Huawei celebrates ““Seeds for the Future” CSR Program on World Youth Skills Day

11th August, 2018… Kenya is one of the leading countries in the continent for technology with some of the best infrastructure and globally recognized innovations. It has some of the best tech talent around, yet the country still faces high youth unemployment of over 20%. Kenya not only needs to provide quality jobs to its young people, but it needs to leverage its strong technology industry to drive the entire economy.

Beatrice Wangui is a young Computer Science graduate from Moi University, who is currently interning in the Network Technology Department (NTD) of a leading tech company. She says that the program is a good platform to gain experience and exposure in the ICT industry. She attributes her new gained skills to the program and looks forward to sharpen her ICT knowledge further. She hopes the internship will enable her to get a good job and make the country stronger.

Samson Ng’ang’a is a fellow intern, working with Beatrice. Samson is a Computer Security and Forensics graduate from Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology. He is not only learning a lot during his internship but is enjoying pursuing his passion for ICT. He hopes it can be a pathway to improve his living standards and that of his family in the near future.

These young, aspiring, tech students are two of the more than 100 young people who intern at Huawei every year as part of the Seeds for the Future program that was launched in Kenya in 2014 with the ICT Authority. The program has been able to develop local ICT talent, enhance knowledge transfer, promote a great understanding of and interest in the ICT sector, and improve encourage participation in the digital community.

Each year more than thirty students pursuing engineering, networking, telecommunications and IT related courses from Kenyan universities in their 3rd, 4th,5th year of study join Huawei for two-month internships. After some training the students are immediately thrown in the deep end, together with their mentor, often working in the field, installing cutting-edge mobile equipment, optimizing and configuring networks and patching fiber amongst others. Over the past four years, over 100 students have joined the program and each year 10 of the best performers also get to go to China for additional training and study tours at Huawei’s headquarters, R&D and manufacturing facilities.

On World Youth Skills day we must not only celebrate our achievements but reflect on the importance of providing both academic and practical knowledge and skills for young people, as well as the professional, entrepreneurial and life skills so more young people in Kenya can get jobs, create jobs, and drive the country’s economy and development forwards. There is no doubt that technology is one of the key sectors in the country, and one that is a crucial enabler for other sectors. We must all work harder to support them so they can actively drive ICT innovations and pursue careers in ICT. The youth are the foundation of our future, and they need to acquire the necessary skills in order to facilitate the growth of the nation.

As well as our strong support for the excellent Presidential Digital Talent Programme where we take twenty interns every year (And train hundreds of others), we also support the Digital Skills for Life initiative that provides tech training, mentoring and life skills for 30 underprivileged form four leavers each year, and this year we launched our first graduate trainee programme in Kenya. We are also looking forward to more youth enrolling in all of these programs and expanding them in order to develop their ICT skills and improve their knowledge.