Six Pakistan Students Chosen From Thousands To Represent Country At Global Skills Challenge In China

    LAHORE, PAKISTAN, March 02, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Six ICT students from Pakistan who beat over 2,000 of their countrymen for a place at a global ICT challenge will fly to China this week to highlight the skills needed for a connected world.

The students were selected as part of a Government-sponsored initiative that saw around 2,300 entrants from more than 30 universities tested during two gruelling rounds of competition. Six were eventually chosen from a shortlist of 50 during the second test event in Lahore in November.

Huawei, known for its mobile phones, will host 32 China teams including six overseas teams, from across the globe at the inaugural event at its Shenzhen HQ, including representatives from Western Europe, South Africa, Australia, and Russia. Over 7,500 students entered the competition worldwide.

The Pakistan delegation comprising two teams, will undertake an eight-hour practical challenge that thoroughly tests their knowledge of routers, switching, security, WLAN, plus cloud, storage, and Big Data. The top three teams will be announced at the end, along with six of the best mentors.

The students are members of the Huawei ICT Academy, a worldwide not-for-profit programme that encourages the next generation of ICT professionals for a better connected world.

The development of ICT skills in Pakistan is hampered by poor electricity supply to rural schools. Just 31% have access, compared with 53% in urban areas(1).

Lintuo Wu, Huawei ICT Academy director, said: "The high number of entrants for this competition underlines the thirst in Pakistan to develop ICT knowledge and skills among University students. The Huawei ICT Academy hopes to influence the upskilling of Pakistan's ICT workforce through educational opportunities and the creation of a better ICT talent ecosystem."

Pallavi Malhotra, Huawei ICT Academy manager, said: "More and more university students, and those wanting to embark on an ICT career realise they need the full suite of academic knowledge and practical know-how to enter the current ICT workplace. Huawei ICT Academy qualifications provide the foundations, from routers or switching, to cloud computing, or security, to help students find those roles. We can also provide a career path for ICT professionals right up to certification, to enable them to aim for middle to senior level positions."

References

1. "Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education in Asia" April 2014, by UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

About Huawei ICT Academy

The Huawei ICT Academy is part of a number of Huawei outreach programmes to enrich life and improve efficiency around the world.

Huawei works with over 200 global colleges and universities, including the University of Reading in the UK, University of Sydney in Australia, University of Alicante in Spain, National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences (FAST-NU) in Pakistan, and University of São Paulo in Brazil City University of Hong Kong, and has trained more than 200,000 students up to 2016.

To date, Huawei has provided cloud services to over 2,500 customers in the government and public utility, telecom, energy, and finance sectors across 108 countries and regions, deploying more than 1.4 million virtual machines. It has also built 660 data centers worldwide, including 255 cloud data centers.

Its ICT solutions, products, and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. With more than 170,000 employees, Huawei is committed to enabling the future information society, and building a better connected world.

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