Huawei Awards ICT Competition Winners

Huawei Kenya has awarded 11 top students who have emerged as the national winners of the 2018 Global ICT Competition Skills Competition.

Six of the winners from Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology (JKUAT), Meru University, University of Nairobi and Zetech University are now slated to attend the competition’s regional round to be held in South Africa at the end of the month.

If they succeed, they will head to China on a fully sponsored trip for the global finals that will involve candidates from over 50 countries.

The competition, launched in July this year, saw more than 4,000 IT students register at the preliminary stages from 40 universities across the country. Of these, 600 were selected for training after a competitive selection process after which the top 100 then underwent further coaching at a boot camp session before sitting for the nationwide exams.

This is the first time the ICT competition is being held in this region. Launched in 2015, the competition invites ICT students from all over the world to test their ICT capabilities and provides a platform for the exchange of skills and experiences. The competition has since then seen an increase in the number of participants, which has seen it become one of the largest competitions and platforms in the ICT sector.

The Huawei ICT competition is a platform that is oriented to Huawei Authorized Information and Network Academy (HAINA), a certified program that provides the latest technical training and certifications to students through training lecturers on Huawei Certified Network Associate – Routing and Switching (HCNA-R&S).

Kennedy Muthaura from Zetech University emerged as the champion of the national final and received a Huawei Matebook laptop as a prize for his excellent performance. He is joined by five other top students from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Meru University and the University of Nairobi to be heading to South Africa for the Regional Finals.

Huawei Kenya and a number of the company’s partners such as Redington, Sybl Limited, Next Technologies, Smoothtel, Express Auto, Computech, and Atlancis have offered internships to the excellent achievers of the competition. Huawei continues to lead the pack in the telecommunication industry through cutting-edge innovations, strategic partnerships and skills transfer through its innovative programs such as this.

The 2018 ICT Competition has been launched 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 20,000 participants. This figure has increased dramatically from 1,000 in 2017.

This program is just one of many that Huawei has focused on nurturing young ICT skills talents to address skill shortages, stimulate employment, and support the country’s digital transformation.