Huawei ICT Competition Keeps Inspiring African Students To Chase Their ICT Passions

Under the theme of “Connection, Glory, Future”, the Huawei ICT Competition is sailing through its 6^th year in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 15,000 students from up to 500 top universities and colleges in 17 countries participating, making it the largest ICT skill competition in the region.

At the current stage, 6 countries have completed the country-level Huawei ICT Competition. Outstanding teams will compete in the Sub-Saharan African finals, which is scheduled to kick off in February, 2022.

Over the past 5 years, the competition has attracted over 80,000 passionate ICT students, with 21 teams entering the global finals, further incentivizing contestants to excel in this field.

The 2019-2020 Competition marks a historic milestone for Sub-Saharan Africa. Two teams from Nigeria won the Grand Prize of both the Network Track and Cloud Track, while 3 teams from Kenya, Uganda, and Mauritius were joint first prize winners.

Globally the Huawei ICT Competition 2021-2022 has covered over 70 countries worldwide, with a total of over 130 teams competing. The global finals are expected to happen in May of 2022.

To encourage broader participation, the 2021-2022 competition will still be virtual. Besides the traditional Network and Cloud Track, it will also officially introduce an Innovation Track. Contestants will design innovative solutions targeting general well-being, such as environment protection and closing social gaps, by utilising Huawei technologies including Huawei Cloud.

Last year, the Mazingira Team, from Kenya took part in the invitational competition. They presented a solution called Wildfire PrediTec, to detect, analyse, predict and prevent wildfires, designed on Huawei IOT and AI platforms.

The Huawei ICT Competition also opens up bigger opportunities to participants. As of today, the competition-related training helped over 350 students receive job offers.

With a series of talent development campaigns in Sub Saharan Africa, including the ICT competition, Huawei hopes to skill up more than 700,000 ICT professionals by 2023. The aim is to bridge the ICT talent gap, increase academia-industry communication, and advance the digital transformation of industries.