Global IT solutions company Huawei has announced new plans to invest $150 Million in digital talent development for the next 5 years with key focus on Youth education and skill-building. Dubbed Huawei Seeds for Future 2.0, the program will extend the company’s previous efforts in skilling students across the world through Huawei ICT Academy spots.
“Today we are announcing Huawei’s Seeds for the Future Program 2.0. As part of our commitment to continuously developing talent, we will invest US$150 million in this program over the next five years and help college students and young people improve their digital skills. This program is expected to benefit another 3 million people,”
said Huawei’s Chairman Liang Hua.
In 2008, Huawei started expanding its talent development programs through scholarships, technology competitions, and digital skills training. Since then, the company has invested more than US$150 million in these programs and benefited more than 1.54 million people across 150 countries.
Now the Seeds for the Future 2.0 program is one that has been revamped to further cultivate young talent across the world by providing them quality training facilitated by global ICT experts. The program will rely on the latest technology to help eligible youth to develop the skills and mindsets needed to be competitive in future workplaces.
In Africa, Huawei introduced the program in 2014 and has for the past years benefited nearly 2,000 students in 25 Sub-Saharan Africa countries attracting appreciation, support and recognisition from several African countries where it exists.
The South Africa Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies tella Ndabeni-Abrahams commended the partnership between her Ministry and Huawei for supporting South Africa’s National Digital and Future Skills Strategy through the annual Seeds for Future program that has benefitted many youth in the country.
“Through the Seeds for the Future Program, students will get access to Huawei’s latest technology and that will give them a valuable insight into how ICT works to change our lives. This is the 5G, cloud and AI era, and we want our students to get the best skills so they can innovate and create local solutions that will serve our local needs,” Stella said.
Stella Ndabeni – Minister of Communications and Digital, South Africa
In agreement, Yang Chen, the Vice President of Huawei Southern Africa said the company is committed to Africa’s human resource development. With the budding need for professionals across the world, Africa remains a stable ground for highly skilled youth to innovate the world’s next solutions as he said.
“Africa has the youngest population in the world. These youth are the continent’s greatest resource which will power the economy in the future. Huawei partners with African governments, education institutes and industry to equip the future leaders with the latest knowledge at the very highest global levels and provide them opportunities to apply it to achieve a better future for the continent.”
For the next 5 years, Huawei has committed resources worth $150 million under the Seeds for Future program 2.0 to facilitate skill development and expansion of its programs to thousands of beneficiaries across the world with major focus on sub-saharan Africa.