Huawei Seeds for Future programme has taken 25 Kenyan students through a one-week immersion into digital technology skills during an ICT study tour in Shanghai, China last week.
The programme, which coincided with MWC Shanghai 2024, admits students from various countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and equips them with digital skills to innovate and create technological solutions for their communities and for the job markets.
As part of the tour, the students worked on a group project dubbed Tech4Good aimed at levering on technology to address current social and environmental issues.
Sylvia Jebet of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology emerged second place during the 2024 Leadership Employability Advancement Possibility (LEAP) Summit, out of over 50 students from various Sub-Saharan Africa countries that participated. Kenya had four (4) participants.
Jebet was feted for her outstanding performance in Digital Content creation content that featured various sites during the tour including Huawei Watt Exhibition Hall, a visit to the DJI R&D centre in Shenzhen, a tour of the Huawei Songshan Lake visit, among others.
At the Shanghai MWC 2024, Huawei announced a new plan to train an additional 150,000 talents in Sub-Saharan Africa over the next three years.
The plan comes on top of the Company’s initial goal to equip over 100,000 people in the region with digital skills by 2025. Huawei has already exceeded its initial goal by 120%, 10 months ahead of schedule, training over 120,000 individuals over the past 26 months. Both announcements were made at the LEAP Summit 2024: ICT Talent and Sustainable Development for Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, Huawei has trained over 18,000 people from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and other African countries.
“We have made much positive progress in talent development across African countries, but this would not have been possible without the joint efforts of government agencies, academia, and industry,” said Hover Gao, President of Sub-Saharan Africa, Huawei, adding that the company now aims at skilling 150,000 people in the next three years.
Under the LEAP framework, Huawei trains its partners in the digital power and cloud ecosystem, hosts training and incubations for teachers and also hosts job fairs.