The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) has congratulated the Nigerian students who came took the first position at the 2020 Huawei Global ICT competition.

Buhari’s celebrated the Nigerian representatives in a statement via the Special Assistant on Youth & Students Affairs, Mr. Nasir Sa’idu Adhama during the closing award ceremony event which held on the 14th of November, 2020 at the Huawei Nigeria (Abuja) office.

“I congratulate the Nigerian students for coming this far in this Global ICT Competition. I also thank Huawei for supporting our Nigerian students and hope Huawei will continue to partner with the country in developing our ICT capabilities,” he said.

Nigeria’s representative comprises of students from the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the University of Port Harcourt. Their excellent performance overshadowed Team Nigeria’s thrid place finish in the global competition last year.

They beat of over 150,000 other students who participated in the Cloud and Network examination at the 2020 Huawei ICT Competition to the first position.

The students were honoured for their achievement at an online awards ceremony hosted from the Huawei Headquarters in China.

Reacting to their achievement the ceremony, the students’ representative, Hamza Atabor shared the team’s excitement as they emerged first place after over 10 months of consistent hard work.

“I will like to show my gratitude to Huawei, my Vice-Chancellor, my instructors, teammates and my family for this great opportunity. This journey with Huawei came with benefits such as professional certification in the field of interest. I am now HCIP certified in the field of Routing and Switching and in a few months I will attain an extra level certification.”

“Huawei gives students the opportunity to learn skills which are recognized in the world of ICT. Huawei provides a platform where students can see and practice new innovative and cutting-edge technology to grow and develop themselves. To me, Huawei stands for H – hope for development, U – unique, A – available to everyone, W – worldwide scope, E – Excellent in operations and I – intelligent in technology” He added.

Mr. Kelvin Yang, Deputy Managing Director/CEO of Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited said: “We are so glad that this is beginning to become a reality as we have gathered here today to celebrate and witness the excellent performance of our Nigerian students.”

Also at the ceremony were the representative of the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, Dr. Abimbola Alale, the Managing Director/CEO, NIGCOMSAT, the representative of the Executive Secretary of the National University Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, Mr. Chris Maiyaki, Deputy Executive Secretary of the NUC, some university Vice-Chancellors and representatives, Huawei management staff, the award-winning students, instructors, parents and the media.

The Huawei ICT competition which was established to foster ICT learning in Africa and bridge the gap between theoretical study and practical industry experience typically comprises of a national preliminary contest, regional semi-final and a Global final.

This global victory by these Nigerian students was therefore preceded by a successful campaign at both the national finals which held on December 10th 2019 and had over 23,000 Nigerian students in the contest and the Sub-Saharan Africa Region ICT Competition finals which held on September 10th and 11th, 2020, featuring 123 student-talents from 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, divided into 41 teams (28 network track and 13 cloud track teams), to determine those who will be selected to participate the Huawei Global ICT Competition finals.

Huawei has continued to encourage Nigerian youths to embrace ICT learning by establishing ICT Academies in about 79 universities and tertiary institutions across Nigeria which has offered free digital training to over 40,000 Nigerians, with many of those trained students going on to take and pass various Huawei professional certification exams. As at today, there are over 180 Huawei Certified Academy instructors. Through the flagship Huawei program called Seeds for the Future, every year, Nigerian university students are sponsored by Huawei to China for a 2-weeks digital training along with other students across the globe. Huawei has also gone ahead to continuously provide jobs and internship opportunities to many students who have now become pacesetters across the country in technological advancement. Through the global ICT competition, Nigerian students are given the opportunity to showcase their gained knowledge and cultivated talents. The company has also helped raise digital literacy among ordinary citizens through other Corporate Social Responsibility activities.