There is critical shortage of skilled ICT professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa which hampers the growth of a thriving ICT sector and drive economic growth.
To address this skills shortage, Huawei has launched an ICT Talent Ecosystem Program for Sub-Sahara Africa at AfricaCom 2018 – the largest telecommunications event in Africa, being held Cape Town.
Huawei has partnered with UNESCO – the United Nations agency for Education, Science and Culture; African universities and industry players to cultivate local ICT talent and develop a sustainable ICT ecosystem.
As part of the programme, Huawei carries out several ICT certification programs including the Huawei ICT Academy and Huawei Authorised Learning Partner (HALP) for university students and industry practitioners, providing industry recognised certification HCNA, HCNP, HCIE, across extensive ICT technologies, such as Routing & Switching, Storage, Cloud Computing, Security and more.
In addition, Huawei also organises events including an ICT Competition and Career Expos for tertiary students to promote a greater understanding of and interest in ICT related job opportunities.
“We are launching this platform to demonstrate that the young talent in Sub-Sahara Africa have the potential to mature into world-class experts,” says Michael Meng, services director of the Huawei Enterprise Business Group for Southern Africa Region. “Today, we re-dedicate ourselves to working even more closely with partners across the continent to better equip the next generation of technology leaders. By enhancing industry-academic cooperation, we, as an international ICT company, hope to make our contribution to achieving of the continent’s development goals.”
Huawei launched the 2018 ICT Competition in June in more than 10 sub-Saharan Africa countries, including South Africa, Nigeria Kenya and Zambia. Under the slogan of “Connection，Glory，Future,”this event has attracted more than 20s000 participants. This figure has increased from 1 000 back in 2017.
Winners of the contest in various African counties will have the opportunity to participate in the regional finals to be held in South Africa, the winners will move onto the global finals to be held at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen China.