Yang Shengwan (far right) witnesses flag off ceremony of 2019 Rwanda Top ICT students
More top Rwanda ICT university students selected under the ‘Seeds for Future’ program will this year continue an online training as a result of the challenges of the new Coronavirus crisis.
The ‘Seeds for Future’, is Huawei’s corporate social responsibilities initiative in collaboration with Rwanda, that was launched in 2017 with the aim of cultivating moe ICT talents through providing to Rwandan students internship and job opportunities.
Normally in the past two years, batches have been sent to China to get hands-on skills from the tech experts at Huawei Headquarters.
The training programme has been selecting top 8 ICT students from various universities under the University of Rwanda for a two weeks technological training in China but Huawei Rwanda Country Manager, Yang Shengwan said this has changed with benefits.
Shengwan said this year they will undergo a one week training to be conducted through online and live broadcast sessions from 30th November to 6th December 2020 because of the covid-19 but this comes with more students selected compared to previous years.
“This year, the program has selected 64 students and training shall be carried out online, make full use of its advantages of e- learning and communication without borders, showing the future communication trends are not being restricted by the place,” Shengwan said Tuesday while launching the training in a virtual event.
Shengwan also revealed that once Covid-19 is under control globally, the students will be awarded in a ceremony to be held in China but also give them an exposure experience at Huawei.
The 2019 Seeds of Future Rwanda-DRC students team in Beijing
Angelos Munezero the Director General of Innovation & Emerging Technologies at Ministry of ICT and Innovations thanked Chinese government and Huawei for pursing this initiative and called on students to utilize this chance for the betterment of the country’s ICT sector.
“Through initiatives such as these that involve skilling of young people, our country can only go forward, I call on students to put in all needed efforts to learn, and more importantly will continue working together with Huawei to build the skills in our current and future workforce,” Munezero said.
Rwanda’s Second Counselor at the Rwanda Embassy in Beijing China, Virgile Rwanyagatare called on the students to also learn the Chinese language and culture on top technological skills.
“You should not only learn and get skills from the Huawei but also run the Chinese culture and language though it is hard but it will facilitate business with a quarter of the world’s population which is very crucial for the development of our country,” He said.
Over 30,000 students worldwide have taken part in this programme since its inception in 2008, and Huawei said it has introduced this online study to promote continuity of the program without any boundaries and limitations.
