Huawei partners with Kenya to bolster ICT industry
Huawei Technologies and Kenya’s ICT Authority have signed a three-year partnership to enhance ICT Advisory services in the country.
The partnership will deliver on four main activities: Engineering students’ internship programme, a broadband Stakeholders forum to be held in October and Infrastructure development.
In the agreement Huawei will for the next three years give a total of 100 internship opportunities to engineering students in 4th and 5th year of study commencing July this year. The online criteria will be managed through KENET (https://www.kenet.or.ke/) who is the liaison partner to Universities. The initiative will see top ten attaches offered a chance to further their skills in China.
Regular workshops will also be set to expose different groups to technologies that impact socio-economic development. The team will target areas in which there is little ICT literacy in a bid to connect more and more people to enjoy the benefits of technology.
“Research has shown that we have a scarcity of high-end ICT skills with many ICT companies hiring expatriates to bridge the gap…Local talent, is at the heart of the success of all these project and there is need for our local graduates to handle these projects,” said Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of ICT, Dr Fred Matiangi.
Public-Private Partnerships are indicated as the key element to delivering the vision that would place Kenya as a top ICT hub.
The agreement has also incorporated a program under Huawei’s CSR initiative, “Telecom Seeds for the future”, which focuses on nurturing and empowering students to be technology leaders of tomorrow. The two entities will target academic institutions to transfer knowledge to the students.
The program aims to fulfil specific partnership programs informed by the recently launched National ICT Masterplan 2017 that identified key priority areas as Integrated ICT infrastructure, human Capital and workforce, E-government services and ICT as a driver for industry.
“We will work together with ICTA to implement the agreed upon responsibilities which we believe will contribute towards realizing the development and growth of ICT as an industry. “We remain committed to offering our expertise and experience in contributing towards the National ICT Masterplan,” said Dean Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Huawei Technologies Kenya.
“In the past we have seen success in skills-transfer programs in which we deliver through the private sector. This is the model we will continue to work on,” said ICT Authority, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr Victor Kyalo at the MOU signing.
As a global leader in ICT, Huawei Technologies will be part of a team which will assist ICTA to monitor the implementation of the National ICT Masterplan and be an advisory to the Ministry. ICTA has called upon the private sector to work together to successfully implement the Masterplan.
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