Huawei South Africa has announced the winning teams and individuals from the SA national finals round of its Global ICT Competition at an online awards webinar.
Top honours went to Tshwane University of Technology and University of Venda, who claimed the First to Excellence Prize in the Network and Cloud streams. Instructors, Topside Ehleketani Mathonsi (from TUT) and Kudakwashe Madzima (from UNIVEN) also received individual awards for Excellent Instructor for First Half of 2020.
Globally the Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020 has covered over 70 countries worldwide, with 150 000 contestants from more than 2,000 universities and colleges.
In South Africa, the Competition attracted more than 10,000 students from 25 universities and colleges who competed online this year, due to the Covid 19 pandemic.
20 students performed outstandingly during the South Africa national round. 12 students have been chosen to participate in two teams in the Southern Africa Regional final with other students from Sub Sharan African countries. The winners of Regional Final will go onto the Global final to be held online at the end of October.
Higher Education Minister, Dr. Blade Nzimande, congratulated the students for persevering with their studies online and being chosen to represent South Africa in the African regionals.
Dr. Nzimande said, “We are proud of these students for the tenacity they showed during a very difficult time, their dedication to being the best among their peers must be acknowledged. We hope that they will persevere to win the Sub-Saharan leg and represent the continent on a global stage.”
The Minister commended Huawei for the efforts and resources it had put into training the students in preparation for the competition.
“We are happy to see such vibrant investment in our youth in ICT from a global tech company which understands that industry and academic partnerships are essential to create a highly skilled and globally competitive ICT talent pool for South Africa’s development in the era of digitisation.”
Shenbo Tang, Director of Huawei South Africa Enterprise Delivery & Service Department re-iterated that the ICT competition aims to drive the development of high-quality ICT talent, select qualified talent for the industry, continuously provide future driving forces and active participants for digital transformation, and further contribute to a sustainable talent ecosystem.
Speaking during the awards ceremony, Munashe Magidi, a student from Cape Peninsula University of Technology said, “My experience taking part in this competition has really been an eye opener in the role that big companies like Huawei can play in educating and providing resources to students and I am looking forward to seeing what else they have in store for the future.”
“These students are being trained by our expert engineers to help them prepare for the regional final which kicks off this week, our goal is to ensure that they take the first prize in the regional final and represent Southern Africa in the international final which takes place online at the end of October,” said Tang.
