Young Tech Talent Celebrated at Huawei ICT Competition 2018-2019 Global Finale

The Huawei ICT Competition 2018-2019 Global Final, held under the theme of "Connection, Glory, Future", has successfully concluded at Huawei's Songshan Lake new campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China—one of the world’s leading high-tech hubs for global research & development.

Since last June the competition has attracted more than 100,000 students from over 1,600 colleges and universities in 61 countries. This year's final has a total of 49 teams from 30 countries, with the greater Middle East region represented by teams from Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq and Pakistan. Huawei hopes to transfer a cumulative of more than 700,000 ICT professionals to the industry by 2023.

Through Huawei ICT Competition, Huawei aims to provide students with a platform to compete and exchange ideas in order to enhance their ICT knowledge, practical and application skills, and raise their innovation awareness. The competition is also a platform that facilitates connections between international talent as well as the collaboration between governmental organizations, higher educational institutions, training agencies, and enterprises, thus promoting the education, growth, and employment of ICT talent.

Ma Yue, vice president of Huawei Enterprise Business Group (EBG), President of Huawei EBG Global Sales, President of Huawei EBG Partners & Alliances, gave a speech at the award and closing ceremony of this competition. He said, "The talent ecosystem is the foundation of our strategy. In this ecosystem, talent is the most important factor that ensures the vitality and continuous growth of the industry. Over the past 30 years, we have made many efforts to train ICT talent by sharing our knowledge and best practices. We team up with educational institutions, industry associations, and partners to build a platform to foster ICT talent. This allows us to make the most of our experience in ICT by investing in talent to cope with future challenges and uncertainties. Today we aspire to build global standards for the development and certification of ICT talent."

Compared with previous years, this competition saw more participants from a larger number of countries, is more inclusive and innovative. As part of the competition, Huawei offers all participants access to free courses and learning materials as well as opportunities for free online exchanges, learning, and preparation. By doing so, Huawei hopes to achieve the goal of an equal opportunity for quality education and that more people can benefit from the digital economy.

Du Kewei, director general of the Center for International People-to-People Exchanges, the Ministry of Education of China, said that, "Cultural exchanges are a fundamental way to facilitate the understanding between Chinese and people in other countries and the mutual learning between different cultures. Huawei ICT Competition promotes the exchanges between China and other countries in education, science and technology, and culture, facilitates ICT talent growth, and advances global science and technology development."

The Innovation Competition, with participants from renowned colleges and universities, challenges students' ability to apply cutting-edge technologies, such as IoT, big data, and AI, to real world situations. It is intended to develop more innovative talent in the area of emerging technologies.

The ICT competition promotes the exchanges between students and colleges and universities. Winners will be offered full or partial scholarships of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Northeastern University, Beijing University of Technology, and Southern University of Science and Technology, and the opportunity for international study placements in the Henley Business School of the University of Reading, UK. 

By holding annual Huawei ICT Competition, Huawei hopes to attract more ICT academies, governmental organizations, industry institutions, training partners, and industry enterprises to participate in the program. These competitions improve the digital skills of college and university students, contribute more to education and industry transformation, and achieve far-reaching goals.

This is the fourth Huawei ICT Competition including both a Practice Competition and Innovation Competition. The Practice Competition for both a Network Track and a Cloud Track is intended for Huawei ICT Academies worldwide and higher educational institutions that are interested in becoming Huawei ICT Academies. The Innovation Competition uses an invitation-based registration system and is oriented to colleges and universities participating in Huawei ICT Academy's Innovation Talent Center program.

The Malaysia Team and Algeria Team won First Prize of the Practice Competition of the Network Track. The Peru Team and Guilin University of Electronic Technology Team won First Prize of the Practice Competition of the Cloud Track. The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Team won First Prize of the Innovation Competition.