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Future innovators shine at Huawei ICT competition as AI education takes center stage
Award winners from the Huawei ICT Competition 2024-2025 Global Final cheer during an award ceremony in Shenzhen, China, Saturday. Courtesy of Huawei
By Ko Dong-hwan
Over 210,000 students and instructors from over 100 countries join Chinese firm's largest global contest
SHENZHEN, China — University students and their instructors from around the world celebrated their victories Saturday at the Huawei ICT Competition 2024-2025 Global Final in Shenzhen.
The honorees and their teachers filled the stage, proudly waving their national flags as Chinese information and communications technology (ICT) giant Huawei captured photos of the talent showcased at the ninth edition of the global contest.
Eighteen teams from nine countries — China, Algeria, Brazil, Philippines, Morocco, Nigeria, Serbia, Tanzania and Singapore — won grand prizes across six categories: Innovation, Programming and four practice tracks — Ascend AI, Computing, Cloud and Network. The event also presented awards for first, second and third place in each category.
Special honors were given to four all-female teams from Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Kenya, which won the Women in Tech Award. Eighteen instructors from nine countries were also recognized with the Most Valuable Instructor Representative Award for their contribution to ICT education.
“I want to thank my teacher for guiding us. I want to thank my school, Beijing University of Technology. And my most thanks go to my teammates for their great support and efforts. It’s really an unforgettable experience,” said a member of DLH, a team of four students from Beijing University of Technology, which won the grand prize in the Innovation category.
A member of ZMen from Bulacan State University in the Philippines, another grand prize winner in the same category, and a student from the University of Batna 2 Higher National School of Computer Science Algiers, who won the grand prize in the Practice Competition's Cloud Track, also shared their appreciation.
Huawei reported that this year’s competition reached a record-breaking scale, attracting more than 210,000 students and instructors from over 2,000 colleges and universities across 100 plus countries. After a series of national and regional rounds, 179 teams from 48 countries and regions advanced to the Global Final.
Participation jumped from the inaugural event in 2015-16 when it was limited to China and featured 7,550 students from 499 colleges and universities, with 30 teams advancing to the final. The event expanded internationally the following year, drawing more than 15,000 participants from seven countries.
Frank Huang, chief technology officer of Education Public Sector at Huawei, speaks during the AI Accelerating Education Transformation Summit in Shenzhen, China, Saturday. Courtesy of Huawei
The growing scale of the contest reflects Huawei’s commitment to identifying global ICT talent and nurturing it through partnerships that offer access to its ICT solutions. At the AI Accelerating Education Transformation Summit, held just hours before the award ceremony, representatives from UNESCO, along with schools and organizations from various countries, shared how they are working to develop their ICT workforce through collaborations with Huawei.
Huawei said digital transformation is accelerating globally and demand for skilled professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), big data and cybersecurity continues to grow, though a labor shortage in these areas is becoming increasingly evident.
Citing a recent report jointly written by Huawei and corporate consulting firm Anyong on China's ICT workforce, Huawei said that while 64 million people will be required in China by the end of this year, it is already lacking 20 million across the fields of cloud computing, AI, big data and ecosystem for HarmonyOS, an operating system the company introduced in 2019.
“To achieve the goal of learning through competition and inspiring innovation through competition, we have continuously evolved the design of competition topics," Ritchie Peng, director of the ICT Strategy and Business Development Department at Huawei, said during the award’s opening speech.
“Practice Competition aligns with our vision for the Intelligent World 2030 and encourages students to master cloud computing, big data and AI to drive social progress. Innovation Competition focuses on green development and digital inclusion, motivating participants to solve real-world challenges in sectors like agriculture, health care and education through ICT," he added.
Huawei said it is currently providing educational ICT solutions to 120 countries and regions. Over 20 educational and scientific research networks, 5,000 universities and vocational schools and over 500,000 elementary, middle and high schools have benefited from the company’s online education platforms, including Huawei ICT Academy.
Huawei launches three new courses for the Huawei ICT Academy during the AI Accelerating Education Transformation Summit in Shenzhen, China, Saturday. Korea Times photo by Ko Dong-hwan
Huawei Digital Practice 2.0 Solution, for example, enables talent training across 22 different ICT sectors overseas, while Smart Classroom 3.0 offers the IdeaHub online platform for teaching smart technologies. Zhejiang Shuren University in Hangzhou, according to Huawei, has improved the quality of education through AI-based smart classrooms that support advanced tutoring, instruction and evaluation.
"As schools traditionally have labs for physics and chemistry, now they must have one for AI," the company said.
Mohamed Madkour, vice president of the ICT Strategy and Marketing Division at Huawei Middle East & Central Asia, said during the summit that the company wanted to develop ICT talents by “leveraging intelligence and physical technologies in cultivating them.”
“Digital actionaries advance education because that’s what matters,” said Madkour, who hosted the summit. “From leaders to executives, professors, officials and industry organizations, we all believe that every ICT matters and every level of technology matters because economy matters. And most importantly, every job matters.”
Ge Siying, deputy director-general at the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, gave closing remarks for the summit, urging countries to transform their educational infrastructure through AI and digital technologies. She said the Chinese government announced a three-year plan earlier this year to advance this goal and has been working closely with the United Nations in the field of AI.
“Huawei has been an important partner of UNESCO, actively participating in building online educational platforms and expanding capabilities and talent training for national securities,” said Ge.
“This global competition has been held on a record scale this year. Since 2015, it has shown vibrance of superb talents from around the world. This reflects the admiration and passion of people across the world toward the future intelligence world.”