Uganda's university team wins at the Huawei ICT Global Competition

A team of three Ugandan university undergraduates have emerged winners at the World Stage of the Huawei ICT Global Competition.

The team participated in the final online competitions that were held in China. The team took first position at the Africa Stage.

They have now taken first position in a competition covering over 39 countries and 103 teams.

The three representing Uganda were; Shaffic Nyanzi and Emmanuel Kiguli from Muni University and Doreen Nalwoga from Lira University. This was the first time for Uganda to qualify for the competition at the global stage.

The Huawei ICT Competition is an annual international competition, a communication platform for university students and higher education institutions within the Huawei ICT Academy program.

The competition tests the students ICT knowledge as well as the practical and application skills, and ultimately, inspires innovation with the theme of ‘connection, glory, future'.

Over 10 local universities having over 2500 students took part in the preliminary stages.

Nalwoga, the team leader said the journey with Huawei came with benefits such as professional certification in the fields of interest.

"Huawei gave students the opportunity to learn skills which are recognized in the world of ICT. Huawei provided us with a platform to experience and practice on new, innovative and cutting-edge technology to grow and develop ourselves," Nalwoga said.

 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the training and competition activities were completed online.

The victorious students had a good reason to rejoice after over 10 months of hard work and fierce competition all the way from national screening contests, the regional final, and the global final.

Some of Uganda's universities that participated include, Makerere, Muni, MUBS, Soroti, Kabale, Kyambogo, Nkozi and Mbarara.

Hou Tao, Global Vice President of Huawei, highlighted the impressive enthusiasm of the students, which is much needed for Africa's digital inclusion in the era when the gravity of workplace skills is already shifting online.

"As a private company serving the African market for over 20 years, Huawei has dedicated itself to and will always remain a trusted partner of governments and academia in building a competitive ICT talent pool, strengthening capacity building and increasing people's digital competence," Hou said.

This year's Huawei ICT Competition attracted nearly 150,000 students from over 2,000 universities in over 82 countries.

327 students from 39 countries participated in the online global final.

Teams from Zambia, Lesotho, and South Africa also reached the global final.