Twelve Kenyans are among 210,000 students drawn from 40 countries competing in China at the global ICT competition where Nairobi is betting on young tech talent in universities to represent it at the global ICT competition, in a contest expected to place the country among the emerging leaders in digital innovation and technology talent.
Following multiple rounds of national and regional competitions, the contest drew 131 teams that advanced to the global final in Shenzhen, China to compete for glory.
The competition, organised by Huawei Technologies, covers four technology tracks including Network, Cloud, Computing, and Ascend AI, and are designed to assess students' ICT knowledge, hands-on technical skills, and teamwork.
"AI is changing fast and breaking new ground. As AI scales rapidly, networks are increasingly connecting massive computing resources with a vast ecosystem of intelligent applications and endpoints. They play a decisive role in shaping the security and accessibility of AI, and have become a critical infrastructure for the intelligent world," said Wuger Xue, Vice President of Strategy and Industry Development at Huawei Data Communication Product Line.
During the global final, the participants complete an intensive eight-hour lab exam, demonstrating both theoretical knowledge and real-world problem-solving skills.
“It feels like a very big responsibility on my shoulder,” Catherine Atieno, 22, one of the contestants said of the competition.
A fifth-year telecommunication and information engineering student at JKUAT, Atieno said, “it is my chance to make my school, country and parents prouder.”
She is among the 12 students, drawn from universities across Kenya through the Huawei ICT Academy Programme, who joined top-performing students from around the world to showcase their knowledge, technical expertise, and innovative capabilities.
Atieno had tried her luck twice to qualify for the competition but she was always unlucky, she narrated. This time that she has managed the cut, she said, she is doing all she can “to bring the glory home.”
“It's a great honour as I get to showcase my abilities and get to gauge my skills in a bigger stage with some of the top students like me,” said another contestant, Brian Kamau, a 22-year-old Mount Kenya University student pursuing Computer Science.
Though different in background and personality, Brian and Catherine and 10 others are united by a common ambition to fly Kenya's flag high and shine on the global stage in a competition that has attracted top student talent from around the world.
Like many others competing for the price, Brian who is passionate about cloud computing and AI said he has been preparing by “getting to dive deeper into the technical areas that we are going to get tested on”, doing a lot of mock tests and trying to simulate live scenarios.
What began in September last year as a regional competition has culminated in the global finals in China, a country that is increasingly positioning itself as a global powerhouse in information technology, digital innovation, artificial intelligence, and next-generation technologies.
“There is a lot of discipline, commitment, and sacrifice [in this lot],” Esther Gichaiya one of the cohort’s trainers said, and that makes this group of students outstanding.
The competition comes at a time when Kenya is keen on positioning itself as a regional technology hub. And the participation of Kenyan students at the global finals is expected to not only showcase the country’s emerging ICT talent, but also underline the growing role of young innovators in driving the country’s digital economy ambitions.
The group was earlier this week flagged off by the Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, Musalia Mudavadi, who urged them to proudly represent Kenya on the global stage.
“You are not there because of luck, but because of talent,” Mr Musalia said, adding the that their selection into the global competition was earned through merit, dedication, and excellence.
For the competition, the finalists were selected from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants from Kenya’s universities.
Also present at the ceremony was Huawei’s Gavin Gao who reaffirmed the firm's commitment to nurturing digital talent and advancing ICT skills development in Kenya.
Prof Robert Kinyua, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, speaking during the ceremony, challenged the students to remain ambitious and solution-oriented in helping shape Kenya’s future workforce.
“Students must be ambitious by creating jobs for people in the future and helping narrow the job gap in Kenya,” Prof Kinyua said, urging the students to leverage technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship to create opportunities and contribute to narrowing the country’s unemployment gap.
The practical competition at the global finals will involve an intensive eight-hour hands-on laboratory assessment in which contestants will not be allowed to carry electronic devices into the examination room.
Launched in 2015, the Huawei ICT Competition is an annual global event targeting university students and lecturers, and has over the years attracted growing participation from countries across the world.
“It offers an international platform for competition and exchange, enabling participants to strengthen their ICT knowledge, improve practical skills, and foster innovation using the latest technologies and platforms,” Huawei says of the competition that was launched in 2015.
