Kampala International University recently signed an MoU with Huawei Technologies Uganda Company Limited to establish an ICT Academy in association with KIU, a school-enterprise cooperation project that helps higher education institutions to build talent ecosystem.

Huawei executives met with Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC), Finance and Administration, Assoc. Prof Janice Busingye, and Dr Margaret Kareyo, Dean School of Mathematics and Computing (SOMAC).

According to Gao Jean, the Deputy Managing Director, and Public Relations Director for Huawei Technologies (Uganda) Company Limited, the Huawei ICT Academy is a CSR initiative and will cover the entire Huawei ICT talent development process from course development, trainer enablement, lab environment setup, talent certification, competition and employment.

“It is an ICT talent development program that will train the staff and students of KIU, they will be certified after training, and the trainers will be paid. KIU will provide the teachers to operate the classes, when they are certified, they can train the students,” said Jean.

Prof Busingye added:, “KIU is happy to partner with Huawei. We have all the infrastructure in place for the ICT Academy. This is the beginning of many collaborations.”

The Huawei certification will test the students’ learning journey and academics as well as the company believe it will help to develop ICT among KIU students.

Also in attendance were Wilbert Ayebazibwe from Directorate of Quality Assurance, and Obinna Osigwe from Directorate of Marketing and Public Relations of KIU

Huawei ICT Academy of Uganda now comprises of 13 universities in Uganda and has already certified hundreds of students in 2021 alone.

In May Huawei asserted that skills shortage is holding back the advancement of AI in South Africa and the country has to urgently address its skills requirements linked to this technology, as well as 5G and cloud computing, if it is to grow its economy.

Michael Langeveld, Vice President Africa Cloud Business at Huawei, agreed. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is accelerating our pace towards an intelligent world,” he said. “The impact is translated into the digitalisation of industries across the board.”