Three university students who were representing Uganda at the Global Finals of the Huawei ICT Competition as a team have emerged among the best team in the competition. The three students Shaffic Nyanzi, Emmanuel Kiguli, and Doreen Nalwoga from Muni and Lira University respectively qualified for the finals having emerged as winners at the Sub-Sahara African Finals —toppling 14 other African countries.
Uganda competed with 39 other country teams from Asia, Latin America, East Europe and the Middle East in finals becoming the first African country to emerge in the first position despite being the newest contestants of the competition since 2017. In 2019, five African teams made it to the final and reaped only one third prize. Huawei has noted that African students have made stunning progress this year.
The competition was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
All victorious students rejoiced after 10 months of hard work and fierce competition all the way from national screening contests, regional finals and the global final.
Nyanzi, Kiguli, and Nalwoga achievement is due to Huawei Uganda’s continued recognition and efforts to build a competitive ICT talent pool among the youth who will be an indispensable accelerator for the Uganda’s post-COVID recovery and digitization.
Nalwoga said Huawei has given students the opportunity to learn skills which are recognized in the world of ICT —providing a platform to experience and practice new innovative and cutting-edge technology to grow and develop ourselves. While sharing her experience she noted that the journey with Huawei comes with benefits such as professional certification in the fields of interest.
The Huawei ICT Competition an annual global competition challenges students with ICT knowledge ultimately inspiring innovation with the theme of “connection, glory, future. The first edition of the Huawei ICT competition in Uganda started in 2018 with 1300 students from the various public universities. This year, Huawei reached out to over 10 universities locally having over 2500 students registering to take part —the biggest they have got so far.
Over the past five years on the African region, Huawei has signed cooperation agreements with over 250 universities in 14 Sub-Saharan countries on establishing Huawei ICT academies. In Uganda 8 universities have signed for this agreement including Makerere, Muni, MUBS, Soroti, Kabale, Kyambogo, Nkozi, and Mbarara. This cooperation has seen more than 7,000 university students across Africa obtain Huawei ICT certification making them better candidates for ICT related jobs.
Hou Tao, Global Vice President of Huawei said, “Huawei has dedicated itself as a trusted partner of governments and academia in building a competitive ICT talent pool, strengthening capacity building and increasing people’s digital competence.”
