Eight university students win Huawei ICT fellowship

Eight students are this week expected to travel to China for a 2-weeks training in technology after emerging winners of Huawei ICT competition early this week. The students were flagged off by the Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire, the Commercial Counsellor at the Chinese embassy to in Rwanda, Wang Jianxin and other partners. Dubbed “Seeds for the Future”, the competition that was hosted for its second edition attracts university students to design Information and Communication Technology related solutions. The eight winners were selected from the 20 students who were nominated for the preliminary stage late last month. According to the organisers, the winners who also had outstanding project proposals were picked from five different higher learning institutions, including the University of Rwanda, University of Tourism, Technology and Business Studies (UTB), INES Ruhengeri and Kigali Independent University (ULK). Ingabire stressed the need for more private partners in nurturing the young generation into a skilled labour force. “Government needs to partner with the private sector such as Huawei, not only in implementing technology solutions but more importantly in working together to build the skills in our current and future workforce,” she said. Through initiatives such as these that involve capacity building of young people, our country can only go forward, she added. The minister also hailed the strong bilateral relations between Rwanda and China which has produced various important projects. Yang Shengwan, Huawei’s new Country Director to Rwanda, students will be travelling to China on November 15, and will spend two weeks visiting different cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen. “The students will be trained in different courses such as Artificial Intelligence, calligraphy learning and the technological hands-on-training in the latest trends such as 5G network, Chinese language and culture among others,” he explained. Daniel Ndamukunda is one of the fellows and the founder of Doctor-Patient Communication System (DPCS), an automated system that helps doctors to closely monitor their patients through passing on information such as the patient’s heartbeat, body temperature, blood pressure and respiratory rate. He is optimistic that the fellowship will enable him to network with experts in the field. “China is a very developed country you find out that most of the sectors have been upgraded to Hi-tech systems, therefore it is an opportunity for me to learn from different experts what they do better than we do, but at the same time I feel proud to represent my country overseas,” he noted.

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Eight university students win Huawei ICT fellowship