• This week Huawei announced the winners of its most recent ICT Competition, awarding 53 students at its Johannesburg campus.
• The company says more than 5 000 students from tertiary institutions entered the competition.
• Huawei also used the event to launch its latest ICT Academy for 2023.

Huawei South Africa held an event this week at its Johannesburg campus honouring the winners of the local iteration of its annual ICT Competition.

For those unfamiliar with the ICT Competition, it is described as a talent exchange event developed by Huawei for global college and university students. In SA, more than 5 000 students from tertiary institutions entered this latest iteration, with the top 53 performing students awarded at the aforementioned event in Johannesburg.

“The national finalists come from some of South Africa’s top universities such as the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of Kwa Zulu Natal (UKZN), the University of Pretoria, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Rhodes University, and more. Others come from leading colleges such as Goldfields, Capricorn, and Maluti TVET colleges,” explained Huawei in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“With the South African technology sector facing a serious skills shortage, initiatives like the ICT Competition provide a powerful incentive for students in relevant fields to pick up additional skills, further bridging the gap between tertiary education and the workplace. It is just one of a series of initiatives developed by Huawei with the aim of growing South Africa’s technology skills base,” it added.

Moving forward the company says that it will look to build on the success of the 2022-2023 ICT Competition by adding to the number of certified instructors, so that it has at least one per academy. It also wants to ensure that there are at least 120 students participating at each academy and 100 students per academy participating in the ICT Competition.

Along with honouring the winners, Huawei also used the occasion to launch its 2023 ICT Academy, with more information on that programme set to arrive soon.