Huawei Uganda, the local branch of the multinational ICT giant has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Makerere University to have its Huawei Academy hosted at the University’s College of Computing.
The official inauguration of the Apprenticeship centre took place this week May 14 at Makerere University.
Huawei said the ICT academy will offer over 1000 apprenticeship or practical skills training positions to over 1000 third year students over a period of five years.
The Vice chancellor for Makerere University Professor Barnabas Nawangwe thanked Huawei for the Partnership and the Establishment of its Academy at Makerere University.
While officiating at the inauguration of the academy, the Minister for ICT Frank Tumwebaze also heaped praise on Huawei for skilling Ugandans.
At the same event, the minister also flagged off 10 Seeds for the Future students for a two-week intense technological training in Chinese Universities.
The Seed for the Future Program establishes collaborations with local governments, higher education institutions and other organizations where top university students and young government officials are selected to study and gain work experience at Huawei’s headquarters in China.
Tumwebaze noted that since its inception in 2016, the Seeds for the Future program has started to gain fruits because of the seemingly relatively high chances of securing employment opportunities by its participants.
“We have been informed that out of the 30 participants in the Seeds for the Future program approximately 21 are already employed by Huawei and other organizations while nine are still in school and this therefore is a good program with fruits already,” said Tumwebaze.
Tumwebaze went ahead to encourage the participants to be innovators and admire the story of the Huawei owner, an individual who grew an empire from a national company to a multinational company.
“You must use a problem as an opportunity and try to innovate and create solutions, you’re equipped with the necessary Knowledge from an international organization and when you go to china try to meet the owner of Huawei, you will admire and would like to meet him. The guy is a genius” added Tumwebaze.
The Education and Sports Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Alex Kakooza asked Universities to impart skills. He said: “I am pleased to see what the ministry of education has been pushing for, is what is being done.”
The Charge d’Affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Uganda Chen Huixin acknowledged the ICT Company’s ability in transforming economies through creation of Jobs.
“This is one of the Examples on how ICT is transforming everyday lives of people, and driving the economy. ICT has truly transformed our economy (China) through creating jobs for people even in remote areas and this technological trend would never be successful if we did not skill students professionals and entrepreneurs as a nation,” said Chen Huixin.
He added: “Uganda, whose economic fortune is also in digital transformation, can continue to grow and leverage on ICT and the skills of its great people through the efforts of the ICT academy, seeds for the future and the Huawei ICT competitions.
Lui Jiawei, the Managing Director of Huawei said the Students will leave for China on May 17 and return on June 2, 2019. While in china the participants will undergo training in the latest technological trends such as 5G among others.
The Principal of the College of Computing and Information science Makerere University Prof. Tony Oyana, who signed on behalf of Makerere expressed gratitude to Huawei for choosing to partner with them. He added that his college has already received equipment worth US$ 30.000 to facilitate the training.
