Huawei plans to contribute more to information and communication technologies (ICT) capacity building in Ethiopia in 2020, CEO of Huawei Ethiopia disclosed. In doing so, China’s tech giant hopes to see a rise in number of beneficiaries.
Zhou Tianbing, CEO of Huawei Ethiopia, speaking to Xinhua on Monday expressed Huawei’s commitment to helping Ethiopia its education with advanced technologies, and making efforts to bridge the digital divide in Ethiopia.
Huawei has launched and has reportedly been implementing various initiatives aimed at improving the ICT capacity of the youth in Ethiopia, and in Africa in general.
“With a view of building ICT capacity and further improve ICT development, Huawei has launched three major initiatives dubbed ‘Seeds for the Future’, ICT competition, and ICT Talent Ecosystem, and these projects have benefited tens of thousands of students at the levels of elementary, secondary and higher education,” he said.
Huawei started its ‘Seeds for the Future’ project in Ethiopia in 2016. In the project, with the cooperation of the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE), 10 highly talented students from Ethiopian universities are selected from Ethiopia and sent to China every year for short-term training, Mr Zhou explained. The project keeps sending 10 students every year.
The CEO also noted his company has been conducting ICT Competition in Ethiopia since 2018. In the recent competition in 2019, 2,357 students from 22 universities in Ethiopia took part in the competition, out of which a teacher and three students have been selected to participate in the final competition in China. The company hopes to have 3,000 students from 28 universities to compete this year.
On the ICT Talent Ecosystem of Ethiopia, Huawei signed an agreement with MoSHE in January 2017 for the joint construction of ICT Academies in 37 public higher education institutions.
The two sides also signed an agreement in January 2019 to jointly construct ICT Academies in technical and vocational education and training (TVET), the first time in Ethiopia to extend Huawei Academy to TVET.
With the initiative of ICT Academy, Huawei has a plan to open courses this year in nine more universities and three more TVETs in Ethiopia.
By now, Huawei’s Education Cloud Solution has covered 365 secondary schools, 10 universities, with more than 30,000 cloud desktops, which have benefited more than 27,000 teachers and students, according to the CEO. Huawei has also worked together with more than 10 top universities in Ethiopia, where it has constructed the most advanced data centers, fixed & wireless school networks and Education Cloud for them.
So far, more than 300,000 college students have become beneficiaries of digital research and development, digital education and distant education empowered by Huawei, the CEO of Huawei Ethiopia noted.
Founded in 1987, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies is one of the tech giants on the globe.
Source: Xinhua via 2 Merkato
