China’s Huawei Debuts Tech Academies in Africa

Chinese tech giant Huawei on Monday announced partnerships with the University of Rwanda and Rwanda Polytechnic, officially rebranding both schools as Huawei Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Academies.

“We are hoping through this partnership we can work together to close the gap for students within the ICT sectors between the academic and the employment world to get real standard certifications that would support them to use their knowledge and practice in real life. This is a way to support the country in the development of the ICT sector,” said Tonni Yang, Huawei’s director of operations for Rwanda.

China’s state Xinhua news service reported a training program called Seeds for the Future 2021 was launched at the same debut event in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. Huawei has been providing Seeds for the Future training packages for Rwanda since 2018. 30 students have been selected to participate in the 2021 iteration of the program.

“The program helps students to learn about the latest technology trends, discover the technology ecosystem in China as well as to learn from the best experts,” Xinhua said.

Huawei’s agreement with the two universities was signed on October 18. Rwandan information technology minister Claudette Irere anticipated benefits to Rwanda’s tech sector and young job-seekers by having “tech professionals from Huawei coming into teach and train our students.”

“As new technologies such as A.I [and] 5G rise, there is a general need to reform existing ones and focus on the new so that we keep up with the times. This starts by reforming traditional teaching content to guarantee that it relates to industry practices. To meet this need our education sector needs to work with [the] private sector, such as Huawei, to train, skill and jointly develop courses needed by the industry,” Irere said last week.

“We will start by training a few teachers so we can equip them with the tech skills they need to train the students, then after we will choose the best students who will be participating in the program,” explained Rwanda Polytechnic Vice-Chancellor James Gashumba.

“We will provide space and infrastructure for Huawei in our schools and they will provide equipment and internet for the training and from there we expect the training to start right away,” Gashumba said.

Huawei will reportedly offer courses and certifications in 5G technology, A.I., cloud services, wireless networking, and IOT (Internet of Things, i.e. household devices with online capabilities) at the two Rwandan academies.