By Our Reporter
Huawei global ICT competition has kicked off in Uganda with a road show in Makerere University. With the theme “Connection, Glory, Future”, the Huawei 2019-2020 Global ICT competition aims to provide a platform for global ICT talents to showcase their ability, compete and communicate, encouraging ICT-related study and drive the growth of a robust ICT talent ecosystem.
Over 6000 students from the various Universities all over Uganda are expected to participate in the contest with various subjects including network, Cloud Computing, artificial intelligence and big data.
Mr. Liujiawei, the Managing Director of Huawei Uganda noted that ICT skills gap has increasingly become a bottleneck for embracing opportunities in the digital era, as across all industries are poised to grow with rapid advances in emerging technologies, changing the very nature of the jobs.
He emphasized that it is important to foster an open and sustainable ICT talents ecosystem that involves different stakeholders to equip youths with employable skills and increase competencies relevant in the labor market.
“We need a comprehensive approach of skills development for employment, enhanced productivity and growth. Training contents must be aligned with skills requirements in the job market. That is why we re-dedicate ourselves to working even more closely with universities across the country to better equip students with the next generation of technologies and create the platform for the Ugandan students to demonstrate they are capable of maturing into world-class experts.” Liu said.
Skills gaps across all industries are poised to grow in the Fourth Industrial Revolution globally. There will also be strong demand for ICT-related skills. According to the World Economic Forum, at least 133 million new roles generated as a result of the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms may emerge globally by 2022. In Uganda, the ICT skills gap is also a challenge. Report by National Information Technology Authority shows that within MDAs, ICT personnel account for only 1.9% of the total work force.
To bridge the ICT skills gap and fostering ICT talent pool needed for national social economic development, Huawei Uganda has been working with government, industrial and academic partners in upskilling engineers, providing certification courses, sponsoring aboard studies and supporting government’s initiatives in promoting innovation and ICT learning. Huawei Uganda has so far signed up six universities across Uganda in launch establishment of academies, where students can access to industrially-recognized certification courses.
This is the second executive year for the global leading ICT solutions provider to bring the global event to Uganda. First round of registration will take place from 26 th August to 30 th October at Makerere, Kyambogo, Muni, MUST, Lira, Gulu, Busitema and many other private Universities respectively.
