Pakistani teams win first and third prize in the Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020 Global

Islamabad: The Global Final of the Huawei ICT Competition 2019–2020 came to a successful conclusion on November 14, at Huawei’s Songshan Lake campus in Dongguan. Focusing on the theme of “Connection • Glory • Future”, the Global Final was held online for the first time due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Following fierce competition, the final winners are as follows: Pakistan Team 1 won the first prize in the Network Track of the practice competition, whereas Pakistan Team 2 won the third prize. Members of Team 1 were Muhammad Umar from Virtual University Lahore, Neeraj Harijan from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro and Haseeb Mehdi from NUST Islamabad. Members of Team 2 consisted of Muhammad Salman from Superior University, Syed Qazi Shameel Uddin from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro and Syed Muhammad Kazmain from NUST Islamabad.

Since 2016, Huawei has annually invited students from colleges and universities in Pakistan to participate in the ICT competition to promote ICT technology certifications, transferring ICT knowledge and developing the local ICT industry ecosystem. 12,000+ university students registered themselves for the Huawei Pakistan ICT Competition 2019-2020.Only after the rigorous process of preliminary exams, enablement trainings, certification exam and the national final exam weretop 6 studentswere selected and divided into two teams to represent Pakistan in the global final.

With two tracks, Network and Cloud, the Practice Competition primarily examined the ICT knowledge, hands-on skills, and teamwork exhibited by students. Meanwhile, the Innovation Competition evaluatedstudents’ capabilities in terms of innovation, cooperation, and development by using cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, big data, and AI. The competition set a new participation record, attracting almost 150,000 students from over 2,000 colleges and universities encompassing more than 82 countries and regions. A total of 109 teams (327 students) from 39 countries and regions successfully made it to the Global Final.

Ma Yue, Executive Vice President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group (EBG), Huawei EBG Global Partner Development and Sales President, delivered a video speech in which he remarked, “In the next decade, we will apply new ICT more widely and deeply. ICT is the cornerstone of the intelligent world, and talent is crucial for the digital transformation of industries and directly contributes to the development of the digital economy. Huawei is committed to building a healthy ICT talent ecosystem, promoting digital skills, contributing to the prosperity of the ICT industry, and ultimately enabling more people to benefit from the digital world.”

Firmin Edouard Matoko, Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations of UNESCO, also gave a video speech. He said, “The COVID-19 global pandemic has yet again highlighted the global digital divide. Huawei and UNESCO are united under the shared mission of fostering the digital skills of African youth, technology innovation and entrepreneurship. I am delighted to see that our private partners, like Huawei, are developing the world’s digital talent ecosystem to prepare for this change, as demonstrated through this Competition. It is not only an event to showcase the outstanding potential and digital talents of the world, but also an occasion to strengthen consensus to make digital technology inclusive for all.”

Despite the ongoing global pandemic, the competition still showcased its ability to bring people together, with an even larger scale and more incredible achievements. Huawei hopes that future ICT Competitions can involve even more ICT schools, government agencies, industry organizations, training service partners, and businesses — to further promote learning, teaching, and development through fair competition. The company expects to provide one million certified ICT professionals by 2024 as part of its efforts to drive intelligent and digital transformations across industries, and to ultimately bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.