Huawei and Rwanda have signed an agreement where the Chinese tech giant will train tech Rwandan students through its ICT Academy.
The agreement was signed on October 18, with the Ministry of ICT, University of Rwanda (UR), and Rwanda Polytechnic (RP).
Claudette Irere, the Minister of State in charge of ICT and TVET, said the partnership is expected to boost Rwanda’s tech industry and help position the students as job creators.
"Huawei is a world-renowned tech company and the Huawei ICT Academy will open branches in the University of Rwanda and Rwanda Polytechnic, and we will have tech professionals from Huawei companies coming in to teach and train our students,” she said.
Tonni Yang, Country Director of Huawei, said the aim is to train some 1000 talented students in Rwanda over the next three years.
"Our vision for these programmes is to unleash the talents of young people and Huawei is committed to develop ICT talent in Rwanda and also fuel the students’ career path in order to contribute to the country’s and the global progress of the technology world,” he said.
James Gashumba, Vice-Chancellor of Rwanda Polytechnic, disclosed that the pilot phase of the training will start next month.
"We will start by training a few teachers so we can equip them with the tech skills they need to train the students, then after we will choose the best students who will be participating in the program,”
"We will provide space and infrastructure for Huawei in our schools and they will provide equipment and internet for the training and from there we expect the training to start right away,” he said.
Meanwhile, the delegation flagged off 30 Rwandan students who were selected from the institutions to participate in Huawei’s seed for the future program, which will train these students online for the first phase and for the second phase they head to Huawei headquarters in China to physically learn from the different departments in the company.
Huawei designs, develops, and sells telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics.