 13 cloud track teams). The Huawei Global ICT Competition Final in October 2020, attracts more than 300 other student-talents from 66 countries across the globe.
A spokesperson for Huawei says so far over 10,000 Nigerian students have benefited from the competition. There are 150 instructors from partnering institutions, with 120 of them acquiring various Huawei certifications in different technology tracks and 250 training classes in various technology tracks; in routing and switching; storage; cloud and services, big data; W-Lan; security; and AI delivered by Huawei instructors.
“Competition-related training has helped over 300 students receive job offers. In Nigeria alone, over 3,000 Nigerian students trained by Huawei have successfully passed the Huawei professional certification exams,” Melissa Chen, Director, Huawei Nigeria Enterprise D&S Department. “Huawei hopes to skill up more than 700,000 ICT professionals by 2023. The aim is to bridge the ICT talent gap, advance the digital transformation of industries, and bring digital to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.”
Kenneth Igwe, a Huawei Channel Training Managers (for ICT Talent Ecosystem Development in Nigeria) explained how the students have trained adequately for the examination by Huawei certified instructors, following hands-on training/internship with the company.
“prior to the ICT competition, Huawei Technologies Nigeria took time out to train 9 of the 15 students who were also given internship opportunities with the company in Abuja and Lagos. Meanwhile, all the students had also been trained since January for this competition, and many of them already acquired HCIA, HCIP, and HCIP which are globally recognised certifications in various Huawei technology Courses,” he said.
