In Uganda, Information communications technology (ICT) has evolved over the years with the presence of key players joining the industry. Among these, Huawei Uganda has shined as one of the annual enablers making ICT education a possibility in the country.
Now, on Friday 27th August 2021, the Huawei Uganda Managing director Gao Fei and the Minister of ICT and National Guidance Chris Barymonusi launched the Huawei ICT Talent development report showing progress of the company’s ICT education efforts in the country.
Research shows that people and organizations’ ability to access and use ICT services is more likely to drive economic development than ICT education and skills. This is due to the fact that access to ICT services will increase demand and create a vacuum for more talent to provide these services to digital consumers.
At the report launch event, Olinga John Peter stood out as the outstanding Huawei ICT Instructor of the year after training winners of the 2020 Huawei ICT Competition. The WInners progressed from Uganda’s universities through regional and global finals to WIN the 2020 competition.
While rewarding Olinga, the Minister of ICT and National Guidance lauded initiatives like the Huawei ICT Academy, Huawei ICT Competition, and Huawei Seeds for the future for helping Uganda’s vision 2040 and the 2014 National ICT Policy achievable since these initiatives involve skilling of young people which will help Uganda achieve socio-economic Development and be relevant in the new digital era.
The ICT minister revealed that Uganda wants to be the region’s top ICT-enabled country and to realise this, young people must have the skills, passion, determination, and support to develop and use their ICT skills to drive this country forward. He added that Government needs partners in the private sector like Huawei, not only in implementing technology solutions, but also in working together to build skills for the future workforce.
“Government has put digital upskilling a top priority and this is witnessed in the Vision 2040. Which is, Uganda shall develop and improve its ICT capacity, building efforts by adopting globally-benchmarked, industry-rated skills assessments, and training and certification standards. These efforts will be coupled with international industry collaboration in testing and certification standards,”
Dr. Chris Baryomusi – Minister of ICT and National Guidance
Furthermore, the ICT minister revealed that Uganda’s 2014 National ICT policy highlights strategies in human resource development including the inclusion of a comprehensive and regularly updated computer literacy module in the education curriculum using international benchmarks as a reference.
In Uganda, Huawei continues to play an active role in the country’s digital transformation processes through technological infrastructure and digital upskilling. This has been the case since 2007 when Huawei started its collaboration with the Ministry of ICT on launching the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) project.