By Our Reporter
Huawei has held the first ICT Congress in Uganda in a bid to help businesses and ICT users such as governments, telecoms, regulators and enterprises innovate business models, improve quality and efficiency, enhance experience, and strengthen resilience in their digital work and productivity, and digital service processes.
Held under the theme “Lighting up the Future”, the Huawei ICT Congress 2022 is a mirror of the Mobile World Congress always held in Barcelona where Huawei has been a top exhibitor showcasing the latest technology.
Huawei exhibited technology in smart homes, smart offices, cloud solutions, safe and smart cities and so much more. This is the first of its kind by Huawei in Africa and looks to do many more the coming years.
In attendance was NITA-U’s Hatwib Mugasa, Huawei Vice president of Carrier Business Group Southern Africa Mad Chen, Huawei Vice President of Enterprise Business group Amy Xia and Huawei Uganda MD Gaofei.
Speaking at the event, Minister of ICT and National Guidance Hon. Chris Baryomunsi noted that ICT is now Uganda’s fastest growing sector and is also a major driver to Uganda’s Middle-income status just as the 2040 Digital vision states. He emphasized that because of this reason, the government is fast-tracking digital to harness new emerging technologies such as those exhibited at Huawei congress.
“We look to harness new emerging technologies such as those exhibited by Huawei at Barcelona and today for more fruit. We need to look to the future of digital and start implementing the necessary digital infrastructure so that we are not left behind. In building robust ultra-high speed, pervasive, intelligent and trusted high speed ICT infrastructure all over the country, the government has diligently worked towards expanding the nation’s digitalization in a number of fields, in order to unleash the multiplier effect of ICT on associated secondary and tertiary industries for tremendous impact on the economy. Thanks to NITA-U, UCC and other players in this regard. These efforts have borne fruit. ICT is now Uganda’s fastest growing sector and contributes significantly to its GDP”, he said.
Hon Chris Baryomunsi further thanked Huawei for organizing the congress that has made technologies that have always been talked about like 5G, A.I and many others real. “One of the reasons why we came up with the 2040 Uganda Digital vision is to effectively use and encourage adoption of mature and emerging technologies. So I am deeply impressed by their advanced technology, especially their achievements in network security and 5G technology.”
Huawei’s Vice President of Carrier Business Group Southern Africa Mr. Mad Chen emphasized Huawei’s commitment to working together with the government of Uganda to achieve its digital vision of 2040.
“We are innovating and inventing for the fast approaching digital world and economy. We have invested heavily in our R&D to light the way forward for you and me. Huawei will continue to play its part in helping its customers achieve digitization by; increasing strategic investment into foundational technologies to reshape the technical paradigm, and continuing with its globalization strategy, in standards, talent, supply chain and much more. In Uganda, we hope to continue working together with the Ministry of ICT, NITA-U and all other regulators in Uganda to help you achieve the 2040 Digital Uganda Vision,” he said.