Launching the third edition of the competitions at Serena Hotel Kampala on Friday, Dr Muyingo lauded Huawei Technologies for working with the government of Uganda to promote the delivery of quality education through ICT.

“We partnered with Huawei for the Seeds for the future program and over the years we have always made it a point to play an active role in the implementation of the digital upskilling initiatives in schools and universities across the country,”

the Minister said. 

” The COVID19 Pandemic has presented the sector with profound challenges.  No one foresaw the coming of this pandemic and the crippling effect it would have on all sectors of the economy including Education.  Over 15 million learners have been left at home and we have been forced to rethink the delivery of Education for our learners. 

With the broad experience that Huawei has developed over the years, I am confident that this partnership can help us to find more innovative solutions to these challenges which we are facing.

I call upon you to begin exploring the possibilities for delivery of infrastructure that will bring our education sector up to speed with the dynamic changes and resulting challenges that have been presented by the 21st century,”

he added. 

Dr Muyingo further noted that as government they believe that the skills that are being imparted through programs such as the ICT Academy, ICT Competition and Seeds for the Future are relevant to our socio-economic development agenda.

“Government is committed to upscaling and mainstreaming ICT in the delivery of Education as a measure to facilitate continued learning during this lockdown. We have requested National Council for Higher Education to work with our universities and allow them to operate through Open Distance Education and Learning.  I request all of us here to come together, share ideas and make this innovation a success even for post lockdown learning.”

At the same function, the Ugandan students who emerged winners in last year’s global Huawei ICT Competition were officially rewarded. At regional and global level the Network team of Uganda took first position, beating over 34 countries and 107 teams. As a result, the Ugandan team emerged as number one in the 2020 ICT Competitions at global level.

“I thank Huawei for their commitment and look toward to even more partnerships of this kind (ICT Competition). I would like to also congratulate the students who represented Uganda last year at the ICT Competition and raised our flag high by taking first position globally. This shows that our education sector has not only improved but is now competitive globally and a force to be reckoned with,”Dr Muyingo added.

On his part,Mr Yang Chen Frank, the Huawei Technologies Southern Africa Regional Vice President thanked the Government of Uganda for putting a good and peaceful investment climate that has enabled the global ICT service provider exist in Uganda since 2001.

“More thanks to the Ministry of Education and ICT for their constant support which has enabled us achieve not only our vision of bringing digital to every person, home and organization but also train and upskill Ugandans,” Mr Chen asserted. 

He said under the condusive investment environment, Huawei has been able to make some achievements including training over  2000 Ugandan Youths, certifying hundreds through its 15 ICT academies as of today.

“This is the result of aligning our local strategy with national strategies-this is a very important principle that we stick to when it comes to business and skill and knowledge transfer.A big thank you to the Government of Uganda for creating an enabling environment for digital skill cultivation and ICT talent development as the future now depends on various ICT skills,”

Mr Chen said. 

“Huawei’s ICT talent cultivation strategy in Uganda is flourishing while being sustainable due to a unique “learn-show-apply” structure, which provides not only training but also a global stage level to show capabilities and various internships and job opportunities to apply their skills. So Building Uganda’s ICT talent pool requires government-industry-university partnerships and collaboration that benefit all and reinforce each other to enable even stronger programs in a virtuous cycle.”

The Event was attended by Third Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Lukia Isanga Nakaddama (3^rd left) who was the guest of honor.

The annual Huawei ICT Competition is a key piece of the ICT Academy Rocks Campaign. It targets university and college students worldwide, aiming to facilitate communication between schools, enterprises, and governments while building a robust talent ecosystem.

Through this competition, Huawei aims to challenge the students ICT knowledge as well as the practical and application skills, and ultimately, inspire innovation with the theme of “connection, glory, future”.

After six years of development, The Huawei ICT Competition has become one of the biggest event of its kind in Africa. The competition covers latest technologies such as cloud computing, AI, mobile networks, big data, that are pertinent to students’ competitiveness in the job market.

Over the years on the African region, Huawei has signed cooperation agreements with over 250 universities in 14 Sub-Saharan countries on establishing Huawei ICT academies. This cooperation has enabled more than 7,000 university students to obtain Huawei ICT certification, which makes them better candidates for ICT-related jobs. In Uganda, over 15 universities have signed which include, Makerere, Muni, MUBS, Soroti, Kabale, Kyambogo, Nkozi, Mbarara, KIU and IUIU. 

Last year, Huawei held its second ICT competition in Uganda and a global ICT company reached out to various universities where over 2500 students registered to take part.

And by the end of the highly competitive event, three University students representing Uganda; Shaffic Nyanzi and Emmanuel Kiguli from Muni and Doreen Nalwoga from Lira University emerged among the world’s best at the Global finals. This was the first time for Uganda to qualify for the global stage after taking top positiosn at the Africa region final.

The three Ugandan students’ achievement was attributed to Huawei Uganda’s continued recognition and efforts to build a competitive ICT talent pool among the young generation, who will be an indispensable accelerator for Uganda’s post-COVID-19 recovery and digitization.

EDITOR’s NOTE: Part of this story is from an official press release shared to the Tech Point Magazine team.

In Uganda, recent cyber attacks have targeted the financial industry with key focus on mobile money operators and commercial banks which have lost millions of dollars to hackers. By this trend, Huawei Uganda as a leading ICT infrastructure provider has made cybersecurity a top priority for all its partners in order to protect them from all kinds of cyberattacks.

The emergence of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud computing, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought to book a new series of threats that can only be dealt with through collaboration from ICT companies, consumer enterprises, and Government to foster new cyber regulations.

On a balanced scale, ICT technologies bring huge social and economic benefits, but it also becomes critical to manage associated cybersecurity risks. For instance, the more digital transformation is enabled in developing countries, its the more cyber resilience becomes a must with data and privacy protection as key elements for industrial transformation.

Over the years, the more ICT technologies have developed, it’s the less sophisticated attacks have become since users are aware of all present cyber threats and hacking tricks that may befall them. When the Internet emerged in 1983, cracking and guessing passwords was the common trend of cyber attacks, but of recent AI and IOT attacks have made all old attacks obsolete.

To protect customers and partners, Huawei Uganda has outlined cybersecurity and privacy protection as top priorities that can be achieved through complete end-to-end (E2E) network, employee, and supply chain security. Through cooperation with customers to maintain stable, reliable, and secure networks in situations like natural disasters, conflicts, or hacker attacks, Huawei Uganda has stamped end-to-end security practices as key to fighting evolving cyber-attacks.

“We look forward to continuing to grow our open, progressive relationship with our partners across Uganda.”

says Gavin, the Managing Director of Huawei Uganda.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) course is an addition to the already existing Huawei professional certification path which includes on-demand ICT industry courses like Routing and Switching, Cloud computing, wireless, network security, Big Data, Data Communications, among others.

To date, Huawei has trained approximately 4,000 Ugandan ICT Professionals and certified over 1,300 under its ICT Academies hosted by Makerere, Kyambogo, Nkozi, Gulu, Muni, and Mbarara, among other universities.

Initial ICT Academy training on courses under the Huawei professional certification path started in 2019 and continued in 2020 with new virtual trainings due to the COVID19 Pandemic. In 2021, the addition of AI under the Huawei Certified Network Associate (HCNA) path will upskill more ICT professionals with a detailed pool of course units necessary for deep learning.

The HCNA-AI course uses a mainstream TensorFlow framework and supports Keras (a high-level neural network API, and deep learning framework written in Python) widely used, powerful, and has excellent compatibility necessary for fast learning.

Learning material from the course involves basic mathematics and machine learning which will guide students to gradually understand all related techniques of deep learning such as, convolutional neural networks, cyclic neural networks, regularization and optimizers.

At a later point in the course, deep learning in application areas such as, computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing will be introduced to contextualize all AI use cases in the world.

Additionally, the HCNA-AI course provides a convenient platform with an anytime learning mode which allows students to set a custom learning pace. More so, a free simulation environment can be accessed on an Elastic Cloud Server (ECS) hosted on the Huawei Public Cloud, and then installed according to the course manual to help students emulate real-world AI use cases.

The installed environment has a custom public IP address, username and password allowing students to login to the lab environment, and learn anytime from anywhere by simply having an active internet connection.

Also, the HCNA-AI program offers programming exercises which include an image recognition battle, a speech recognition contest, and human–machine dialogue so that students can easily emulate what they learn and implement them through real-world applications.

While unveiling the new HCNA-AI certification structure, Huawei Uganda’s Public Relations Director Gaojian noted that the AI engineering certification path offers fundamental knowledge and provides industry-specific applications that can be used in line with other technologies including 5G, Internet of Things (IOT), among others.

On why Huawei has introduced the HCNA-AI certification study in Uganda, Gaojian said that:

“It is to train and certify engineers who can use algorithms, such as machine learning and deep learning algorithms, to design and develop AI products and solutions and make improvements through innovation. Such engineers are competent for sales, marketing, product manager, project management, technical support, and other AI positions.”

Gaojian – PR Director, Huawei Uganda

So, similar to all Huawei ICT Academy certification paths, HCNA-AI students will be able to participate in the annual Huawei ICT competition and the Huawei ICT Job Fair from where they can showcase their talents against the world’s best in national, regional and global rounds.

Henceforth, as Huawei aims at building a sound talent ecosystem by outputting high-quality ICT talent to the ICT industry through its global certification paths, upskilled ICT professionals, in the end, continue to help in talent development and innovations bridging a new wave of Job creators against Job seekers in Uganda.

Editor’s Note: This story is copy of a press release shared to the Tech Point Magazine team

Run under the theme of “Connection, Glory, Future”, the four-day competitions kicked off on 10^th September 2020 with participation in over 14 Sub-Saharan African countries and attracted over 50,000 students.

Student teams were grouped into two groups based on skillset and region of participation. Of the two, the Winning team consisting of two Muni University students and one from Lira University succeeded in Winning the regional competition against other African Countries.

Globally the 2019-2020 round of the Huawei ICT Competition has covered over 70 countries worldwide with over 150,000 contestants from 2,000 universities and colleges.

In Africa the competition was launched 5years ago as a Huawei commitment to skilling new ICT talent necessary for fast industry innovation and adoption.

During the awarding ceremony, the Chief Guest and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance Hon. Bagiire Vicent Waiswa commended Huawei for the ICT Competition initiative that has mobilized several Ugandan students to build new skills making them market-ready.

“As far as the ministry is concerned, developing human capital is extremely important and we look at initiatives such as these (Huawei ICT Competition) as an avenue that we can utilize to build the capacity of our ICT professionals and therefore build substantial ICT ecosystem,” he added. 

Hon. Bagiire Vicent Waiswa – Permanent Secretary Ministry of ICT

In Uganda, the first edition of the Huawei ICT competition started in 2018 with 1300 students from several public universities.

Then, In 2019, over 2500 students from Makerere, Kyambogo, Mbarara, Nkozi, Mbarara, Kabale, Lira, Gulu, Muni, UCU, and MUBS Universities braced the competition with courses in Network and Cloud deployment.

The Network associate path consists of Routing & Switching, Security, and WLAN. Then, Cloud consists of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Cloud Computing, and Storage part of the HCIA course catalog granted to students.

According to one of the winners Doreen Nalwoga, a computer science student from Lira University. The Huawei ICT Competition has acted as a career exposure path to new technologies and innovative opportunities.

“Firstly I would like to thank Huawei Uganda for having given us an opportunity to increase our exposure, knowledge, skills, and experience. We have attained professional certification at no cost, facilitation and awards. I am personally certified with HCIA Security, HCIA Router and Switch, HCIA WLAN. Am currently finalizing an additional course to be a Huawei Certified Internetwork Professional (HCIP R&S). This means I am capable of designing, implementing and maintaining enterprise networks already,” 

said Doreen.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, the Huawei Uganda Managing Director, Mr. Gao Fei, said that the competition is relevant to every ICT student and professional due to its comprehensive approach to skills development for employment, enhanced productivity and growth.

“We congratulate team Uganda for the tremendous success. The Huawei ICT Competition and Academy is a comprehensive approach of skills development for employment, enhanced productivity and growth. Training contents in this program has been 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,”

Mr. Gao Fei – Managing Director, Huawei Uganda

Statistically, with a series of ICT Talent campaigns across sub-saharan Africa, Huawei aims at skilling more than 700,000 ICT Professions by 2023. Hence, the annual ICT competition which keeps students a notch ahead through fierce Global and regional rounds will further help the brand achieve its set academy goal.

Announced by the Huawei Uganda Public Relations Manager Ms. Lina Cao. The 2020 Seeds for the Future program will be held online through e-learning platforms.

While Ecnouenraging Universities to recommend ICT students to take advantage of the world-class training program. Ms. Cao confirmed that the 2020 Program will expose students to cloud computing and 5G concepts contrary to previous year versions of the program. 

Launched in 2016 by H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the seeds for the future program has been ongoing since then. Every year, the top 10 university students in ICT related courses are selected for a study trip in China. Since its launch, over 30,000 students have benefited directly from the program globally.

However, due to the current COVID19 Pandemic, the program will take charge of a new plan aimed at equipping and nurturing students through equipping exposing them to latest Technology trends virtually as Ms. Chao said:

“The Seeds for the Future will be carried out online. It’s called the Huawei Sky Seeds for the Future. Just as the previous years, we have always had several activities such as student selection, interviews, closing ceremonies, two weeks training programs in China in the latest technology, it shall continue the same way this year but online. We are excited to add that the program this time round is open to more than 100 students. They will, among other things take part in training and exposure to 5G and cloud computing,” Ms. Lina Cao, the Public relations Manager of Huawei Uganda, explains.

Who can participate in the 2020 Huawei Seeds for Future Program

According to Ms. Cao, Priority will be given to outstanding undergraduates and graduates who have a strong passion for ICT. Additionally, Female students will get an upper arm in nurturing their skills as strongly encouraged to apply.

Previously, over 22 Uganda students have directly benefited from Job opportunities and Internships at Huawei Uganda. In 2018, a Female Student Cleopatra Ajambo won in the year’s round of the Program and has since risen from just a computer science student to a Networks architect with a career at Huawei Uganda. 

“As a Computer Science Student, you are expected to dig deep into programming as a major which was not, and is not most girls’ passion, so I found myself relying more on getting good grades than building a career as a problem solver, my career changed when I joined the Seeds for Future Program”

Testified Cleopatra

Hence, the COVID19 Pandemic may have dismantled businesses in all parts of the world, but the period has since attracted a new wave of Integrating online/virtual operations, a model that Huawei’s 2020 Seeds for the future program will trail.

The package included video conferencing equipment that shall enable mobile video meetings, and communications among staff in various sites such as health centers and the ministry of health.

The video conferencing solution includes special video terminals and software that can link to more devices such as smartphones and computers to allow doctors to communicate at whatever time or place

While receiving the new system, Dr. Ruth Aceng was grateful for Huawei’s donation and commended them for their efforts in grooming the local ICT sector.

I am very grateful for this wonderful and generous donation by Huawei, this is of great importance to the country in such a time as this. We thank you Huawei for your great effort and contribution to the ICT of the ministry and Uganda. Be safe

Dr. Ruth Aceng

According to the Huawei Executive Director Enterprise Business group Mr Bai Chengyu, the video conferencing equipment has been installed at different offices at the Ministry of Health, and Mulago Hospital.

Additionally, the system features multi-point functions that enable International collaboration with similar systems in different countries. For instance, a Chinese doctor was reportedly connected for remote consultation during the system test today at the Health Ministry headwaters in Kampala.

Among the Key Huawei operations in almost all countries it exists include IT support and telecommunication equipment supplies. But In Uganda, the company recently grew to the tender records for the Installation of CCTV surveillance cameras in major city towns making it the biggest role it locally houses.

While the CCTV Installations have of recent rose above the grid to formulate allegations by Wall Street that has so far been confirmed as Fake news by Huawei. The Company’s operations in Uganda are broad and range from support to innovators, IT management services all the way to provision of Internet services and here is a full taste of what the company executes in Uganda.

IT Equipment providers

Huawei is among the World’s major IT equipment manufacturers, On the list, companies like Cisco, IBM, Juniper boast with both networking and server management equipment. Huawei, in particular, is best known for its cutting edge Networking equipment that is mainly used by telcos all over the world.

In Uganda, Huawei provides network equipment to almost all telecoms like MTN, Airtel among others, though it competes with ZTE in this particular jungle of equipments provision.

However, Huawei has a certification path for professionals relying on its equipment for administration and problem-solving. As a fact, the company recently rolled out a certification academy at Makerere University for students who wish to expand their networking careers.

CCTV Surveillance Providers, But not managers

In Uganda, Huawei is the only legalized CCTV camera provider for all major towns and roads in the country. The CCTV Camera project was kickstarted by H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni as a move to cut the fast-rising rate of crime in the country.

In less than 2 years since the CCTV project commencement, the results of these cameras have been appreciated by the general public, though the Traffic police department has benefited more than any other Institution on the project.

In Kampala alone, Huawei has installed thousands of Cameras on major roads and round-abouts to help the Uganda Police that manages these cameras to fully execute its duties with the Chinese brand only acting as the on-ground Installation masters.

Huawei neither controls these cameras nor gets to know what happens in the Uganda Police control rooms during any surveillance sessions. A fact that draws back to the Wall Street letter which suggested that Huawei fueled Government to cub opposition leaders through both digital hacks and surveillance attempts.

IT Support providers

Huawei Uganda houses hundred of IT support professionals at its Headquarters in Kamwokya and these provide realtime support to all its equipment clients. Additionally, the company also offers general IT support to private companies of special occasions through its partnerships wing.

Local Innovation Funders / Supporters

The African Startup ecosystem is still registering a shooting high streak because of multiple funders and Innovation hubs that act as breeding grounds for all mind wide open individuals.

Like any other global funders, Huawei Uganda funds innovators in Uganda to create new solutions and solve real-world solutions. Recently. the company announced the top innovation package winners and China trip runner ups at Makerere University through its Innovation suite.

Through the annual seeds for futurecompetition, Huawei Uganda selects top developers to support them with professional training and exposure to real-life solutions in a fast pace environment.

It’s through these trainings and competitions that the company has often been ranked as one of the best Innovation support wings in Uganda.

Internet/ Network Service providers

Unlike Mobile broadband Internet that is provided by major telecoms in Uganda like MTN Uganda that recently rolled out a double data spree and Airtel Uganda crazing Fridays with bulk data on a competitive path with Africell. Huawei instead poses as a fiber only Internet provider available to private firms or individuals.

Just like any other fiber internet provider in Uganda like Google Squared, iWay Africa, Roke Telkom among others. Huawei’s Internet packages are tamed for private institutions and individuals with bulk offers on a per KB basis.

All in All, Huawei Uganda is a major IT player in the country and its status has not crossed lines with any authorities on a blacklist plake. Henceforth, as the company recently issued a legal letter to Wall Street, It’s progress and operations are untouched in Uganda and it continues to operate legally with its US status currently in standby mode.

In an Investigative story reported the Wall street journal, Huawei technicians got into action to hack and share opposition key figure communications to private Government authorities.

In the report, it’s confirmed that specific Huawei technicians were the ones involved in the Government fix and not the company as a whole, meaning it is a private individualistic project further driven by specific Government officials in conjunction with the Chinese wing.

Further in the report, Government authorities had clear access to leaked data by Huawei in form of Whatsapp messages and several social media interactions between the People Power camp (Bobi Wine) and other politicians powering up the Uganda opposition wing.

It’s through these messages that Police reportedly managed to stop planned riots and public assemblies organized by Hon Robert Kyagulanyi (BobiWine) and the People Power camp in Uganda.

In Zambia, Huawei reportedly leaked private information of opposition bloggers who were behind a popular and fully biased news site together with several opposing Facebook pages rallying against President Edgar Lungu before the country police stepped in to arrest them.

However, Huawei has denied the allegations and inked that no relations occur between its executives and the mentioned African Governments. In a statement further shared by Wall Street, a Huawei spokesperson flagged the published news as false as he commented.

Huawei rejects completely these unfounded and inaccurate allegations against our business operations. Our internal investigation shows clearly that its employees have not been engaged in any of the activities alleged. We have neither the contracts, nor the capabilities, to do so

Seeds for the Future is a Huawei Corporate Social Responsibility program that seeks to establish collaboration with local governments, higher education institutes and other organisations to select top university students and young government officials to study and gain work experience at Huawei’s headquarters in China.

During the flagoff, Minister Tumwebaze cited that the efforts of this program since its inception in Uganda in 2016 has started to gain fruit because of the seemingly relatively high rates of employment by its participants.

“We have also been informed that out of the 30 participants of the Seeds for the Future program since 2016 to now, approximately 21 are already employed by Huawei and other organizations while nine are still in school. This therefore is a good program with already notable fruits”, he said.

In attendance was the representative of Chinese Embassy to Uganda Hon. Chen Huixin, who noted the ability of ICT in transforming economies through creations of jobs.

“This is just one example of how ICT is transforming the lives of everyday citizens, and driving the economy. ICT has truly transformed our economy, creating jobs for people even in remote places. But this technological trend would never be possible if we did not skill students, professionals and entrepreneurs as a nation. That is why efforts such as the ICT Academy, Seeds for the Future and the Huawei ICT competitions are so important; so that Uganda whose economic fortune is also in digital transformation can continue to grow and leverage on ICT and the skills of its great people,” he said.

Mr. Liujiawei, the Managing Director of Huawei said the students will leave for China on 17^th May and return on 2^nd June, and they will undergo training in the latest technological trends such as 5G among others.

At the event, Huawei signed an MOU with Makerere to introduce its ICT Academy and also announced its initiative to train over 1,000 students free of charge in its established academies.