Recently updated on October 24th, 2022 at 03:32 pm
A team of Nigerian students have emerged joint winners of the Sub-Saharan regional finals of the 2019 Huawei ICT Competition alongside Team Tanzania and earned a spot at the global finals in May 2019 in China.
The Nigerian students: Abdulqadir Babagana Musa, Muhammad Mustafa Maihaja, Fahad Danladi, Shuaibu Abbas Usman, Kamaludeen Umar, Abdulqudus Adebayo Temidayo all from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) first emerged winners of the Huawei ICT national competition, which involved a participation of 13,600 students from 30 universities across Nigeria before proceeding to represent Nigeria at the just-concluded Sub-Saharan regional finals held in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The regional competition finals consisted of 14 teams (with 42 students) from 11 countries in Africa which participated in theory and practical examinations on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, mobile networks and big data.
Together with second prize winners, Angola and Kenya, the four teams will travel to China for the global finals which will see 40 teams from around the world compete for the championship title.
The 6 Nigerian students have also been offered job opportunities in Huawei Technologies Co. Nigeria Limited to further improve their skills and experience.
This ICT competition developed by Huawei Technologies comprising of a national preliminary contest, regional semi-final and global final was first launched in 2015. Through this competition, Huawei Technologies seeks to improve comprehensive capabilities of students, transfer cutting-edge technologies information and explore the business requirement of the industry.
Participating students cut across nationalities such as China, U.K, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania, Angola, Kenya, Singapore, Mexico, India, etc.
In a press interview with the representative of the Nigerian students’ team, Muhammad Mustafa Maihaja said:
“We owe our commitment to Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) and Huawei Technologies. This has been a great opportunity to learn new cutting edge technology and to prove ourselves as capable to represent Africa. The exposure is great and this is a dream come true for us. We have worked really hard and are glad on how far we have come.
We are aiming to use this opportunity to announce the prominence of our institution, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), and Nigeria at large and to prove that we are a hard stone to conquer. We look forward to using this knowledge to further improve ICT development in Nigeria. We also plan to pass this knowledge on to our colleagues in school and to the upcoming generation.
We will try to put the icing on the cake on our blissful achievement and try to put Nigeria at the forefront. Our team believes we can bring the global award to Nigeria from at the ICT competition in China. We have heard so much about China and cannot wait to visit while we meet new friends from all over the world.”
Speaking at the final award giving presentation, Mr. Xue Man, Vice President of Huawei Technologies, said:
“Huawei understands the value of a good talent ecosystem which is the foundation for a smart future. This ICT Competition is part of our innovative initiatives to support that and promote ICT skills. We believe that this event will inspire more students’ interest in ICT learning in Africa; it provides them with a world-class stage to showcase themselves and consolidate the vital ICT needed for Africa’s development.”
